Top NYY Could-Have-Beens: Ian Patrick Kennedy

Gather round, and hearken to the tale of a time when Yankees fans salivated.

Three homegrown top-of-the-rotation talents were on their way to the Bronx.

This was going to be baseballs version of the Charge of the Light Brigade, with these young hurlers riding to the Yankees rescue and vanquishing their enemies for years to come.

Unfortunately, The Big Three kind of turned out like the aforementioned Charge.

Didnt really work out as planned.

Phil Hughes had his moments , and had arguably his best season en route to helping the Yankees to their 2009 World Series championship.

Joba Chamberlain.

Excuse me while I go weep for what could have been .

And finally, IPK.

All told, its hard to quibble with Ian Kennedys career.

A 20-game winner in 2011 for Arizona, he threw almost 2,000 innings in the big leagues, all but about 60 of them elsewhere, after the Yankees traded him in the complex deal that brought Curtis Granderson to New York.

Years in Yankees Organization : How They Left : Traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks in December of 2009 Career MLB Yankee Statistics : 3 seasons, 14 games (12 starts), 59.2 innings, 1-4, 6.03 ERA (75 ERA+), 4.99 FIP, 43 K, 1.676 WHIP, -0.1 rWAR Career MLB Statistics : 17 seasons, 497 games (290 starts), 1904.1 innings, 104-114, 4.16 ERA (98 ERA+), 4.31 FIP, 1775 K, 1.288 WHIP, 15.9 rWAR Ian Patrick Kennedy was born in Huntington Beach, California, on December 19, 1984.

As an aside, its a startling reminder of your own mortality to realize IPK is now 40 years old.

Anyway.

Kennedy pitched through high school and though the St.

Louis Cardinals drafted him in the 14th round of the 2003 Amateur Draft, he opted instead for college ball.

He chose to stay close to home and pitching for the USC Trojans, spending three season there, primarily in the clubs rotation.

He pitched well enough that he was on the radar headed into the 2006 Amateur Draft, despite some concern his velocity had dropped his junior season.

In a pre-draft mock , Baseball America had Kennedy heading to the Cardinals, with St.

Louis projected to select the right-hander 42nd overall, though they had him as a possibility for the San Diego Padres at 17th overall.

Clearly, IPKs stock was high.

Meanwhile, the Yankees lost their first-round pick by signing Johnny Damon but gained the Phillies after the latter signed Tom Gordon.

And when they were on the clock at No.

21, they came for Kennedy.

Twenty picks later, they grabbed that Joba fellow in the supplemental round with another compensation pick from the Gordon signing.

IPK moved quickly through the Yankees minor-league system.

By the end of the 2007 season, he was already at Triple-A, where he pitched to a 2.08 ERA in 34.2 innings.

His outstanding campaign at three levels culminated in a 1.91 ERA in 146.1 innings and well-deserved recognition as the Yankees Minor League Player of the Year and as the MiLB.com Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year.

Oh.

And he also made his Major League debut in September.

Not too shabby at all.

All told, he made three starts for the Yanks down the stretch and looked outstanding, allowing only four runs in 19.1 frames.

Kennedy began 2008 with the Yankees, but his first prolonged exposure to big league hitting was not successful.

By late May, Kennedy and his bloated 7.41 ERA were headed back to the minors.

Kennedy was much more effective there, and the Yankees called him back in August.

Unfortunately, that outing went about as well as the rest of his 08 season: he was pummeled for five runs on nine hits and a walk in just two innings of work.

Most distressingly for the Yankees themselves, Kennedy seemed decidedly unperturbed by the wreckage in the postgame, saying I felt like I made some good pitches.

Im not too upset about it.

What was it, a bunch of singles and three doubles? Im just not real upset about it.

If Kennedy wanted to come across as confident and unflappable, then he missed his mark.

Instead, it sounded like he didnt care about getting rocked, and he was demoted for the remainder of the lost year, even after New York was eliminated and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

If expectations were sky-high after 2007, they were tempered by the 08 campaign.

IPKs 2009 was an instance of injury piling atop insult.

While pitching at Triple-A that spring, Kennedy experienced numbness in his pitching hand.

In May, he underwent surgery to remove an aneurysm below his right biceps.

The surgery and subsequent recovery wiped out almost all of his 2009, though in late September, Kennedy returned, even pitching an inning of scoreless relief for the Yankees, so he got to be a member of the 2009 champions.

To make up for the lost innings, New York sent Kennedy to the Arizona Fall League.

