KC Royals: Ian Kennedy and the Win-Now Royals

The Good

First and foremost, it’s important to note that Kennedy is reuniting with his former pitching coach, boy wonder Dave Eiland. Eiland worked with Kennedy when he came up through the Yankees organization and has done eerily well with past Royals projects.

It’s a gamble, sure, but compared to what else was left this year and what’s to come after the season, it might be one that needed to be made.

Kennedy is in no way a “project” at this point in his career, so the hope is Eiland can take Kennedy from good back to great (in 2011, Kennedy won 21 games with the Diamondbacks with a 2.88 ERA and finished fourth in Cy Young voting).

His K/9 has increased every year since 2010, with his average fastball speed moving from 89 to 91 over the same period. While the Petco fences moving in were a curse for the flyball pitcher, Kauffman’s friendly fences will help cut down the home run totals and the Cain/Gordon/Dyson triad will run down extra base hits.

As for the contract, it’s a product of the market. Besides Yovani Gallardo, the majority of remaining free agents out there offer significant risk. Not to mention the fact that next year’s crop of free agent starting pitchers is spooky (after Stephen Strasburg, C.J. Wilson, in his upper 30s, might actually be the best guy out there), so locking something up now is a good decision.

And while it’s more money, averaging $14 million/year doesn’t mean what it used to.  Last year pitchers like Rick Porcello, Edwin Jackson, Matt Harrison, Jorge de la Rosa*, and Ricky Nolasco all made around that, and the average is only going to keep going up. It’s a gamble, sure, but compared to what else was left this year and what’s to come after the season, it might be one that needed to be made.

Next: Another factor