Nov
26

Kennedy strong in latest winter ball start

By

Pitching for Mayaguez in the Puerto Rican Winter League, Ian Kennedy posted his strongest outing since early July last night. He struck out four in 7 innings, allowing just three hits and zero walks against the team with the second highest OPS in the league. Jon Albaladejo picked up the save by getting four outs without incident.

Winter ball stats don’t mean much, but it’s good to see Kennedy put together a strong outing and continue to build upon a solid minor league effort in 2008. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fans be as down on a prospect as they are on IPK, but forty bad innings does not a career make.

Categories : Asides, Down on the Farm

118 Comments»

  1. Mike Pop says:

    This guy’s a bust regardless of what he does..

    B-U-S-T

  2. A.D. says:

    Alby the closer of the future

  3. Reggie C. says:

    Jim callis has got a couple paragraphs on Phil Hughes today. Apparently Hughes got a couple scouts wondering how he was able to dominate the lower minors without overpowering stuff. The FB and curve are called okay , and they peg his ceiling as a #3. Callis doesn’t exactly pit Hughes against Buchholz but Callis does write that the consensus remains that buchholz could be a #2 b/c hes got that 3rd pitch (changeup).

  4. radnom says:

    Listen, when are you guys going to get it through your heads.

    Kennedy is terrible. He just doesn’t have the stuff to be a big leaguer.
    The Yankees CAN NOT give him another chance in the bigs until he proves himself with some real success at the major league level. AAA and winterball stats don’t matter to me, stop throwing them in my face.

    If Brian Cashman wasn’t such a noodle-necked pencil pusher we would have traded IPSUK for a REAL pitcher when we had the chance!

  5. zs190 says:

    It’s hard to get optimistic about him doing well in winter league because we’ve seen how he absolutely owned the minor league hitters the last 2 years and then get tattooed at the major league level.

    Sometimes I wonder if his stuff translates to major league or not, kind of like a pitching version of Nelson Cruz. Still, he’s 24 and maybe the sample was too small. I’m sure they’ll give him some more chances, hopefully he does better next time he gets his chances.

  6. Axl says:

    Think we’ll ever have a prospect that does what he’s “hyped” up to be? Or are they all going to be busts and underachievers?

    • UWS says:

      You, too, are being sarcastic, yes?

      I seem to remember this one guy…Joba something? He turned out pretty decent, methinks.

    • Ed says:

      Maybe if we stop rushing them. Hughes shouldn’t have hit the majors until late ’07 or ’08. Kennedy should’ve waited for late ’08 or ’09. Joba was obviously ready talent wise, but not conditioning wise.

      Of course, they tried to avoid rushing Hughes by calling up Chase Wright first. A guy who had only pitched a couple of games above A ball before being thrown into Fenway Park.

      • Axl says:

        The Chase Wright debut at Fenway was ridiculous. A Single A pitcher accompanied with a AAA catcher, Will Nieves…against a World Championship caliber squad. It was more predictable than it was incredible…

      • ceciguante says:

        completely agree that hughes and ipk were rushed. i’ve been beating this drum all year. they simply didn’t have the MiLB innings to take the reins in the bronx, but cashman was the genius that saw fit to commit 2/5 of the 2008 rotation to these guys. it cost us a playoff spot.

        imo, most of the RAB crowd doesn’t give cashman nearly enough criticism for this tremendous (and obvious) blunder. or for most of his blunders, actually. george is usually the convenient scapegoat on these pages.

        • Ed says:

          Hughes I don’t object to too much. He was obviously rushed, as Cashman even said “no way he comes up until late ’07.” But then plans changed. And after the near no hitter in May and the way he pitched in September/October ’07, it was pretty easy to say “maybe he’ll be ok.”

          Kennedy though… ugh… that was just a bad call all around.

          My idea for ’08 was start with Joba in the rotation, Kennedy in AAA, then replace Joba with Kennedy when Joba hit his innings cap. Obviously there’s no way of knowing if that would’ve been a better idea, but I feel safe saying it wouldn’t have been worse.

        • Chris C. says:

          “completely agree that hughes and ipk were rushed.”

