Kahn is able: Shaker grad having breakout season
Right-hander made Yankees debut Wednesday after White Sox trade
Tommy Kahnle and Jeff Hoffman had only met once before they pitched on opposite teams in the same game on July 8. They were both at the top of their games, the top of their professions. And, they are both Shaker High School graduates.
Kahnle is now in his fourth year in Major League Baseball. He’s finally refined his game and found a repeatable delivery. On Tuesday night, he was shipped off from the White Sox to the Yankees — the organization that drafted him in the fifth round from Lynn University.
The flame thrower struggled a lot in Colorado. When he goes back and watches tapes of himself pitching, he’s not happy with the pitcher he sees.
“My mechanics are way different than they were when I was in college,” Kahnle told The Record before his trade. “Everything’s refined. It’s kind of more quiet. I used to be very violent and had no idea where the ball was going. Everybody’s had a little input here and there, but basically it comes down to myself in the end.”
After his first inning with the Yankees on Wednesday in which he pitched one inning and struck out two batters, he now has a 2.43 ERA on the season, with 62 strikeouts and just seven walks.
His fastball can hit 100 miles
per hour. With Chicago, he was the set-up man to closer David Robertson. With them both on the Yankees, Kahnle will probably pitch in less high-leverage situations for the time being. He’ll also be on a roster on the fast track toward a playoff berth.
“Tommy is a guy who has obviously always had the arm,” White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. “But he’s commanding the zone. Keeping the ball down in the zone. His breaking pitches are working very effectively. His confidence is going up. I think he’s repeating his delivery. He’s repeating the spots that he needs to hit. When you have velocity like he has, with life, you’re able to be very effective.”
When he was at Shaker, Kahnle hit as high as 91 miles per hour. It was enough to make him good enough to pitch in college. But a year later, when he hit 96 miles per hour after his freshman year, that’s when he became a prospect. He credits weightlifting, and having a strong year playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League for being taken in the fifth round.
Finding consistent velocity was always the struggle for Kahnle. He says that he was “young and naive” when the speed of his pitches would rise and fall throughout starts.
“I was hitting 98, 99,” Kahnle said. “I think from right there, teams knew that my future was more in the bullpen than it was as a stater. I struggled with velo too as a starter. I’d have days where I was 94 and 98, and the next day I’d be 88 and 92.”
Kahnle started this season with a miserable Spring Training. He didn’t even make the White Sox roster to start the season — instead getting called up in early April to replace an injured arm. In his first game, he gave up a walkoff hit.
Now, though, he’s proven himself to be a key piece in a trade that the Yankees hope bolster their roster ahead of a surprising playoff push. Four years ago, he wasn’t a prized or refined enough prospect for the Yankees to protect from the Rule 5 Draft. Now, he’s worth the prospects the White Sox got in return for him.
“I think I proved to a lot of guys,” Kahnle said. “I think everybody knew I had something like this in me. It was just whether or not I had to figure it out, and get it together.”