The Rangers announced that they have recalled left-hander John King from Triple-A Round Rock while right-hander Ian Kennedy has been designated for assignment in a corresponding move.
Kennedy, 38, spent many seasons as an effective starter for the Diamondbacks, Padres and Royals. He’s moved to a relief role in recent years with inconsistent results. He posted an ERA of 3.41 with the Royals in 2019 but saw that figure spike to 9.00 in the shortened 2020 season. He got back on track in 2021 with a 3.20 ERA between the Rangers and Phillies, then parlayed that into a $4.75MM deal with the Diamondbacks for 2022. That led to another downturn, however, as he had a 5.36 ERA with the Snakes last year.
With his recent seasons alternating between good and bad, it would have seemed superficially like Kennedy were due for a rebound this year. He returned to the Rangers on a minor league deal and cracked the Opening Day roster but has a 7.20 ERA through his first 11 outings and has now lost his roster spot in Texas.
Looking under the hood, things might not be quite as bad as that ERA seems. Kennedy has struck out 28.3% of batters faced against a 6.5% walk rate. He’s allowed a .357 batting average on balls in play and has a 36.8% strand rate, both of which are on the unlucky side of average, particularly the latter figure. The league averages for those stats this year are .295 and 71.6%. Advanced metrics feel Kennedy deserved much better, including his 3.21 FIP, 3.36 xERA and 3.22 SIERA.
The Rangers will now have a week to trade Kennedy or pass him through waivers. There will likely be clubs willing to overlook the 7.20 ERA in a small sample, especially with many teams around the league dealing with various injuries amid their respective pitching staffs. Though in the event Kennedy clears waivers, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency.
Goodbye my friend
I wonder if a pitcher feels like he was unlucky when the batter hits a line drive off him. Hitting a round ball with a round bat and catching it square is one of the hardest things in sports. To call anything thing but a bloop hit luck seems disingenuous. Maybe he’s just throwing pitches in the wrong spots, or has lost movement on his pitches. Maybe he’s giving up a .357 because his pitches are hittable.
Seems like Ian Kennedy has been done since like 2020 or so. I guess he thinks he can still mount a come back or he just doesn’t want to throw in the towel on his career? Getting these minor league deals and working his way back over and over again seems like a lot of work for little payoff at this point.
I’m very curious what you mean by “little payoff”? Guy made more last year alone than you’ll make in your entire life.
You don’t know what my income is. Also I largely meant the rigors and grind of working back up from the minors and being DFA’d and having to sign with another club for another chance.
I know he made $2.25M (which, btw, if that’s more than someone makes in their entire life…oof)
40 years @ 50,000 is only 2 million. I would say the majority of humanity has made less than that. And I know a lot of people who don’t make 50k/yr. Minimum wage is brutal.
Actually you do know what my income is. My username is in fact, as accurate as a Mona Lisa Vito auto mechanics testimony.
Some people make more than that. And yes it is brutal to make less than that. But the reality is some people make far more than that amount. Depending on where you are in the country it’d be practically unfathomable to pay your full time workers less than that unless it was entry level as a sort of audition position that gets a promotion and salary increase within a relatively short amount of time.
Keep in mind there are areas of the country where a salary that can buy a really nice house that can fit a family of four in it with a large back yard, can’t pay the rent on a one bedroom apartment.
Actually, I got a reasonable starting pay with a company, and never got an increase. They didn’t give raises. But how do you ask that in the interview without sounding assinine? Do you give raises?
In my experience, a lot of companies will start people off at like $26k or $33k, maybe even $39k- enough to cover the absolute basics- again, in expensive cities/states- and if you survive around 3-6 months, sometimes a year, and you’re deemed productive and valuable, those companies tend to bump people up by a lot without necessarily giving them a title or responsibilities promotion.
So that $26-$39k starting salary will jump to about $65k within a year. And in a lot of companies I know of, people can quickly ascend to around $130k and then it starts to stagnate- but again these are the kinds of jobs and companies where you are on a salary and you get pay bumps so that you are psychologically prepared to work 60 or 80 hours a week, where people sacrifice time with their spouse, their children, etc. in order to afford to have children, in order to afford a house instead of renting an apartment.
I also have lived in areas of the country where, quite frankly, making less than about $75k before taxes just isn’t going to allow you to survive, period- and to survive comfortably you should really be making around $150k a year before taxes (rent on a one bedroom apartment in a not terrible part of town, car payments on a modest used sedan, a tiny bit of money to go out with or be able to cover a $1-2k emergency with and hopefully a 3 month buffer of savings if you are without income for a period of time) etc.)
