The 5.5 Hole

The name speaks of confidence, power, fame, and fortune. It reminds us of royalty and glitz. While Ian Kennedy doesn't come from a long line of political powers, he has established himself as a power among National League pitchers.

"Whenever I hear 18 wins, I think of a good bullpen and a good offensive team, timely hitting, really," Kennedy said in an Associated Press article.

That sums up the belief many of the more progressive baseball statisticians have in wins. Less is controlled by the pitcher than the stat suggests. But 18 wins in Arizona is impressive. Not since Brandon Webb have the Diamondbacks been able to boast that kind of success. But let's take a closer look.

Saturday night, Kennedy and the Diamindbacks evened up their series with the Giants and extended their lead in the West back to 6 games. Ian Kennedy now has the most wins in the National League, and with only 4 losses, he has the best winning percentage. After showing so much promise in the Yankees farm system, Kennedy is proving he can be one of the best young pitchers in the league.  And he's doing it with simple development. 

Kennedy's walk per 9 innings ratio is the lowest it has been in his career at 2.36.  Leaving out his 2007 season with the Yankees when he pitched 19 innings and his 2009 season when he pitched 1 inning, Kennedy's home run per 9 innings ratio is the lowest of his career at 0.88.  He's not overpowering with strikeouts, but he is getting the job done with 167.  His FIP shows good defense behind him, and his ERA- is at 73 (meaning his ERA is 27% better than league average).


His stats speak for themselves, but what has changed?  Has he simply developed into an Ace pitcher?  Has he put everything together to make himself Cy Young caliber? 

One fairly noticeable change is the addition of a cutter.  Prior to this season, Kennedy did not throw the cutter.  This year, he is throwing it 8% of the time.  With the cutter, he now has five solid pitches.  The second most noticeable difference is the amount of pitches batters are swinging at out of the strikezone.  This season, Kennedy has his second highest percentage of pitches swung at outside of the zone at 28.6%.  (His highest was 28.9% in 2007 when he pitched only 19 innings) Finally, Kennedy is getting ahead of batters.  His first pitch strike percentage is 63.1, and batters are swinging and missing at 8.7% of his total pitches.


The chart below, courtesy of Fangraphs, shows Kennedy's velocity over the last few years.  He is clearly mixing his pitches better.  His highest velocity is higher than it has been in the past, and his lowest velocity is lower.

Ian Kennedy has done a lot to get the Diamondbacks where they are, and it is looking more and more like he will get a shot to be a number one starter in the postseason.  With a possible match-up of Kennedy vs. Halladay in the division series, fans should be treated to a pitcher's duel at its finest.  I'm sure the Yankees aren't complaining about receiving Curtis Granderson in the three-team trade that sent Kennedy to the Dbacks, but with their pitching trouble, how much could he have helped that team?

With an option year next season and an arbitration eligible year in 2013, it would be smart for the Diamondbacks to lock Ian Kennedy into a long-term deal now.  If he pitches like this next season, you can be sure an arbitrator will grant him 3-4 times the $423,000 he is making now.  But if you're living in the moment, as Diamondbacks fans should be doing, Kennedy is showing flashes of the dominance this team showed in 2001.  10 years after they won the World Series, Arizona has a clear-cut ace and a chance to go all the way again. 

If you stay up late enough, you can catch a glimpse of pure domination.  Stay tuned through a Braves game until the ninth and there is a chance you'll see the future of closers in baseball.  At just 5'10", Craig Kimbrel may not seem imposing, but as he winds up and delivers, that thought quickly fades.  Kimbrel tied the rookie saves record last night and will surely eclipse it later this week.  With 40 saves this season, he has pulled even with the mark set last year by rookie Neftali Feliz. 

