The Nationals officially signed second baseman Adam Kennedy to a one-year $1.25MM deal today, which includes a $2MM club option for 2011. Kennedy's fate was known to be tied to Orlando Hudson, who signed with the Twins the day before Kennedy agreed to terms with the Nats.
Kennedy, 34, hit .289/.348/.410 in 586 plate appearances for the Athletics last year. In his career he's been a strong defender at second base, though that was not evident in 2009's 421-inning sample.
The Cardinals released Kennedy in February of '08, eating most of the $4MM owed to him. The Rays signed him to a minor league deal and traded him to Oakland for a player to be named later in May. The Rays later received Joe Dillon in that deal.
MLB.com's Bill Ladson first reported the agreement and ESPN.com's Buster Olney added the terms of the deal.
Mike Axisa contributed to this post.
Not like we didn’t see this coming. We knew it’d come after O-Dog signed, but at 1 in the Morning?
The Nats just had a back up plan. Good Signing.
I agree and relatively cheap with another affordable option after the year expires.
yeah, this is probably the aftershock from the hudson deal. I guess he’s going to start now.
If at first you don’t succeed at least there’s Adam Kennedy!
Wow, I guess they really wanted a second baseman. Kennedy probably feels a little unwanted since hours after Hudson signed, the Nats signed him as a total backup plan. It’s just kinda funny.
Kennedy probably should feel unwanted…………… This is an unfortunate side effect of playing baseball with all the enthusiasm and zest of waiting in line at the DMV, as well as imploding in STL.
(although congrats on the modest rebound in Oakland. Too bad only like six people noticed.)
I was totally on the Orlando Hudson bandwagon, and therefore was not going to get excited about Kennedy. HRE is right, though; I listened to folks who said he had a bad defensive year, but didn’t notice his decent offensive stats.
This means Cristian Guzman does not have to play 2B, and that is a blessing. However, it also means that Rizzo has to expose another player to waivers, one we might lose like Marco Estrada. Hopefully the Nats can maintain their fragile stable of pitchers.
Actually last year Kennedy was in the bottom half of major league second basemen in OPS. And his WAR was one of the lowest of second basemen.
All players have at least one bad defensive year. As long as the Nats keep him away from first base and the outfield and third base, he should be fine.
This is a great pick up for that nationals.kennedy is my favorite player.numbers dont do him justice. you have to watch this guy play everyday to understand what a good player he is. He’s a hard nose player. you can bet he is guna go out there and play like he has something to prove, because clearly he was a 2nd choice to hudson. after being in the minors last year he came back and tore it up! it will be the same this year. having a player that steps up when he is counted out is just what the nationals need look at his numbers for 7th inning or later, runners in scoring possition, and 2 outs and runners in scoring possition. you just might be impressed. he’s clutch. and as for his defense last year wasnt really a good example. he had never played 3rd before at a major league level. if you look at his past defensive stats he played gold glove worthy, but as everyone knows only the big name players win those. kennedy has also started at every position but pitcher and catcher
Yeah, I am also very pleased that Adam Kennedy continues to hang around at the AAAA level………………….. This is not because I like any aspect of his game, but because he reminds me suspiciously of “Greg” from Yes Dear.
There’s no such thing as “clutch”. Its been proven that those numbers you’ve indicated even out to a player’s normal capabilities given a decent sample size.
theres no such thing as clutch?? obviously you know nothing about baseball. being able to look up stats is not knowing baseball. anyone who has actually played the game and doesnt just sit on message boards and takes stats from a website would know that there IS such thing as clutch. some people play better under pressure. i dont care if there is a stat or not. so youve clearly never step foot on a baseball dimond jake, and if so you were terrible and were never put in during the “clutch” opportunities. even then you should have been able to see the other kids doing it from the best angle possible, the bench. i hate people that go on these things and act like baseball is a science and that there is a stat for everything. people say the west coast doesnt know anything about baseball?? maybe thats true if your mean stats. but that is because we dont sit on the computer and look up stats. were the ones youre looking the stats up for. hey since you love stats so much…go look up how many more players come out of california alone compared to the whole east coast.
There’s a reason every successful franchise in MLB has a stats department as part of their front office. And I like how you resort to things like personal attacks and useless geography to attack my opinion. I didn’t even say a damn thing about the West Coast.
He has never started at SS, LF, or CF. He has a combined 3.2 innings at those three positions which means he was shifted there after he pinch hit for someone or replaced someone due to injury. And guess what? I just sat on my computer and looked up those stats… FROM CALIFORNIA! this is a trade rumor website. The majority of the visitors are sabermetricians. The fact that a bitter ex-athlete comes on to the very same “message” boards that he makes fun of, is not only sweet-sweet irony but also hilarious. I won’t say there is no such thing as clutch, but you definitely cannot weigh so much importance on it with a lack of statistical data to back it up. I’ve watched David Ortiz since 2003, who is notoriously labeled with the tag clutch. And I’ve seen him ground to first to end a game more times than I’ve seen him walk-off with the win. Why is that? Because just like someone else has already stated, the more close-and-late stats pile up, the more they level out to other splits. Now, on to the Nationals..