Without going into specifics, I know people who make $100k a year before taxes between their various jobs and they’re basically month to month in their lifestyle without actually doing anything stupid or short sighted with their money. It just is what it is.
If only the article were as exciting as the headline! They could have kept Leone and Littel, but they instead choose John King? I hate that guy. He’s the bullpen version of Martin Perez with no strikeout abilities whatsoever.
The rangers are one of the worst run organizations my god
And yet they’ve got the third best record in the AL.
It’s May. That’s not saying much.
Actually according to the Pythagorean Expectancy the Rangers should have 4 to 5 more wins than they actually have. Rangers have been “unlucky” in that regard. As a Mariners fan, that doesn’t particularly make feel too chipper.
@ignorant as an Angels fan, it doesn’t make me feel too chipper either.
Trolls will troll, but it was pretty embarrassing having a guy from Cornell run the organization, only to give it off to a liberal arts major. They should stick with real HOF caliber guys (not Nolan Ryan, but real ones) or smart guys instead of setting for guys who are neither intelligent or accomplished athletes. This guy CY hasn’t made a trade for anything other than cash and Odorizzi yet.
Also, the 4th best in baseball (ahead of the Dodgers and Mets)
So how well an organization’s run is only based on their standing in May, of the current year?
Nah I’d look at the current 26 and the pipeline and you don’t have to squint to see a top 7 or so org at the moment. Haven’t seen carter white porter acuna leiter kumar, and duran heim Taveras Jung just getting started
I wouldn’t mind Kennedy back with the Yankees on a minor league deal, no risk taken at all in doing so.
@deGrom Texas Ranger: What do you have against Cornell?
Gotta be better than Sean Manea, but then again, so is my dead grandma.
Would Kennedy be comfortable on a team with an Oswald and an Oswaldo?
What an amazingly dumb post.
Oh, come on. Have a sense of humor, Mr. Grumpy!
You would think with his snazzy red frames and joyous looking demeanor that Mr. Blue Baron would have a pretty good sense of humor. Instead he is rather grumpy and has a low tolerance for tomfoolery.
@For Love: I have a great sense of humor, but it’s still an amazingly dumb post. Nothing funny about an assassination that happened 60 years ago.
Booooo to u
Bad take dude.
He doesn’t feel a joke about JFK is appropriate, andI agree, some things aren’t funny. Your screen name frankly is very fitting.
AMEN
Thank you! That’s why I chose it.
Amen
The post by DCartrow is not “dumb”. I will give you “slightly insensitive” but given the length of time, the audience and the public figure status, that is the most I’d say.
Actually would have been pretty clever if only it had been correctly posted as a reply to the comment suggesting the Yankees sign him.
Well played
Horrible take, keep your day job if you have one.
Weird passive-aggression. Somehow triggered to respond, oh well, seen worse comments, comme ci, comme ça.
Lefty – not sure if your ” horrible take” comment was aimed at me or DC
@ riffraff My apologies Riff, that was for DC and his “ignorant” friend who lack respect.
Huh. That’s really odd they DFA’d him, now that I’m looking at his stats. I don’t know exactly how he pitched, but his stats don’t look completely terrible. He had one bad outing and has allowed 4 of 5 inherited runners to score, while all four runners he bequeathed were allowed to score.
Am I missing something? Probably.
Well hope Perry is on the phone to get him into our pen. Halos need all the help they can get
This guy has 9lives
So long Ian.
Time to make way for all the young dudes.
Nice bon Mott, mac!
When he was in AZ he pitched to contact. Frequently.
Pitched to hard contact
Very hard contact.
Rifle-shot contact.
Don’t you have to look at the hard hit rate or average exit velocity off the bat before determining whether or not the high BABIP is just unlucky? If the exit velo is higher than average, I’d expect the BABIP to be similarly high.
Kennedy is done. Like Hunter Pence before him, he had a magical All Star half season in 2021 with the Rangers, got traded and has been garbage since
Yeah, that Hunter Pence only managed to be a key piece on two World Series winners. What a bum.
That is completely out of context as Pence was a shell of his former self by 2019. Nice try at sarcasm though. Pence was a nice story for the Rangers as a minor league signing turned All Star in the first half and disappeared in the second half of 2019. Kennedy followed the same path, minor league signing turned All Star in ’21, traded away at the deadline and has been terrible since
Ian Kennedy has not retired yet?! am shocked I thought he was done after Texas.