Kansas City Royals: A Look At The 2016 Offseason

Here are a couple of things that may suppress those numbers a little:

1. Kennedy and Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland have worked together before, so there’s some familiarity there.
2. Dave Eiland is a wizard. No, an actual wizard. I suspect he’ll get Kennedy locked in as he’s done for some of our other pitchers.
3. Petco is no Kauffman Stadium. Petco used to be considered a pitcher’s paradise, but they’ve since altered the dimensions to create a more friendly hitting environment. Kauffman Stadium is considerably more spacious, especially in center field and straight away right field. Over 60% of home runs surrendered by Kennedy were at Petco, and roughly 58% of his home run total came off the bats of left-handed hitters–probably taking advantage of a 322 ft. short-porch in right field.
4. D-Fence! Fangraphs rates the Royals as the number one defense in baseball last year. That alone will improve any pitcher’s numbers. Take into account that the Padres defense ranked next to last, I’d expect significant improvement in Kennedy’s numbers.

Kennedy very much fits the mold of pitchers the Royals covet. Is he an ace? No, not even close. However, the Royals have shown the baseball world that serviceable starting pitching coupled with a lock-down bullpen is a winning combination.

While other teams are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on top-echelon starting pitching, the Royals are spending much less, and turning every game into a five-six inning affair. Essentially sending the message of get your runs early, because in short time you’ll have to go through Luke Hochevar, Joakim Soria, Kelvin Herrera and a pitching cyborg–Wade Davis.

Good luck with that.

Next: More on Kennedy