Email a copy of 'Arbitration Breakdown: Jake Arrieta' to a friend
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By Matt Swartz | at
Email a copy of 'Arbitration Breakdown: Jake Arrieta' to a friend
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Los Calcetines Rojos
That extension will be quite hefty if it happens. He’ll be 30 at the start of the season and I’m sure the Cub’s are so damn excited about negotiating that deal
Dave P
Why do they compare ERA’s when everyone knows David Price faced the DH 3 to 4 times every game and Jake faced another pitcher 3 to 4 times per game. Should I exaggerate…who would you rather pitch against…the stats of Encarnacion…39 HR’s…111 RBI’s…OPS 0.929……………or Lester…0 HR’s…0 RBI’s…0.065 BA…and 0.172 OPS…??
cosmo1
I hate to say this, but it may be best for the Cubs to get the next two prime years out of him, and then let another club pay a massive contract for his decline years. Not a popular idea among many Cubs fans, but it might be the wisest one.
Goat_Rider
Agreed as a Cubs fan.
SFgiantsUK
Agreed, it was a freak year for him, he is not going to be Sub2 ERA in 2016, and neither is Greinke
Larry D.
I believe that to be a reasonable approach. I also think the Cubs have done a good job of finding high value at a fair price and would expect the same philosophy in whatever decision they make regarding Arrieta.
Los Calcetines Rojos
my one worry with not extending him is the sign that sends to other players on the team. Arrieta is probably the best Cubs pitcher since Zambrano or Maddux so to let him go, age and money aside, would be quite hard to comprehend for the normal fan which unfortunately for the cubs fan base is substantial due to their popularity. As a red sox fan Theo made his fair share of questionable decisions I wasn’t too high on and I’m afraid when it comes time for extensions there may be a few more, I do hope that is not the case though!
Lance
it would not be great PR if he has another good/great season and they let him get away. but they can wait. can’t compare him with maddux who was almost machine like with the cubs and was only 26 years old! zambarano is a good reason why you DON’T want to give a big, long term deal to a pitcher. Big Z did get one…and one good year with it but injuries limited him afterwards and his career was over by age 32. Arrieta is this year’s Corey Kluber. Two years ago he had a sensational year, winning the Cy at age 38. Last year, he was only 9-15, but wasn’t as bad as the record indicated. Because Corey came up so late, he didn’t have much negotiating power. Indians signed him to a long term deal—but it’s not a terrible contract and the Tribe has the ability to opt out. It’s a hard call for the Cubbies.
Voice of Reason
I would let him play out his contract, too.
I’m a cub fan
haringbone
Agreed as a sane fan of another team.
cmb1974
I’m glad he turn in to a Cy Young pitcher. For the O’s he never came to be what he is for the Cubs. Hope you guys get to the W.S. This year
brandonmarin
Cubs should have all the leverage with extension talks. Offer 5 years for 100 call it a day, and win a WS. Arrieta is no fool. He knows no teams is going to want to break the bank on the FA market for a 32 year old pitchers unless he had a far longer track record them Arrieta.
bleacherbum2013
I totally agree with your thinking but don’t forget who Arrieta’s agent is…..Boras
cxcx
1) MLBTR has Donaldson, who is also in his second year of eligibility, getting a $7,7m raise. Why does the Kimbrel Rule not apply to him?
2) The fact that there is a limit to how large a raise could conceivably be is zero reason to propose that the likely maximum raise is $1m greater than the previous highest. What if he had gone 30-1 with a 0.97 ERA and was the consensus Cy Young and beat Harper for MVP? Would his raise still have been limited to $1m more than the last guy because something that occurred with Craig Kimbrel several years ago? I don’t know logic terms well at all but it’s something vaguely kind of similar to correlation vs. causation. Like the raises happened that way before so now they have to happen almost exactly that way going forward. No, they just happened that way before and will probably play out somewhat similarly going forward under similar conditions. This seems like an exceptional case. Logical limits would be he won’t get a $50m raise because baseball players don’t make that much and he won’t get a $20m raise because maybe the best players should, by the final year of arbitration, be making about as much or nearly as much as the best or highest paid veteran players and a subsequent $20m raise would blow him past the current top paid guys. So those are examples of logical limits on raises. “It happened to a closer four years ago so it should happen extremely similarly to a Cy Young winner now” just doesn’t seem that logical.
