On a team like the Phillies, where most of the roster is
constructed with either big money, already proven veterans, or wait and see
whether they’ll pan out young players, it’s easy to not appreciate unspectacular
but constant performers like Kyle Kendrick.
Kendrick, who I affectionately refer to as KK, a pitcher who many
thought was a little lucky when he first came up and posted a sub 4.00 ERA over
two thirds of a season, and then subsequently proved that he was the next year
when he got completely shelled (5.49 ERA).
The performance was bad enough to get him bounced from the rotation and
the majors for all but 26 innings of relief appearances and spot starts in
2009. Yes, for much of the year Kendrick
was relegated to the Phils Triple A affiliate, the Lehigh Iron Pigs. But then something happened. In the darkness KK found the light, and like
a phoenix from the ashes he arose the following year to post a solid 4.73 ERA.
A word on
this. While Kendrick’s performance was
far from spectacular that year he was merely occupying the fifth starter
role. On many teams the fifth starter is
a rotating gallery of unpolished rookies, journeyman veterans, and patchwork
relievers. That year the Phillies
entered with a starting four of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy
Oswalt. All that we needed that year was
someone to plug the dam every fifth day so as to not embarrass the team, and to
allow the rotation to turn over where any one of Halladay, Lee, Hamels, or
Oswalt had a much better than not chance of winning their respective game. Kendrick didn’t make any highlight reels in
2010, but at under a half million dollars salary, Kendrick was better than
league average, and didn’t operate to discount the team’s still formidable
offense and historically excellent starting pitching. More than anything he was an asset.
The
International Accounting Standards Board defines an asset as “a resource
controlled by the enterprise as a result of past events and from which future
economic benefits are expected to flow to the enterprise.” The defining feature of Kendrick’s tenure
with the Phillies has been the reliability with which he delivers modest to
better than expected results. He never
gets hurt, he takes the ball every fifth day, and he’s consistently gotten
better over the course of his career.
These positive attributes are only a part of the equation. What makes Kendrick such an asset, and what
puts him in harsh contrast to the rest of the Phillies roster, is that he is
cost-controlled.
After his
turn around season Kyle Kendrick has posted ERAs of 3.22 in 2011 and 3.90 in
2012. This year he is at 3.22. The predominant way of quantifying player
performance among number oriented analysts is the “wins above replacement”
metric that values the number of wins a player contributes over a replacement
level player. A replacement level player
can be imagined as a fringe major leaguer.
On the open market some have valued a single win above replacement at
five million dollars. This type of
thinking justifies mammoth deals for proven sluggers and elite starters in
excess of 20m a year. An MVP candidate
will typically post over 5 WAR giving the player a market value of $25m or so
for that year.
In 2011
Kendrick posted 1.8 WAR, in 2011 1.5 WAR.
This year KK has already accumulated 2.3 WAR after making just thirteen
starts on the year. Extrapolating that
out to a 31 start season Kendrick will have been worth 5.5 WAR. That would give him a market value of $27m
give or take this year. Obviously, this
assumes that Kendrick will keep up his pace, but when you consider that he is
only earning $4.5m this year you can see that he’s already made good on his
contract twice this year.
This
extremely low cost to benefit that Kendrick delivers is in juxtaposition to the
rest of the Phils’ roster. Cole Hamels
and Cliff Lee are great pitchers but if they’re not borderline Cy-Young
contenders they’re overpaid at $19.5m and $25m respectively this year. The Ryan Howard contract is an albatross and
the Phillies will be stuck paying him ($25m/yr), at least twice what he’s
worth, until the end of 2016 (Who knows what he’ll be then? Collecting SSD perhaps). Jonathan Papelbon has pitched great since he
joined the club, but taking the ball for one inning twice a week just isn’t
worth the $13m that we owe him. Other
than Kendrick the only value propositions on the roster are young outfielders
Domonic Brown and Ben Revere who will soon earn big money through the league’s
arbitration process.
You’ll be
hard pressed to sight a KK jersey walking around Philly this summer, but in a
year where the team is still hanging around even though they don’t quite
deserve too, it’s evident that Kendrick is a big reason for their moderate
success. Retaining him through the ups
and downs of his early career was one of the few smart front office moves of
recent years because this asset has paid dividends.