He started off hot, allowing only 11 baserunners in his first 11.1 innings, while whiffing 13 hitters.

Writing for FanGraphs , Marc Hulet remarked on IPKs exceptional control and offered that A trade out of New York this off-season will probably be the best thing for his career...

If he does end up in the National League, though, he could thrive.

Hulet, seemingly, possessed the power of prophecy.

Unbeknownst to Kennedy, one particular executive saw every pitch Kennedy tossed in the desert.

Jerry Dipoto, the Arizona Diamondbacks senior vice president of scouting and player development, watched IPK closely.

He was outstanding every time, right through the championship game of that league, Dipoto recalled .

In short order, Dipoto got his man.

In early December, the DBacks, Yankees, and Tigers kicked off the Winter Meetings with a three-team blockbuster .

For New York, Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson was the prize.

To get him, IPK joined reliever Phil Coke and outfield prospect Austin Jackson on their way out of the Bronx.

As part of the swap, Max Scherzer headed from the desert to Detroit.

Although the Yankees didnt have much reason to regret the trade since Granderson was a two-time All-Star with 108 homers across the next three seasons alone, Kennedy did find near-immediate success for the Diamondbacks.

After a productive, workhorse debut Arizona in 2010, he broke out in 2011 with a 2.88 ERA across a career-high 222 innings while pacing the Senior Circuit with 21 wins.

He finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting behind a trio of the games elite arms (Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee) as Arizona surprisingly won the NL West crown.

He was not long for Arizona, however, and the club dealt him to San Diego at the trade deadline in 2013.

Kennedy, in the middle of an awful season, made his debut against...

who else...

the Yankees, who sent Phil Hughes to the mound on that night at Petco Park.

Kennedy and the Padres won 6-3.

The New York Times lamented what could have been: Five years ago, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, along with Joba Chamberlain, represented a transition to what was supposed to be the next generation of Yankees dominance...

That unfulfilled promise was on display Sunday when Hughes and Kennedy opposed each other, with the Padres lighting into Hughes early and Kennedy pitching well in his debut for San Diego.

Chamberlain, now relegated to mop-up duty, pitched a scoreless ninth for the Yankees.

That paragraph is still depressing, all these years later.

Kennedy bounced back in 2014.

And with the Yankees shopping for pitching help at the deadline, a second act in pinstripes became a real possibility .

In late July, the Yankees sent a scout to Wrigley Field to watch Kennedy hurl six frames of three-run ball.

Obviously, a deal never came to pass.

But New York had its eye on its former pinstriped prospect.

By the late 2010s, Kennedy was no longer an effective starting pitcher, posting a couple of ugly seasons for the Royals in 2018 and 2019.

But his career had one last act.

From 2019 through 2021, IPK pitched out of the pen and did so very well in 19 and 21.

Kennedy last pitched in the majors in 2023 for Texas, earning a World Series ring despite missing the postseason with a rotator cuff strain.

After the Rangers won that years Fall Classic, IPK decided there was no better time to call it a career.

Kennedys story is complex.

On the one hand, trading him brought one of the great Yankees of all-time to the Bronx, while Kennedy went on to experience personal and team success during a near-20-year career in the majors.

On the other hand, IPKs story is inextricably linked to those of Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain.

The Big Three who were supposed to take the ball for 200 innings each every year for a decade in the Bronx never did reach those exalted heights.

Works Cited Baseball-Reference .

Callis, Jim.

2006 MLB Mock Draft.

Baseball America .

June 6, 2006.

FanGraphs .

Franco, Anthony.

Ian Kennedy To Retire.

MLB Trade Rumors .

November 2, 2023.

Hulet, Marc.

Arizona Fall League Update: The Pitchers.

FanGraphs .

October 28, 2009.

King III, George A.

Yankees scouting Ian Kennedy for possible trade reunion.

New York Pos t.

July 24, 2014.

Lemire, Joe.

Kennedy toiled to reach the top now the trick is staying there.

Sports Illustrated .

March 16, 2012.

Pawlikowski, Joe.

Bidding farewell to Ian Patrick Kennedy .

River Ave Blues .

December 12, 2009.

Sources: Three team deal near.

ESPN .

December 8, 2009.

Witz, Billy.

A Reminder of the Yankees Failed Plan Deals Them Another Defeat .

New York Times.

August 4, 2013.

Yanks Kennedy Completes Journey Back .

ESPN .

September 19, 2009.

Previously on Top Could-Have-Been Yankees Joba Chamberlain Full List (to date).

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