Former Royals pitcher Ian Kennedy reflects on his time in KC, its impact on his career

A familiar face appeared from the home bullpen at Chase Field wearing an Arizona Diamondbacks uniform on Tuesday night. Diamondbacks setup man and former Kansas City Royals starting pitcher-turned-closer Ian Kennedy retired the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 hitters against his old club in order to preserve a two-run lead.

Kennedy, 37, has pitched in 16 major-league seasons including five with the Royals after they signed him to a five-year $70 million deal, the largest contract given to a pitcher in franchise history.

He had dubious results as a starter for the Royals from 2016-18, successfully made the transition to a closer in 2019 (a 30-save season) and scuffled through a forgetful pandemic-abbreviated 2020 season characterized by ineffectiveness and shortened by injury.

Before his outing against the Royals on Tuesday, Kennedy spoke with The Star in the Diamondbacks’ clubhouse — about his tenure with the Royals, how his move to the bullpen and Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred altered his career trajectory, his struggles in adapting to being used in high-leverage situations and how that contributed to him signing with the Texas Rangers ahead of last season.

“I had a lot of fun,” Kennedy said of his experience with the Royals. “It was just a great organization. Dayton (Moore), from the top down they were awesome. It’s one of the front offices that I still keep in contact with everybody, pretty much. I had a great time.

“On-the-field stuff, the struggles, is just kind of how the game works. Just by being there was a ton of fun. Everywhere I go, I try to find the positive. We made it our home. The community in Kansas City was always awesome. We really, really enjoyed our time in that stage of life for us.”

Kennedy’s tenure coincided with the Royals’ attempt to extend the collective run of several core players from their 2014 and 2015 World Series teams — he overlapped with Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Jarrod Dyson — as well as the start of an ongoing rebuilding effort that included back-to-back 100-loss seasons in 2018 and 2019.

Along with the team’s rough patch, Kennedy’s individual results also struggled to live up to the free-agent deal he signed. In three years as a starter here, Kennedy posted a record of 19-33 with a 4.49 ERA, 420 strikeouts, 167 walks, a 1.29 WHIP, and a .247 opponent’s batting average in 85 starts and 469 1/3 innings.

His 2019 shift to the bullpen represented a rarity. He became just the fourth major-league pitcher since 1969 (when saves became an official statistic) to have registered both a 20-win season and a 30-save season. He joined Dennis Eckersley, John Smoltz and Derek Lowe in that exclusive group. Kennedy earned 21 wins during his first stint with the Diamondbacks in 2011.

Kennedy’s career-changing move

Kennedy went 11-11 with a 3.68 ERA in 2016, his first season in KC and the club’s most recent season with a .500 record or better (81-81). His next two seasons featured stints on the IL (one in 2017 and two in 2018) and waning success as he went 8-22 with a 5.06 ERA over those two years.

During spring training 2019, the Royals made the decision to go with their young pitching options in the starting rotation and move Kennedy to the bullpen full-time for the first time in his career. He hadn’t made a relief appearance in the majors since 2009.

“Cal was there and kind of helped me because this is what he did in his career, he would go from starter to reliever,” Kennedy said of Royals pitching coach Cal Eldred. “I didn’t want to do it. I don’t think anybody really wants to. It’s just kind of a stage.

“Now, I look back on it as it revived my career a little bit. Not many people are signing — I mean, I would’ve been a free agent. I would’ve been a 36-year-old starting pitcher that eats up innings and just gets starts. Not many people are starters like that. As a reliever, it kind of revived me. It brought up my stuff, made my body feel a lot better. I look back at it as a total positive. Dayton was the first one to tell me about it and kind of bring it up and believe in me as a reliever.”

Kennedy saved 30 games in his first season in the bullpen, despite not having been made the club’s primary closer until late May. He finished tied for fourth in the AL in saves. His 28 saves from May 30 through the end of the season led the majors, including 19 saves after the All-star break.

Kennedy became the fifth Royals pitcher to record a 30-save season, joining Dan Quisenberry (five times), Jeff Montgomery (five times), Joakim Soria (three times) and Greg Holland (three times).

“The next year was not a whole lot of fun, just trying to learn to pitch in any circumstance and every inning I think I pitched in other than the third and the fourth,” Kennedy said. “That was a crazy year I want to kind of forget. It kind of helped me transition to what I did last year kind of. I knew I could start (over) again. I wasn’t going to let 2020 determine what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

“I’m super thankful that they even gave me the opportunity to do that, and Ned (Yost) believing in me to pitch the ninth inning. I had a ton of fun doing it.”

A failure to adapt to “high leverage”

The Royals’ bullpen was a strength in 2020. That unit posted a 3.84 ERA (eighth-best in MLB), and their relief pitchers ranked fourth in the majors (second in the AL) in strikeouts (275). Their 19 saves were third most behind Tampa Bay (23) and Cleveland (20) in that 60-game season.

During the offseason leading up to 2020, the club bolstered its relief corps with the additions of Holland and Trevor Rosenthal, along with Kennedy and a group of young relievers led by Scott Barlow and Josh Staumont.

Royals manager Mike Matheny announced his intentions in spring training to forgo traditional roles for his relievers in favor of a matchup-based approach — using his best arms in various innings in high-leverage situations that hold the potential to swing the tide of a game, regardless of what inning they occur.

Rosenthal eventually settled into the closer’s role.

