Monday, March 17, 2008

Looking Ahead to 2008 - Ian Kennedy

Ian Kennedy was the Yankees' first pick in the 2006 draft. Highly touted after his sophomore year he struggled in his junior year which made his stock drop which was probably the main reason he fell to the Yanks at all. He did not sign in time to see much regular minor league action in 2006 but was able to pitch in the Hawaiian winter league. Kennedy tore through the minors in 2007 and made it to the show.

2007
On the surface, Kennedy's 1.87 minor league ERA is pretty damn impressive. However, to properly contextualize it we should look at his MLEs (major league equivalencies).

Name	Age	Team	G	GS	IP	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
Ian Kennedy	21	STI	1	1	2.0	2	0	0	2	1	0.00	9.0	0.0	9.0	4.5
Ian Kennedy	22	Tam	11	10	57.0	52	23	6	26	46	3.63	8.2	0.9	4.1	7.3
Ian Kennedy	22	Tre	9	9	44.0	40	22	5	19	37	4.50	8.2	1.0	3.9	7.6
Ian Kennedy	22	SWB	6	6	33.0	31	14	4	11	25	3.82	8.5	1.1	3.0	6.8
Total			26	25	134	123	59	15	56	108	3.96	8.3	1.0	3.8	7.3

He finished his season off with three effective starts in the bigs. Kennedy wasn't projected coming into 2007 so we can't really compare what he actually did to what he was projected to do, but I think it's safe to say he exceeded expectations.

2008
Fairly or not, the knock on Kennedy is his ceiling. Since he doesn't throw in the mid 90s he's not expected to be much better than a third starter. I'd say it's too early to definitively make that assessment, but I don't disagree that physically the label fits. Still, there's nothing wrong with having a third starter making league minimum plus his signing bonus. Here's how the various projection systems see Kennedy in 2008.

Projection	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	FIP	RSAA	RSAR	FRSAA	FRSAR
chone	19	18	92	92	50	46	11	44	82	4.50	4.41	0	9	-1	7
marcel	17	17	69	66	34	30	7	26	53	3.91	4.11	4	11	2	8
pecota	38	25	141	129	72	66	16	68	120	4.24	4.42	4	18	-1	11
zips	27	26	148	158	79	72	16	42	94	4.38	4.19	2	16	3	15
cairo	32	32	184	188	96	92	24	68	136	4.50	4.53	-1	18	-4	12
average	27	23	127	127	66	61	15	50	97	4.35	4.36	2	14	0	11

The consensus is that Kennedy should be better than league average. His projected innings are low, he threw around 160 innings last year. He can probably pitch 180 or so if he stays healthy, so that would up his RSAA(runs saved above average) to about 8 and his RSAR(runs saved above replacement) to about 25. I'd caution that we only have one year of data when we are projecting Kennedy which means the reliability of his projection is probably pretty small.

Here's the range of projections that CAIRO has for IPK:

CAIRO %	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA	FIP	RSAA	RSAR	FRSAA	FRSAR
80%	32	32	184	174	86	82	19	60	148	4.03	3.92	9	27	9	25
65%	32	32	184	181	91	87	22	64	142	4.27	4.22	4	22	3	18
Baseline	32	32	184	188	96	92	24	68	136	4.50	4.53	-1	18	-4	12
35%	32	32	184	195	101	97	26	72	130	4.73	4.83	-5	13	-10	6
20%	32	32	184	202	106	102	29	76	124	4.97	5.13	-10	8	-16	0

CAIRO doesn't see greatness from Kennedy in 2008, but it doesn't see disaster either.

Value
Rookie pitcher who projects to be better than league average? I smell cost-effiency.

Proj WAR	Proj Value	Salary	Difference
2.6	$11,700,000	$400,000	$11,300,000

Conclusion
The young Mussina comp doesn't really work with Kennedy. Young Moose threw 92-95 mph. I see Kennedy more as a Brad Radke type pitcher right now, with an average fastball and a great changeup. Radke had two very good seasons and a bunch of above average seasons, and I think that right now that's the way I'd see Kennedy profiling. Of course, Kennedy could exceed that. Regardless, for 2008 I have a good feeling that Kennedy will be solid in the back of the Yankee rotation, and will probably end up pitching the most innings of any non-Wang/Pettitte starter.

We are still having problems with our host, which apparently tie back to the internal server errors we've been seeing at times. I'll be posting here until we get that figured out.

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