A's agree to 1 year deal with Joe Kennedy - unofficial 2006 roster updated.

Official story can be found here.

Kennedy was acquired by the A's from Colorado at the All-Star Break last
year and was 4-5 with a 4.45 ERA in 19 games, eight starts, with Oakland. He
also went 4-8 with a 7.04 ERA in 16 starts with the Rockies. The 26-year old
Kennedy posted a 3.00 ERA in 11 relief appearances with the A's before replacing
the injured Rich Harden in the starting rotation. He was 2-5 with a 5.06 ERA in
his eight starting assignments with Oakland.

Kennedy was somewhat above average as a left handed reliever coming out of the bullpen, but sucked as a starter. I don't know how much money we are talking about - I heard it is somewhere in the $2 million+ range - but figure this is probably a good deal for the A's. Between Kennedy and Flores, we now have 2 possible LOOGYs. Kennedy, along with Saarloos, can also pitch a lot of innings if any of our starters get in trouble and can move comfortably into a starter's role should any member of our rotation go down because of injury.

However, that is the one role I hope we don't have to see Kennedy in : a starter. Let's take a look at his numbers as a SP vs RP :

2005 with Oakland:
As a Starter - 5.06 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 2.90 K/BB ratio, 6.75 K/9, 0.279 BAA
As a Reliever - 3.00 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 1.20 K/BB ratio, 6.50 K/9, 0.235 BAA

As you can see, his ERA was way down as reliever. (In fact, his ERA over the 3 year period from 2002-2004 as a reliever was 2.73 versus 5.39 as a starter.) His WHIP and K/9 are almost identical, but notice the BAA is a full 44 points lower as a reliever than as a starter.