Love the grit-beard, Ian
Last night, former Yankee farmhand Ian Patrick Kennedy put on a virtuoso performance for the Arizona Diamondbacks facing their division rival San Francisco Giants. He outdueled San Francisco ace Tim Lincecum for a key win in the all but settled NL West race, putting the division leading Diamondbacks up 6 games in the loss column with just 23 games to play. After being admittedly amped up to start the game and struggling with his command early, he settled down to allow just 1 run in 7 IP and become the National Leagues first 18 game winner. With every glittering performance he posts this season, a nagging thought emerges in the minds of Yankee fans. Could he have put up similar numbers had he stayed with the Yankees? No one will argue that we didn’t get a great return in Curtis Granderson, but did Brian Cashman make a mistake trading IPK and keeping the likes of Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes?
Ian certainly got a chance to show what he could do for the Yankees, though not nearly as extensive a look as Chamberlain and Hughes did. It didn’t go well, but that’s often the case with rookie pitchers. Greg Maddux got tattooed his first two seasons with the Cubs. Randy Johnson couldn’t find the strike zone until he was 29 years old. John Smoltz was lousy his first year and Tom Glavine was up and down for 4 years until he figured it out. James Shields, who shares a very similar profile to IPK, was bad in his first season with the Rays. Its the exception to the rule that comes up and succeeds right away, most pitchers need to take their lumps before they figure it out. Watching Ian last night, the way he was attacking hitters was a complete contrast to the nibbling, timid young man we saw in pinstripes. He’s even added a notch to his fastball, topping out at 94 on a few occasions. Could he have done the same had he stayed here in NY?
The most common refrain you hear that dismisses Ian’s work in the desert is “He’s pitching in the NL West”. There’s no doubt that this is a factor, its a division that features 3 of bottom 4 offenses in baseball in San Francisco, San Diego and Houston. But it’s also a division that also features Colorado, which is annually at or near the top of the league in Runs Scored and is a park that (despite its recent improvements) is still one of the great bandboxes in all of baseball. For his career, in 8 starts Ian is 1-1 with a 3.13 ERA pitching in Coors Field. Facing the Philadelphia Philies, annually one of the most potent offenses in the National League, in 3 starts he is 1-1 with a 2.25 ERA. Facing the tough Cincinnati Reds lineup that is #2 NL Runs scored this season, Ian is 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA and 0.975 WHIP in 2 starts. Small samples to be sure, but the idea that he can’t compete against the better offensive teams simply doesn’t hold. One should also factor in where he plays his home games. Chase Field is terrific ballpark for hitters. It has ranked in the top 5 in Park factors every year but one since 2005 and was 2nd only to Coors Field from 2008-2009. Kennedy has excelled there, going 13-7 with a 3.42 ERA and 1.139 WHIP for his career.
One should be careful when dismissing what goes on in the NL West. I don’t hear people dismissing Clayton Kershaw’s stellar season, or the careers of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, all of whom also pitch that very same division. Ian isn’t in the same class as Lincecum or Kershaw as a pitcher, but his SO/9 and WAR has been top 16 in the NL for the past 2 seasons and is better than Cain each of those years. If Matt Cain became available, I’m sure Yankee fans would line up to acquire him, yet some of those same folks seem to discount what IPK has done. They shouldn’t. All season long the Yanks have been searching for a #2 starter, and it appears he’s been pitching in Arizona.
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23 Responses to The One That Got Away, Ian Kennedy
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TIQ IQ
I don’t spend any time at all wishing IPK were here because I adore Granderson and without him, I don’t know where this team would be.
Right, but we all (myself included) were so quick to trade Ian and thought Joba and Hughes were untouchable. As it has turned out Ian’s been better than the other two. That’s a failure to evaluate talent, and I think relates to our obsession with velocity. Pitching is about varying speeds, and all the way back to his days in the minors IPK had a much greater aptitude for that than the other two have to this day.
Steve, Phil has been an enormous disappointment, but I don’t think that’s very fair. You wanted to trade Hughes prior to the 2010 season? Before he’d even had a chance to start for a full year – not counting 2007/2008?
In hindsight, Phil appears to be headed towards bust-hood, but that’s not the Yankees fault. They didn’t ask him to show up to camp overweight – and it’s really not their fault that he’s lost velocity or failed to develop secondary pitches or is just overall not the pitcher he appeared to be in the minor leagues. Look how huge he is now – he used to be lean, like a young Clemens; now he looks like an old, much larger, Clemens. The one thing I don’t like what the Yankees did with him is rush Phil in 2007, but that was a long time ago
I do think Cashman made a huge mistake in not trading Joba/Robertson + for Haren – mostly because he assumed that Lee would be his.