“I was the only guy who had a hard time with it, but I was also the oldest guy,” Kennedy said. “... Everybody else did great. Our bullpen was really good that year. It was just me that had a hard time.”

Kennedy never felt comfortable with that setup. His transition from the routine-oriented existence of a starting pitcher to a reliever had gone well when he had a set role as the closer.

“That whole year it was difficult because I felt like I was going from starting to relieving in ‘19 and then the next year learning how to stay locked in,” Kennedy said. “There’s no role. The role was ‘high leverage.’ That’s the mysterious high leverage, that’s what everybody says. I don’t think it works. I don’t. I still believe it doesn’t work.

“You look at every really good bullpen, they have a closer. They usually have a setup guy. And then there’s some high-leverage situations. You can only have a couple guys do that. I really believe that it doesn’t work. There are different philosophies.”

Kennedy, now two seasons removed from his last year with the Royals, still feels strongly about the feasibility of staying ready for the loosely defined high-leverage role.

“I’ve even said it to Mike,” Kennedy said. “It was tough for me. ‘Hang with me. This is tough.’ I was pretty open about it. To try to stay locked in for that long is very, very hard. When you’re locked in from when you’re down two or up five, that’s a huge swing. Trying to do that from when the starter is out of the game until the ninth inning is crazy hard. If you try to limit to maybe the last couple innings, maybe the last two you can flip-flop a couple guys, it’s a lot easier to manage.”

Kennedy struggled to find any consistency in 2020. He made one “start” in the opener role but also entered games in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings that season.

He posted a 9.00 ERA in 15 appearances (14 innings) with 15 strikeouts, five walks and 20 hits allowed.

Kennedy went on the injured list in late August after he crumbled to the ground going after an infield grounder. He went on the IL with a calf strain, an injury he said he sustained prior to the ground ball but tried to pitch through. He wasn’t activated again until late September, and he did not pitch in a game after his injury.

Matheny described Kennedy’s final year with the Royals as a “tough season.” Matheny also reiterated his belief that the high-leverage approach to using a bullpen is partially dependent on the pitching staff’s personnel and depth.

“I think most guys who have been around and been just a closer, it’s a hard adjustment to make,” Matheny said. “It’s different when you bring up young guys and you put them in leverage and they understand that that leverage has different meanings instead of an inning. It’s always going to be harder for the guys who’ve experienced it a different way.

“But he came in and we just tried to get everybody to buy into we’re going to do whatever we can to win a game. We still struggled with that some nights with guys because they would rather know an inning. If you had the kind of makeup of a pen where you could do that, it’s nice to have.

“You have the seventh. You have the eighth. You have the ninth. It doesn’t matter because we just have faith that you’re going to come in and mow it down. And our starters are getting us six. There’s one guy that might be able to help him out in the sixth, and everybody kind of knows their roles. I think those days are pretty far behind us.”

Moving on from KC

Before last season, Kennedy signed a minor-league contract that included a spring training invitation with the Texas Rangers.

Knowing that he’d have a chance to settle into a role was a big factor in his decision to go with the Rangers. That and a familiar face from his early days with the Royals.

The Rangers hired former Royals pitcher Chris Young as their general manager before last season. Young, part of the Royals’ World Series championship team in 2015, was a teammate of Kennedy’s in 2016 and until the Royals released Young in June 2017.

Kennedy likened his comfort with Young to that trust he had in Moore, describing them both as men of their words and loyal.

Young assured Kennedy he’d have a chance to compete for a job at the back end of the bullpen. Having been in Kennedy’s position as a starter-turned-reliever at the end of his own career, Kennedy felt Young understood his concerns.

“To me, I just felt that was right for us, at least for me personally,” Kennedy said. “I went through that and I didn’t even do it for all 60 games. It was probably 30 games. And it was tough.”

Last season with the Rangers and then the Philadelphia Phillies (he was traded in July), Kennedy posted a 3.20 ERA out of the bullpen and recorded 26 saves with a 1.10 WHIP, 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings and and 3.65-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 56 1/3 innings (55 games).

This winter’s MLB lockout created a lot of uncertainty for Kennedy, who had been in the process of moving his family west to California, where his roots are and his family still lives. He and his wife have seven children. The second youngest, Eli, was born the day after the end of the 2019 season.

“No one would really do anything, even before the lockout,” Kennedy said. “Then after the lockout, there was still limited teams that were doing anything. But the Diamondbacks were calling from the very beginning. They believed in me. They signed Mark (Melancon). I knew I was going to be setting up for him.”

Kennedy’s best years as a starter came with the Diamondbacks, and he has great memories from his time with the franchise. In his first 21 appearances this season, he’d had seven holds and three saves (in five chances) and posted a 3.72 ERA in 19 1/3 innings.

As far as how long he sees himself continuing to pitch, Kennedy hasn’t decided.

“I’ve kind of been taking it year by year, I think, as I look at Isaac standing here coming and being in the clubhouse like this,” Kennedy said, referring to his 4-year-old son who, a few feet away, was going through a pitching motion as if throwing a ball.

“Until I can’t do it anymore and I’m not competitive, maybe that’s when I start thinking about it,” Kennedy said. “I love being with him. My kids have the memories that they have of the stadium. They haven’t been able to be out here very much because of school. But they get out of school Friday.

“Just watching him, he’s not going to have this access ever again. When you’re done, you’re done. It’s not like you’re going to come back. I’m not ready yet.”