3) A couple of years ago Max Scherzer broke the 3rd-year arbitration record by $2.9m coming off a Cy Young campaign. Matt predicted him beating the record by $0.975m. Learn from a mistake and tweak the model, let it account for outliers.
22222pete
Seems the model has no league adjustments. The DH adds about 0.3 to ERA, and reduces K’s by about 0.3/9. to AL pitchers. Furthermore, K rates were 0.6 K/9 higher in the NL than they were in the AL in 2012 among starters due to the expansion of the strike zone and league., Arrieta still had the edge, but its not quite as drastic when you adjust the numbers accordingly for time and league
Mikel Grady
I am assuming we passed on price, Zimmerman and cueto expecting to sign arietta either sooner or later. I feel he is the real deal and two years later when he averages 20 wins and sub 2.50 era he will cost 30+. $125/5 . Pay that man his money
thecoffinnail
I am assuming by “we” you mean the Cubs. They passed on Price, Zimmermann and Cueto because they didn’t need an ace or a #2 since they already had Arrieta and Lester. What they needed was a solid #3. Which they got in Lackey for a quarter of what the cheapest of the 3 you mentioned received. Spending $120m on a #3 makes no sense and anyone that thought they would actually do that is foolish. Unless, of course you expected them to move the $150+mm man Lester to the #3 spot. They signed the perfect guy for that spot. Very smart signing by Theo and Hoyer.
Mikel Grady
Yes sir total agreement. Like I said if Cubs did not believe in arrieta as real deal they would have gotten price and not lackey,etc. But since they do believe in arrieta, when time to pay up lackey will be gone and left with arrieta Lester Hendricks . They aren’t done with pitching, I don’t believe they will go a entire season with hammel and Hendricks as well as playoffs . Trade soler for carrasco Ross or a Tampa bay young pitcher. Heyward plays corner outfield and sign span or fowler .
jr428
Felix went 19-5 with a 2.17 ERA in 2010, unless the article meant his arbitration was prior to the ’10 season.
JSappington
Yeah
Lance
hard to know how the Cubs did so far in the off season. we know they got an expensive outfielder who has averaged about 12hr and 60rbi’s over the last three years. they got a nice utility infielder and a 37 year old pitcher. will it work out? stay tuned! 🙂
Mikel Grady
Heyward career average 19 hr 68 rbi, jeter 15 and 77. I’m happy with heyward. Let Schwarber Bryant Rizzo soler hit 30 hrs each and heyward score because he is on base. Enjoy watching him rob batters with bases loaded and gunning runners out all season long . Boy Ozzie smith and brooks Robinson wouldn’t have a chance in today’s $$ for .200 hitters with 40 hrs making the big coin . Zobrist and lackey will be great for clubhouse and getting us to the promised land
Lance
LOL…..ah….the never ending love for the Cubs! Maybe Jason will win the triple crown but the reality is he hasn’t hit more than 14HR’s in four years. As for his defense….yes, it’s good. But OF’s defense is just a bonus. He had 290 chances in the OF last year. Comparisons with Ozzie are absurd. Oz touched the ball around 800+ times a year! Brooks was getting over 500 chances a year at third plus, he also had some power hitting over 20HR’s several times in his career and was over 100rbis a couple times.
Mikel Grady
He won’t come close to triple crown and we don’t need him too. It’s just refreshing to see a player get paid for being a solid all around player . Every position is valuable and to say outfield defense is a luxury, look at mets lose to royals when cespedes is kicking the ball around . Schwarber hurt us on occasion as well. Holding a runner at first or keeping them from going from 1st to 3rd matters. Sure for most of season it may not show up but who knows maybe he throws a runner out at home to win World Series. Go Cubs!
Lance
There has never been a team that fielded five tool players at all eight positions in the field. Every team has to sacrifice something, whether it’s power or average or the glove or speed or the arm. In the OF, teams usually are willing to go with power over defense. Obviously, the Cubs feel they don’t need power/rbis from Hayward and neither did STL. Maybe he, Zobrist & Lackey will power the Cubs to 120 wins and a ring.
cubs101wins
I think that a fair offer would be 10 mil in 2016 16 mil in 2017 22 mil in 2018 27 mil in 2019. So a 4 year 75 mil offer wouldn’t be to far off base for an older pitcher maybe a mutual option for 2020 at 32 mil with a 5 mil buyout if the team didnt exercise there side of it with an opt out after the 2018 season.