Ian Kennedy

The New York Yankees drafted Ian Kennedy to be a rotation fixture for a decade. Instead, he made 14 appearances in pinstripes, posted a 6.03 ERA, and got traded away in a three-team deal that nobody in the Bronx remembers him for. That's not really Kennedy's fault, and it's not really the Yankees' fault either -- it's just what happens when a good pitcher gets rushed into the wrong storyline at the wrong time. He went on to have the best season of his career somewhere else, which is the part of this story people tend to forget.

The Prospect

The Yankees took Kennedy 21st overall out of USC in the 2006 draft and handed him a $2.25 million bonus. He tore through the system in 2007 -- 6-1 with a 1.29 ERA at High-A Tampa, 5-1 and 2.59 at Double-A Trenton, 1-1 and 2.08 at Triple-A Scranton -- a composite 12-3, 1.91 ERA across three levels in a single season. That's not a "promising arm." That's a guy demanding a big-league job.

He got it on September 1, 2007, against Tampa Bay, and he was terrific: 7 innings, 1 earned run, 6 strikeouts, a win in his first career start. Along with Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, Kennedy became a third of the "Big Three" -- the first wave of homegrown pitching the Yankees had developed since Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera came up together in the mid-90s. After years of buying arms on the open market (looking at you, Carl Pavano), the front office finally had three it grew itself. The hype was enormous. Three September starts in, Kennedy looked like he belonged at the front of it.

2008: The Wheels Come Off

Then 2008 happened, and it happened badly. Kennedy opened the year in the rotation, got hammered, and the Yankees optioned him to Triple-A on May 4. The Yankees called him back up in August, and his welcome-back outing was five runs on nine hits in two innings -- the kind of line that makes a front office start returning calls from other GMs. He finished the season 0-4 with an 8.17 ERA over nine starts. (For context: an ERA over 8 means the other team is basically averaging a run an inning against you. That's not a slump. That's a crisis.)

2009: One Inning and Gone

Kennedy started 2009 back at Triple-A trying to rebuild his stock, but his season turned into a medical story instead of a baseball one. He developed numbness in his pitching hand and needed surgery on May 12, 2009, to remove an aneurysm beneath his right biceps -- the same procedure Dr. George Todd had performed on David Cone's arm back in 1996. He spent the rest of the year rehabbing, made it back for instructional league and the Arizona Fall League, and got exactly one call up to New York: a scoreless relief inning in late September. That was it. That was the whole 2009 season in pinstripes.

He wasn't on the Yankees' postseason roster that October, and he didn't get a ring when the club won the 2009 World Series two months later. He was still property of the organization when the champagne got sprayed. He just wasn't part of it.

The Trade

On December 8, 2009, the Yankees sent Kennedy to Arizona in a three-team, seven-player trade at the Winter Meetings. The full breakdown: New York got Curtis Granderson from Detroit. Detroit got Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth from Arizona, plus Phil Coke and prospect Austin Jackson from New York. Arizona got Kennedy from New York and Edwin Jackson from Detroit. Brian Cashman got his center fielder, the Diamondbacks got a change of scenery for a talented arm who'd stalled out, and Kennedy got a fresh start in the desert.

It worked out for basically everybody, which almost never happens in a trade this size.

Where He Went

Here's the part that stings a little if you're a Yankees fan. In 2011, Kennedy went 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA and 198 strikeouts for Arizona -- the best winning percentage by an NL qualifier since Mike Hampton went 22-4 for the 1999 Astros. He led the National League in wins. He finished fourth in Cy Young voting. And somehow he still didn't make the All-Star team that year, a snub loud enough to get Arizona's own U.S. senator involved in the campaign for him. (Kennedy never did make an All-Star team, not that year, not ever, across 17 big-league seasons. Some guys just don't get the recognition to match the numbers.)

He kept pitching for another decade -- Arizona, San Diego, Kansas City, Texas -- and finished his career with 104 wins, a 4.16 ERA, and 1,775 strikeouts. He retired in November 2023, right after the Rangers won the World Series, his first championship ring after 17 years in the league. The kid the Yankees gave up on after an 8.17 ERA ended up outlasting most of the "Big Three" hype that surrounded him in 2007.