Kimbrel has a chance to be part of a small group of players in baseball history.  He has never started a Major League game and has been the Braves closer all of this season.  Should Kimbrel choose to stay in the bullpen, unlike Feliz who is widely thought to be moving to the starting rotation next season, he has every opportunity to shut down offenses like only Trevor Hoffman has done before.  Mariano Rivera started 10 games in his career.  Hoffman started none.  At 23 years old, there's nothing stopping Kimbrel from breaking every closer record out there. 

This season, he has compiled a 1.72 ERA in 62.1 innings pitched.  He has struck out a head-spinning 101 batters for a K/9 ratio of 14.5. He's posted an ERA+ of 220 and made his first All-Star Game this season.

Yet, Kimbrel will only be slamming the door shut in the ninth as long as he wants to, or as long as the Braves want him to.  Feliz in Texas decided he wanted to be a starter, so the Rangers went out and picked up two players in Mike Adams and Koji Uehara who can compete for the closer job next season.  If Kimbrel were making $5 million a year, the choice would be out of Kimbrel's hands.  It would be highly unlikely that the Braves would allow their 23 year old stud pitcher to be limited to one inning of work per night.  For that kind of money, they would likely throw him into the mix and have him starting every fifth game.  But Kimbrel is only making $419,000. 

And the beauty, for the Braves, is Kimbrel was drafted by them and they have control of him for at least four years.  He doesn't become arbitration eligible until 2013 and can't become a free agent until 2016.  I'd expect to see the Braves and Kimbrel work on a long-term deal this off-season.  The Braves are in a position that many teams dream of.  They can lock Kimbrel in to a deal now, without over-paying later. 

No matter what they do, Kimbrel's highlight reel season will go down in history.  With 32 games left to play, it would not be surprising to see Kimbrel reach 50 saves.  And as the Braves enter the play-offs in a probable match-up against the offense-heavy Brewers, any lead in the ninth will need extra protection.  Kimbrel looks ready for the job. 

As the innings slip away and the Braves find themselves with a lead, don't go to sleep, don't leave the ballpark early.  Stay up for the late show.  The late late show with Craig Kimbrel.  

According the Fangraphs stats glossary, "Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) measures what a player’s ERA should have looked like over a given time period, assuming that performance on balls in play and timing were league average."

FIP adjusts for fielding luck, fielding talent, and all those things a pitcher truly can't control. Generally speaking, FIP is a better indicator of future performance. The theory being that a pitcher whose defense has performed exceptionally well will have a lower ERA, but once that fielding performance inevitably levels off, the pitcher's ERA may rise. The opposite is true as well. If a pitcher has a high ERA but a lower FIP, the ERA should come down as the team's defense begins to play better.

In looking at the top-ten ERA's for this season, I became curious which pitcher has the biggest gap.

1) Johnny Cueto: 1.89 ERA/3.45 FIP
2) Jered Weaver: 2.10 ERA/2.84 FIP
3) Justin Verlander: 2.31 ERA/2.69 FIP
4) Josh Beckett: 2.46 ERA/3.40 FIP
5) Ryan Vogelsong: 2.47 ERA/3.57 FIP
6) Tim Lincecum: 2.53 ERA/2.85 FIP
7) Roy Halladay: 2.56 ERA/2.12 FIP
8) Clayton Kershaw: 2.60 ERA/2.55 FIP
9) Cole Hamels: 2.62 ERA/2.64 FIP
10) Justin Masterson: 2.71 ERA/2.92 FIP

Now, I'll rank the players based on their gap (FIP - ERA).

1) Roy Halladay: -0.44
2) Clayton Kershaw: -0.05
3) Cole Hamels: 0.02
4) Justin Masterson: 0.21
5) Tim Lincecum: 0.32
6) Justin Verlander: 0.38
7) Jered Weaver: 0.74
8) Josh Beckett: 0.94
9) Ryan Vogelsong: 1.10
10) Johnny Cueto: 1.56

Based in this list, it would seem Roy Halladay and Clayton Kershaw are likely pitching better than their ERA's would suggest. It would also seem that Johnny Cueto's ERA may not be something he can maintain beyond this season.