Three years ago, Dayton Moore pushed all his chips into the window of contention by signing Ian Kennedy to a five-year, $70 million deal, tied for the largest contract in club history. While Kennedy was quite solid the first year of that deal, the next two have been pretty rough.
He has been barely over replacement level in 2017 and 2018 with a declining strikeout rate, a rising walk rate, and the third-highest home run rate in baseball. Out of the 125 starting pitchers to go at least 200 innings over the last two seasons, Kennedy ranks 14th-worst in ERA (5.