          And it didn’t help having to spend an entire offseason ingesting trade packages with their names on them, in exchange for Johan Santana.
          It’s easy for the common fan to sit back and dismiss that stuff as being added pressure on kids who are 21 and 22, but it certainly was.

          The expectations were through the roof before these guys even took the mound this past season, and they felt every bit of it………as would most people in their shoes.

    • Think we’ll ever have a prospect that does what he’s “hyped” up to be? Or are they all going to be busts and underachievers?

      Well, as long as we continue handing out the “bust” and “underachiever” label after 50 big league innings…

      …then no, Axl, we never will have a prospect that does what he’s “hyped” to do. A small portion of this is the NYC media placing large expectations on young players who show ability. The much, much, much, much, much larger portion of the equation is the NYC fans and media having the patience of a fruitfly. Talented, quality kids struggle. It happens. We seem to never be okay with that.

      Or…

      WHY THE FUCK IS MY BURRITO TAKING THIS LONG TO COOK IN THIS MICROWAVE!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!

  7. A.D. says:

    Well at least he’ll get back up to his innings totals from last season, maybe a bit more… putting him as one of the kids who could actually be allowed 200 innings next year

  8. Hey Axl, what about Joba?

    • Axl says:

      Joba is nasty…but he may be injury prone and constantly on a short leash…

      Why does it seem like only Yankees prospects have “pitch counts”? Seems like Lester and others never really had anything to worry about…

      I understand the transition thing for Joba…but even Hughes and such have them too. Oh well…

      • A.D. says:

        Because you don’t watch NESN games or follow local sports coverage for other teams?

        Buchholtz was almost shut down during his no hitter, and there was all kinds of chatter on Papelbon with the shoulder. In LA there were rules around how Kershaw was used when he was brought up, there are definitely examples of young pitchers & rules.

        • Axl says:

          Unfortunately I ONLY get NESN living in this area of Connecticut near Massachusetts. And get this…Not only do I not get YES…they black out Yankees games on ESPN because ESPN think I DO get YES. How ridiculous is that? Same with the baseball packages…they black out Yankees games assuming that I have the network…so it’s almost impossible to watch them. Years before I was able to buy the online package for college in RI…but last year I had to buy the online radio package because they can’t black that out.

          I still think its absolutely ridiculous. I’d get satellite but my apartment complex has a policy against dishes outside the window…

          • A.D. says:

            Yeah i lived in Boston for 4 years… they didn’t black out Yankees games on ESPN.. about the only difference on that one, had to put on the XM radio while generally watching the Sox games

      • Chris says:

        Before we complain too much about innings limits, lets see how Lester does next year.

        Maybe Kerry Woods, Mark Prior, Fausto Carmona and a ton of other young pitchers would have appreciated a little more caution in their use.

      • Why does it seem like only Yankees prospects have “pitch counts”? Seems like Lester and others never really had anything to worry about…

        See, Axl, that’s exactly what I’m talking about with the burrito thing. Jon Lester was drafted in June 2002. SIX YEARS AGO. He spent the rest of ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, and half of ’06 in the Sox minor league system, building up innings and strength. They called on him in June of ’06 when they had an injury bug, and in his first 144 innings over his first two seasons, he put up ERA’s of 4.76 and 4.57. The innings cap issue applied less to Lester because they let him go 141 innings in the minors in 2005, his 4th year with the club, before putting him on the big stage. And more importantly, they didn’t lose faith when he struggled.

        If that was the Yankees, the fans and the media would have either:
        A) demanded to know why a talented prospect was still in the minors and called for him to be brought up to the big league club;
        B) speculated that the reason he was in the minors is because the team had no faith in him and was trying to move him, and that he was overrated;
        C) demanded that he be used in a trade for a veteran, while his value is high;
        D) called him a bust and an overrated bum when he made it to the majors and struggled;
        E) called him injury prone/a health risk and demanded that the team move him for something of value before his value dropped…

        We’re acting like insane psychos. This makes no sense. Lester, like many, many others, is proof positive of why we need to slow the hell down and show patience and faith with our talented youngsters. Let them develop, let them fail, let them get back up again, shut them down if they need a rest.

        Stop overcriticizing everything.