I would have loved Haren, but I’m not sure he was ever realistic. Indications were he wanted to pitch on the west coast, preferably California.
If we traded Robinson for Haren -what would the bullpen look like now?
Whether or not the trade was a mistake, it should teach both management and fans that they need to be more patient with young players.
I was ok with the trade when it was made (still am), because I think offense is as important as pitching. Nonetheless, I hated to give up IPK because I thought be had upside and the Yankees lacked pitching depth.
What I was wrong about was that I thought the Yankees should have drafted Bard over Kennedy.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=bardda01&year=Career&t=p#oppon
7 HRs in 100PAs.Yikes.
“The most common refrain you hear that dismisses Ian’s work in the desert is “He’s pitching in the NL West”. There’s no doubt that this is a factor, its a division that features 3 of bottom 4 offenses in baseball in San Francisco, San Diego and Houston.”
Just to nit-pick, but I am fairly certain the the Astros play in the NL central. At least this season.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings
I can understand that someone might think this for geographical reasons, but they’ve been in a heated race with WS champ Giants all season long. If you follow baseball, stuff like this is hard to screw up.
Wait, what? sammie said the ASTROS play in the central. Not the DBACKS play in the central.
Stuff like this is hard to screw up indeed…
I also think it’s ridiculously premature to view Hughes as a bust. He appears very close to putting it together, but he lacks arm strength because he hasn’t started enough games over the last four years. Putting him in the pen may have helped the team short-term, but it’s has hindered Hughes’ development.
I’m on the fence. I know Mo is more down on him than I am, but after 5 years in the bigs I would think he would stop trying so damn hard on every pitch, and learn to mix it up more. Think more, try force matters less. Be less predictable. On the MLB level, he’s really not a big SO pitcher as a starter, so he should let things like that come to him while he’s keeping hitters off balance. But he hasn’t figured this out yet.
It has always been my opinion that pitchability is more important than stuff and a better bet too. Hughes seemed to have both and so was as safe as they come…. Till he had neither.
I always figured kennedy was going to become a #3 or 4. I was thinking jake westbrook ted lily as far as yankees go. Maybe tewksbury.
Sometimes you eat the bear sometimes the bear eats you.
But yeah it sucks. And the nl west argument grows very tiresome
Well Rich, we’ve rarely agreed on anything re: Hughes and we won’t here. He’s not close to putting anything together. He lacks stamina, his velocity is erratic and his secondary pitches are not only inconsistent but poor. I’m not going to blame the Yankees because he came to camp overweight, which I have a VERY hard time getting past, and because his stuff is just ordinary. I agree that being in the pen hurt him, but he had a whole 2010 to develop consistency with his curve and change. The curve is still a bad pitch for him and the change is “eh” – when he throws it. I don’t expect him to be on this team beyond when he becomes a FA – if he lasts that long. There are other, more talented kids coming behind him
Also, it’s not the Yankees fault that Phil can’t stay healthy. He may be big (and he really is), but he’s also fragile. What good is a pitcher who can’t stay on the mound?
Steve, good points.
I’m going to disagree with this post in a few ways. One: the fairly subjective opinion and perception of his performance in the context of the NL West vs. AL East, and how this may be discounted while the perception of other pitchers in the NL West do not face similar discounts.
Pitcher profiles translate differently. Elite swing and miss pitches yield high K% in any division. One might project Kershaw or Lincecum to continue competing at the highest level if moved to divisions with better hitting. It’s hard to find someone that sees either as generational talents, but only in their division.
The other comp, Cain: Much like Kennedy, he is a right-handed fly ball pitcher. They have slightly above average K%. While I would compare the last two years of Kennedy to Cain, Cain is also having a career year due to him halving his HR/9 rate, and also outperforming Ian Kennedy. Nevertheless, I would not go out of my way to get either pitcher to play in Yankee stadium, specifically because of their pitching profile, even if they were outperforming said elite strikeout pitchers.
Also marginal anecdotal confirmation: In several BBTD podcasts, Keith Law suggests Kennedy would be a back end or “#5-6 starter” if back in the AL east.
Regardless of how his skills would translate to performance on the Yankees, we can look at the performance from 2010 to 2011 and strip away a lot of the hype that factors into many wishing he was still a Yankee. I’ll use mostly park adjusted pitching metrics because scoring decreased from 2009 to 2010 to 2011, and since run scoring environments are distinct between leagues, and the help or challenge of the stadiums he frequents could be factored out by some rough quantitative method.
