Kyle Kendrick and the Phillies avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $3.585 million deal last month, but today the two sides signed a new two-year, $7.5 million contract that cancels out the previous deal.
Or, put another way, they tacked on an extra year and another $3.915 million to the previous agreement.
Either way, the Phillies clearly valued the cost certainty that comes with pre-paying for Kendrick’s arbitration years and once the two-year contract ends they’ll still have him under team control in 2014 via his final year of arbitration.
Kendrick’s career strikeout rate of 4.1 per nine innings is the fourth-worst of any active pitcher with at least 500 innings, but he threw 115 innings with a 3.22 ERA last season split between the rotation and bullpen. He’s currently slated to be the Phillies’ long reliever unless the team finds a taker for Joe Blanton’s contract (and doesn’t replace Blanton with a new veteran starter).