        • Axl says:

          That is basically what I meant without going on too much of a rant…why do we always have to have these pitch counts? Which translates to “why do we have to rush these kids?” I’m agreeing with you…I just what I just worded it wrong. I’m sorry.

          With a payroll like ours…there should be no reason to rush anybody out there…let alone nearly ALL our prospect pitchers…that’s one of the advantages of the big payroll…

          • Okay. Because having these kids on pitch counts is a good thing, it’s a way too keep them from being rushed and getting hurt.

            We’re in agreement on that.

          • whozat says:

            Because, no matter how much money you have, you can’t have 8 decent-or-better, veteran starters on your payroll. No one good is going to sign to be your number 6 starter. Guys got rushed because injuries consumed more than four of the first 8 starters in the organization…Remember the start of 06, when Pettitte was literally the only guy taking the mound every fifth day? Wang and Moose and Karstens (the #6 guy) all started the season on the DL, Pavano went on the DL after two starts…it was a mess. Not a lot the team could have done to get “more depth” without either filling the AAA rotation with retreads or signing the Carlos Silvas of the world to ill-advised contracts.

          • Chris C. says:

            “That is basically what I meant without going on too much of a rant…why do we always have to have these pitch counts? Which translates to “why do we have to rush these kids?”

            That translates to WHAT?
            The Yankees are taking it slow with these kids, and you really were inquiring as to why they’re being rushed?

            • Ed says:

              Joba and Kennedy each spent less than a year in the minors before being called up to the big leagues. That’s extremely rushed.

        • A.D. says:

          Yeah Lester only had ~50 inning increase from the previous year… it probably won’t be a big deal

  9. Andy says:

    Short term memories.

    You want big league success??

    How about his 1.89 ERA in the bigs in 2007, at the age of 22??

    And while he only pitched 19 innings in 2007, he only pitched 39 innings in 2008 – so if you’re going to discount his 2007 stats, you have to do the same for the 2008 stats everone is pointing to now. And then you’re left with a guy who DOMINATED the minors, dominated NCAA, and was a first round pick.

    People, wake up. There have been plenty of stud pitchers who weren’t so great their first few years in the bigs. Patience, people, patience…

  10. JohnnyC says:

    I don’t see IPK getting into bar fight anytime soon though.

  11. whozat says:

    Via MLBTR:

    “SoxProspects.com says the Red Sox inked Billy Traber, Marcus McBeth, and Gil Velazquez to minor league deals.”

    Guys, why can’t Cashman ever make brilliant, under-the-radar signings like this? This is why the Sox have been handing us our asses for the last thirty years. He could be a quality lefty! No-risk-high-reward! God, I wish I were a woman so that Theo could father children on me.

  12. Axl says:

    Theo makes great movies like Beckett and Lowell for Hanley Ramirez…

    Oh wait that wasn’t him…that was when he became a cry baby and walked out on the organization only to come crawling back after that deal was made…

  13. christopher says:

    it is looking more and more like the Angels having giving up on Tex with the mets waiting in the wings holfog theor cards on tex,

    that means that the angels will come with an identical offer to that of the yanks. cc signs with the mets and tex with the muts

    yanks will be leftt in a bidding war for lowe, burnett, annd manny. i like manny but a rotation of wang, lowe, burnett, and hughes isnts exactly a champiomhip rotation.

    dwallow your pride and cash and give cc 7/175. expect the last 2 tears will hurt a bit; swallow your pride and bring in mannhy for 2/50 with an option based on games played – hell you can even give him another year with 25 million option on games played with other options on awards like RBI, HR, OBP, AVG and 100 grand for every guy he beats on the home run list, I am sure there are many more criteria that can be used to help defeat his one weasknss – giving up

    finally there are great role players out there out there in baldelli and milton bradley who would be great part time starters/pinch hitters —something the yanks have been missing sinsed the dvnysty.
    of course the wount get akk therse gys vy=ur thu=is is hu u approach thid offseaso

  14. [...] case you missed it, Ian Kennedy was rock solid in his last start this past Tuesday. He lines up to start Tuesday for Mayaguez (off-day tomorrow). [...]

Leave a Reply

You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.

If this is your first time commenting on River Ave. Blues, please review the RAB Commenter Guidelines. Login for commenting features. Register for RAB.