Diamondbacks lead the league in UZR for both 2011 and 2010-2011.
Since 2010, top 3 defensive contributions are Parra, Drew, Upton, ‘saving’ nearly 60 runs compared to average fielding according to UZR.
Kennedy is a FB pitcher who may benefit from some of the best outfield defense, and this may factor into the difference why his ERA– is lower than FIP– (2010: 90 vs 103, 2011: 73 vs 86). He also has a strand rate above league average and his career average (LOB% 80) for this year. This may or may not be sustainable going forward.
Without holding any difference in AL East NL West against him, I still don’t see his performance through FIP as Cy Young caliber pitching the way many suggest through ERA or wins. He’s ‘merely’ above average.
Kennedy is having a great year and is developing into an above average cost-controlled 200+IP workhorse. This is a great value. I don’t think his performance should be overstated beyond this.
With regard to decisions of who the Yankees decided to trade and keep from being traded:
I don’t know Arizona’s valuation of the three pitchers in the context of the trade they made. Even with heavy discount of Kennedy’s performance in the AL East, I would agree that he is worth much more or would have been worth much more than Chamberlain has been, even if he was a healthy 70IP/year ‘shut-down’ reliever. I would happily swap Chamberlain for Kennedy in this trade. However, as Brien at IATMS mentioned (http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2011/09/04/getting-over-ian/)
we cannot know how Chamberlain was viewed at the time after pitching mostly a full year of league average starts or if Chamberlain instead of Kennedy gets it done.
I think it’s short-sighted—as evidenced by anecdotes about Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux, other young pitchers in hindsight—to think Hughes is even close to a bust, much less below Kennedy’s future value. He hasn’t had a fair shot at pitching a full healthy effective year. There are major fluctuations in his yearly IP for reasons within and beyond organizational control, that may have contributed to his inconsistent effectiveness or health. It’s certainly possible that Hughes, if his health continues to improve, that he can sustain his first dominant ~100IP or so from 2010 where he is striking out close to a batter per inning and minimizing walks, if one believes fatigue played a role in start 1st/2nd half splits (and relevantly, this year’s shoulder issue.)
[...] Source: http://www.yankeeanalysts.com/2011/09/what-might-ian-kennedy-have-been-as-a-yankee-33995 [...]
I wouldn’t annoint IPK a #3 or better starter yet. Let’s see him pitch like one next year and if he does, he is one or it’s fair to say he is for real and not just a one great year fluke (a decent 2010, a great 2011, and a good or better 2012.) He is having a great year, but it’s just one year. Let’s see him do it again or have a 2012 as close to it as possible. That’s not me saying he won’t repeat, better, or come close to his 2011 in 2012, just, it’s only one year. I could care less about what he does as long as it isn’t against the Yanks whenever the Yanks face the D-Backs again.
What a trip it’d be if the Yanks an D-Backs drew each other in the World Series a decade later.
Was IPK really beating out Javier Vasquez for the fifth starter job since Sabathia, Pettitte, Burnett, and Hughes were locks for the 2010 rotation, or Hughes became a lock after his first 13 starts? I don’t think so. Why the Yanks reacquired Vasquez I have no idea, but his money due for 2010 alone would’ve kept IPK out of the mix because no way would Vasquez or Burnett have been an eight-figure swingman/mopup man. The only way I saw IPK getting a shot with the 2010 Yanks was if the Yanks didn’t get Vasquez or put Hughes back in the rotation.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Houston plays in the NL Central, not the NL West.
Chase Field is a hitter’s park. And the DBacks have to play 8 or 9 games at Coors Field. So, anyone who has success for the DBacks must be a really good pitcher. The NL West often has the best picthing in the league. No one disparaged Tim Lincecum, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Cain, Dan Haren, Ubaldo Jimenez, etc. We get a lot of great pitchers out here. Ian Kennedy has been doing a great job this year. Dramatically improved. I would easily take him over Joba and Hughes. However, that 3 team trade did seem to work out for everyone.
I think the biggest point everyone is missing is that it doesn’t matter who you play against in your division. It is who you answer to that is the issue. Do you really think the people in AZ will make Kennedy tremble if he loses to the Phillies? The NY stage is what ate him up. Just like it has to other very good pitchers. Some people just can’t do it on a huge stage with alot to answer to. I hope he does well out there. But I remember him saying “these people actually expect you to win everytime” and that pissed him off. Granderson is awesome. Yanks did ok. Kennedy is performing so AZ did ok too. Good trade guys. Hind sight is always 20/20. I am positive this one was the right thing to do