This signing doesn’t make a lick of sense. Even if he is flipped at the deadline, he’s not bringing anything of any real importance back, as evidence by the Joe Dillon return from last years flip. Why the Nationals need a 34 year old to play every day is beyond me. They’re not about to pass the Phillies to take the East, but since the Central is such garbage, everyone else in the East as a legitimate shot at the Wild Card. This signing essentially pushes Desmond back to AAA and leaves the punchless Christian Guzman back at SS. Paying Desmond the minimum and keeping the change they paid Kennedy makes more sense for a team like Washington. Use that money for scouting and developing rather than hoping for a modest return in a trade with Adam-freaking-Kennedy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a useful guy to have on your team, but at a position like 2B, there are countless guys that could have been had for much less that will end up with similar numbers, both offensively and defensively, at the end of the year. Finally to touch on something else someone said, about Kennedy not making the roster, the Nats wouldn’t sign a guy just to release him, it’s a major league contract so he’s making the team.
AAAA? he was in the minor leagues for only the start of ONE year? how do you come up with that? he has an ALCS mvp. and a ring. not to knock on the nationals but how many of their players can say that? shouldnt take you too long to answer that.
by the way yes dear is a great show anyways
Chill out………. Just joking about the AAAA level(this is how I refer to what is known collectively as “the majors.”) I’m not referring to players who are on the brink/fringe/bus-trips all season long level.
Adam Kennedy is good at many things, such as……………….. physically occupying a roster spot…………………Looking upset with himself as he repeatedly keeps rolling over hanging-curves into groundouts to the 2B………………… Standing around with a vacant, out-of-breath look on his face…………… Batting in turn in his correct numerical slot in the lineup……………………….. etc.
Adam Kennedy puts on eyeblack better than any other player I have ever seen. No joke. He makes 2 perfect black rectangles every time.
(Jorge Sosa(2006STL) ) (Julian Tavarez(2007BOS)) (Livan Hernandez)
HRE-
Oh, man. I was amused by your riff on Kennedy, but then you got just plain mean by putting the names of Sosa, Tavarez and Livo on!! That was just cruel to remind us that the first two were even on the Nats! None of them are on the team now, and should not be. Perhaps that, at least, is a sign of improvement.
Hopefully this ALCS MVP will do much better than those 3 MVPs did for the Nats last year.
Yeah, but I bet Livan willl be back with the Nats though before too long, popping up like a turd that just won’t flush……………… This is very good news for Livan Hernandez, 14 members of his immediate family, and the Phillies lineup…………….. and bad news for Nationals fans.
In all honesty though, I am starting to like some of the improvements I am seeing in Washington. At the very least, your FO is showing a degree of willingness to throw money at problems, which is a start. In 6 years, who knows, you may buy a championship. Anyway, I think there is real reason to hold your heads at least halfway-up, Nats fans, at least with regards to things on the offensive side of the ball. Hopefully the S & S boys can pick up your rotation.
so is kennedy gonna start? does guzman play shortstop now? all i know about guzman is that he gets alot of negativity because he is overpaid, but i also know he kills the phils. whenever he plays us it seems like he goes 3-4 every time…im just curious if this kennedy thing is gonna entertain ideas to try to move guzman??
I guess it is like this, one person’s trash is another persons treasure. Adam Kennedy, it goes like this, he probably last tell the trading deadline and then get traded to a contender, if he even make it to the major league roster.
I would be shocked if he wasn’t on the Major League roster for the Nats, but I agree that he will probably be a trading deadline casualty.
I feel that Felipe Lopez was overlooked here. Doesn’t he seem like a better player right now than Kennedy? Of the two, I’d have Lopez over Kennedy, but that’s just me. Just for the record, I wouldn’t have minded O-Dog coming to DET.
Been there, done that, there is no way FLop would get a chance to come back to DC.
I don’t even think they’d want him. I’ve never seen any player look like he just didn’t give a rats a** before I saw Lopez in DC. He honestly just played like he really didn’t care.
I have no respect for Lopez, Kennedy is a real grinder, I’ll take him over Lopez, who is a real dog. I don’t care if Lopez hits .350. your right DC fan, he just played like he didn’t care. Hey, Lopez tell us when you feel like hustling!! I like Kennedy, always gives his all and can hit well, field well and run well. Hes got something to prove also, because no way Hudson gets 4 times more than him. Kennedy has always been a pretty clutch hitter also. When he was with the Angels he used to kill the Yanks.
Good player, good signing for the right price. Hudson wasn’t worth more than 3 million.
I like this deal for the Nats, gives them some stability up the middle, so they won’t have to start a second baseman who’s never played the position before like either Guzman or Desmond. I think either Kennedy or Guzman gets shipped out in July to make way for Ian Desmond.
guys chill out on adam kennedy. He had a low defensive year but i think moving around the diamond and going from AAA to MLs can have that affect on a guy if he doesnt have a stable mind set of where hes going to play everyday. As for offensive numbers he did way better then the 2nd baseman we had last year and i think they were very slightly better then Hudson offensive stats. PLUS we are only paying this guy 1.25 mil….. we just saved over 3-4 mil for a guy who is almost the same as Hudson. i like the deal and i am content with it. i agree as well tho that he will be moved at the trade deadline if guzman doesnt to bring up desmond et al.
My MLBTR pet peeve: Posting Adam Kennedy’s signing again. Sure, it might have barely become official today, but is a full post really necessary? We already knew the details of the contract a few days ago. Do you really need to post this again?
seriously? it bothers you that much when a signing is officially made mlbtr makes a separate post about it? how bout you just… scroll past it. you wasted more time typing to complain about it than it took go to the next post.