A Flash of Brilliance From Kennedy
Although Edwin Jackson was considered to be the major grab for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the three way trade involving Max Scherzer, Curtis Granderson, and Austin Jackson, the Diamondbacks certainly considered Ian Kennedy to be a large piece of their future as well. Kennedy has a 4.22 ERA, 4.60 FIP, and a 4.32 xFIP, so he’s performed roughly as an average pitcher. At age 25, there’s certainly room to improve, but one has to think that the Diamondbacks will expect more out of Kennedy as his career goes on.
Games like yesterday’s against the Padres suggest that Kennedy has top half of the rotation potential. Kennedy threw seven shutout innings against San Diego, allowing only one hit and two walks while striking out a whopping 12 batters. Only nine of the 24 batters faced by Kennedy even managed to put the ball in play, and four of them put the ball on the ground. Even though it was in cavernous PETCO Park, it’s hard to classify this outing as anything but dominant.
As we dive deeper, we continue to see impressive numbers out of Kennedy’s start. Kennedy threw 62 strikes in 105 pitches (59%), drew 16 swinging strikes (15.6%), and was above average with every single one of his five pitches according to pitch type linear weights. Particularly impressive was Kennedy’s changeup, which he threw 16 times. Twelve of them went for strikes, and a ridiculous 8 – half of them! – resulted in swings and misses. Kennedy was drawing swings and misses both at the edges of the zone and down the middle, as this plot from Brooks Baseball shows.
Click to embiggen
Some may be quick to dismiss a start against the Padres in PETCO Park, but we can’t do that this year. The Padres offense has been above average this year, and that’s prior to additions such as Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada. In the post-Dan Haren era, the Diamondbacks will need production from other SPs in the system. Expecting Kennedy to become another Dan Haren is a pipe dream, but with performances like this as well as Daniel Hudson’s strong showings with his new team, the Diamondbacks have two young starting pitchers who should form the core of a solid starting rotation for a few years to come.
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Click to embiggen gave me a chuckle
Kennedy will end up being a guy who strikes out 200 plus guys, and getting about 15 wins a game for the next ten seasons. People give up on young pitchers too soon these days. Remember how long it took Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling or even guys who aren’t quite future HOF’ers or even all-stars like Edwin Jackson to show anything?
Edwin Jackson has looked like Peavy in his prime for the White Sox after escaping Arizona… Scherzer is becoming the flame throwing ace that so many thought he would be with the Tigers and is also 25.
Maybe if the Cubs had waited a lil longer on Wood, Prior, and the Nationals had waited one minor league season for Strasburg, they’d still be pitching in the pros or not awaiting a Tommy John surgery.
Because Strausburg wouldn’t have required Tommy John if he had pitched in the minors? Most MiLB leagues are still playing. They brought him up because it was clear he was a major league pitcher. What did you expect them to do? They already had him on a pitch count and an innings count.
I can’t really get into all the hows about it (because I have no idea what I’m saying) but maybe the reason that all these pitchers arms are falling off is because the human body wasn’t designed to take the amount of stress that is generated by the way they pitch. Strausburg is able to seemingly consistently reach 98-100 with his FB. while that may not seem all that much different from 90-92 consistently the fact is that he’s putting about 10% more stress on his arm assuming ratios stay the same.
Obviously this overly simplistic and not backed up by any numbers or medical knowledge. What I’m trying to say is maybe if coaches tried to reduce the stress on an arm on a per pitch basis as opposed to reducing the workload maybe clearly amazing young pitchers wouldn’t be injured as much.
