Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter stands out as one of the best performances of the season, and the right-hander’s overall dominant campaign has positioned him as one of the front-runners for the NL Cy Young Award. A season this excellent — Arrieta is 17-6 with a 2.11 ERA, 9.3 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9 in 183 innings — makes for a lucrative arbitration raise, but his raise could be steeper than most assume. As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes tweets, our arbitration projection model currently has Arrieta jumping to $9.9MM in 2016 — nearly triple his current $3.625MM salary. The Cubs control Arrieta through the 2017 season.
Here’s more on Arrieta and the game’s Central divisions…
- The trade that sent Arrieta and Pedro Strop to Chicago in exchange for Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger has been brought up a great deal since the no-hitter, but Mark Brown of Camden Chat argues that Arrieta was unlikely to ever succeed with the Orioles. Arrieta was 27 at the time he was traded and had shown great raw talent with poor results for the better part of four seasons. Arrieta gave the Orioles little reason to ever believe he’d turn around, having posted a 5.46 ERA in 358 innings through the age of 27.
- Though he wasn’t among the Twins’ first wave of September callups, top prospect Jose Berrios is still under consideration to join the team later this month, writes the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Mike Berardino. “I don’t think we have finalized everything we’re going to do here,” said manager Paul Molitor. “Going forward, his name is definitely still being talked about.” GM Terry Ryan admitted that the upcoming November roster crunch is “a piece” of the consideration, as Berrios doesn’t have to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason as he’s not yet Rule 5 eligible. However, Ryan also notes that the Twins already added Byron Buxton to the 40-man despite the fact that he also didn’t need to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft. Berardino runs down a number of Twins prospects that may need to be protected on the 40-man this winter.
- The Brewers announced today that left-hander Nathan Kirby, the team’s supplemental round pick from the most recent draft, underwent Tommy John surgery (h/t: Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, on Twitter). The Virginia product slipped from a potential Top 5-10 pick to the Comp Balance round after his stock dropped due to a lat strain. Kirby tossed just 12 2/3 innings with Milwaukee’s Class-A affiliate before being sidelined, and he could very well be lost for the entirety of the 2016 season now.
Some players will work out with certain teams because of meeting the right coach, being part of the right group of players, or just luck. For that, you just have to say some teams were lucky at the right time. For instance, the Arrieta deal. I’m willing to bet the only people who thought that would bring the Cubs their future ace were fanboys who would have said the same thing about any number of other pitchers.
The point being, Arrieta’s rise was unpredictable using sane mathematical models. Some trades just have an intangible element in there where you just have to say “well stuff happens.”
First of all the trade was silly.
Feldman was a tomato can and Clevenger is just an average catcher.
The problem with Arrieta in the end with the O’s, he could not hit the plate with a fork. He was always at a 100 pitches by the 5th inning. The other problem was that the Orioles wanted Arrieta to get surgery for bone chips in his elbow after they shut him down near the end of the 2010 season. He didn’t do it then and when he did he lost his form. He found it again in Chicago. The same thing with Strop. He too was originally pretty good for the O’s, but he lost his form and then found it again. I will tell you though this trade was a disaster for the O’s because they essentially got nothing in return for the players that are excelling in Cub Town. I never would have traded a power pitcher with control for a finesse veteran pitcher who was a free agent at the season’s end. That was my beef then and it still is today.
Sometimes, it takes a player a while to “get it.” Arrieta seems like one as does Corey Kluber and Nelson Cruz.