Tommy Kahnle

Tommy Kahnle pitched for the New York Yankees in two separate stints -- 2017 to 2020, then 2023 to 2024 -- and somehow managed to be both one of the best stories of the 2024 World Series run and one of its most gutting footnotes. That's Kahnle's whole deal, really. The changeup was filthy, the timing was brutal, and the guy kept showing up in October no matter which uniform he was wearing.

Path to the Bronx (Twice)

Here's a fun one: the Yankees drafted Kahnle first, back in the 5th round in 2010 out of Lynn University, where he'd just won a Division II national title and picked up Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament. He never threw a single pitch for them in that org. Three years later, the Rockies grabbed him in the Rule 5 draft, and by the time he actually arrived in pinstripes for real, seven years had passed and he'd already been a Rockie and a White Sock (is that the plural? It should be.).

Colorado flipped him to the White Sox for Yency Almonte after the 2015 season, and Kahnle broke out there -- a hard-throwing setup man who was quietly turning a mediocre two-seam changeup into a genuine weapon (more on that in a minute). Then, on July 19, 2017, Chicago shipped him to the Bronx along with David Robertson and Todd Frazier in a seven-player deadline deal, sending Tyler Clippard and three prospects back the other way. The Yankees needed bullpen help for a surprise playoff push. They got a lot more than that.

Yankees Career

The first stint was mostly about the changeup finding its final form. Kahnle developed the grip back in 2011 in the low minors -- a Class-A coach named Carlos Chantres suggested switching from a two-seam look to a four-seam changeup to get more depth, and it stuck. By 2019 it wasn't just a good pitch, it was the best changeup in baseball, full stop: 51.9% usage, more than any qualified pitcher in the sport, and a .181 wOBA allowed on it that led all of MLB. Sixty-eight of his 88 strikeouts that year came off the changeup alone. Nobody knew what was coming, and it didn't matter -- it was the same freakin' pitch, over and over, and hitters still couldn't square it up.

He was dynamite the rest of that 2017 season (2.70 ERA over his final two months as a Yankee) and even better once October hit -- a 2.38 ERA across the whole postseason, a save in ALDS Game 4 against Cleveland, 2.1 perfect innings in the Wild Card win over Minnesota. Then he scuffled through an ugly 2018 before that monster 2019 -- 72 appearances, tied for sixth in the AL, a career high he'd never sniff again. Then, in July 2020, his elbow gave out. Tommy John surgery that August ended the season and the stint. The Yankees didn't bring him back.

The Long Way Back

Kahnle signed a rehab-structured deal with the Dodgers that December, missed all of 2021, and didn't pitch in a game again until April 2022 -- nearly two years after going under the knife. The Dodgers stint had its own gut-punch ending: in the 2022 NLDS, he allowed all three batters he faced to score in the decisive Game 4 loss to San Diego, ending a 111-win season. He'd relive a version of that nightmare two years later, in a much bigger game.

The Yankees brought him back on a two-year, $11.5 million deal in December 2022, and after missing the first 58 games of 2023 with biceps tendonitis, Kahnle looked as good as he'd ever looked in pinstripes -- a 2.66 ERA and a pitch that opposing hitters simply couldn't do anything with (he didn't allow a run in 33 of his 42 outings that year). Then came 2024.

Key Moments

A Brutal Kind of October

For most of the 2024 postseason, Kahnle was the best story in the Yankees bullpen. He picked up the save in ALCS Game 4 on 18 pitches, every single one a changeup. He then rattled off 61 consecutive changeups spanning from that ALCS to Game 3 of the World Series -- of his 143 total postseason pitches, 129 were changeups. Opponents hit .188 against him in October. It was, genuinely, one of the more absurd stretches of shutdown relief pitching this franchise has produced in the last decade.

And then the two biggest games of the year happened to be the two where it fell apart. Game 1 of the World Series: Ohtani doubles off him in the 8th, the defense botches the relay, the Dodgers tie it and eventually win in extras on Freeman's walk-off slam (that one's on Nestor Cortes, to be fair, not Kahnle). Game 5, the clincher: Yankees up after a wild back-and-forth, Kahnle takes the ball in the 8th, doesn't get an out, and the Dodgers finish the comeback to win the championship. "I let my team down," he said afterward, eyes red. He wasn't wrong, and he wasn't the only reason it happened, either -- but try telling that to a fanbase watching its season end on his line.

That October run also cost him. The Yankees never made Kahnle a real offer that winter. He later said on "Foul Territory" that the team told him early, "We don't think we can meet your numbers," adding, "I feel like they didn't even try, to be honest." He signed with Detroit that January, then moved on to Boston's org in 2026. Two tours, two lights-out changeups, two absolutely brutal endings in the biggest games either team ever asked him to pitch in.

Two stints, one nasty changeup, and a World Series that gave him both his best month in pinstripes and his worst week. That's the file on Tommy Kahnle -- and it's a lot more interesting than "solid middle reliever" would ever let on.