/end 5 am off on a tangent rant that probably has lots of holes and no shiny numbers to back it up
There is truth in what you say about the limitations of the human body in regards to pitching. Sprinters, for example, have, over several generations, achieved greater speeds whereas pitchers have failed to break the 100 -103 mph barrier that was set as far back as baseball’s early days by W. Johnson. The reason is the connective tissue (liagaments and tendons) of the legs and hips that sprinters use to run have higher tolerances for failure than the elbow. For the average person, exposing the elbow to 80 Netwon-meters of torque will cause the ulnar collateral ligament which connects the humerus bone of the upper arm to the ulna bone of the forearm, to snap. Many pitchers exceed this but not by much. When you factor in the poor and improperly sequenced general conditioning of baseball players, and winter baseball (so utterly dumb to play a sport at competition levels year round ) it’s no wonder that Tommy John surgeries are so common. Connective tissue is time consuming to prepare for sport as it involves high repetition, light load strength training that ideally must be done before any pitches are thrown or before too much damage from pitching has occurred . Gradually increasing pitch counts will stave off damage and is necessary in building sports specific endurance, strength and speed but it is not a substitute for preparatory general conditioning. Doesn’t matter how well constructed the frame of a house is if it sits on failing foundation. This why many post op Tommy John pitchers can throw harder. They, in rehabbing the repaired elbow, are conditioning the new undamaged tissue the way it should have been before ever pitching a baseball.
I don’t think waiting would’ve mattered much… You can’t predict or control injuries. I think Prior was overused down the stretch and in the playoffs in 2003 – too much of an increase in workload combined with a shorter offseason from going deep in the playoffs probably increased his likelihood of injuries. It always seemed like the Cubs were rushing him back from injuries before he was ready.
I think Scherzer will have to cut down on walks and get deeper into games to be considered an ace, and the jury is out on that. Jackson might just be regressing from his poor start of the year, and he’s played two mediocre lineups. A real barometer would be to see him against some better competition, and do it for a full year. Anyone can put together a good 4 game stretch.
That was a very un-cromulent usage of embiggen.
Scherzer is a legitimate cy young contender, the Diamond backs are fools for trading him! Scherzer would strike out Kennedy every time he faced him.
As would probably every other pitcher in baseball. PItchers usually aren’t too hard to strike out.
K rate: down
HR rate: up
BB rate: same, not good
GB%: down
But, if he is able to maintain his dominance that he has shown over his last 8 starts (9 ER in 54 IP), then he is on his way to being the very good pitcher he had the potential to be.
He’s obviously not THAT good (1.50 ERA), but he’s likely somewhere in between that and the guy he has been for much of his career.
My guess is that he settles in to being a 2.5 – 4.5 WAR pitcher in any year he’s not injured.
Since being recalled (i.e., using his changeup more), he’s been a very good pitcher.
I don;t think he’s CYA candidate stuff yet, but could be if he can produce for a whole season.
At 152.2 IP, he’s approaching his career high, 170, 175 if you count MiLB combined. Before that it was 108 IP. It’s important for him to get to the 200 IP mark before we start looking at CYA stuff. Be intersting to see if DET pushed him to that mark this year, or if they get him to around 185 and call it day.
The main issue for Kennedy is command in the strike zone. He doesn’t have the stuff to miss in the middle of the plate. His HR rate is a bit unlucky this year perhaps, but HR are always going to be an issue for him with this level of command.
That said….if he develops just a bit more command in the strike zone on a more consistent basis, that “dominant switch” will be flipped on a lot more frequently. He’s never going to be a super low ERA guy, because his bad outings will tend to be real dogs……but I agree with the 15 wins 200 K’s scenario…..in that I can see him developing into a guy that can break under 4 ERA while throwing 200 IP for several seasons in a row.
The article compared him to Haren. It IS interesting to note that Kennedy’s minor league track record was far superior to Haren’s, and while an age for level comparison does not work so well for Kennedy, he DID miss an entire season due to the aneurysm.
Haren had an 81 and 96 ERA + his first two seasons in the NL, and then posted 117 and 108 ERA+ in his first two years as a full time starter with Oakland. He did not take that step up into the upper portion of the 2nd tier of starters until 2007 at age 26
Kennedy is 25 and currently sports a 106 ERA+. So it’s not impossible that Kennedy could turn out “Dan Harenish” over the long haul. But probably more like a Dan Haren lite.
Way to go, IPK. 🙂