Phillies right-hander Jake Arrieta may be facing season-ending surgery on a bone spur in his elbow, but he’ll continue to pitch while the team evaluates his health. The plan is for Arrieta to take the ball sometime during Philadelphia’s series against the Nationals this weekend, Phillies manager Gabe Kapler told SportsRadio 94WIP on Wednesday (via ESPN.com).
While Kapler admitted the injury has hampered Arrieta, he added that “it’s always worth considering if Jake at 85 percent of himself is a better option than what we have at Triple-A.”
Three members of the Phillies’ 40-man roster – Enyel De Los Santos, Cole Irvin and Drew Anderson – are on Triple-A Lehigh Valley’s pitching staff. Santos, Irvin and Anderson have all spent some time in the majors this year, but they’ve each struggled over limited sample sizes. While De Los Santos and Irvin have put up mid-3.00s ERAs in the minors this year, their effective run prevention has come with less enticing peripherals. Anderson, meanwhile, owns a near-6.00 ERA with Lehigh Valley in 2019. The 22-year-old JoJo Romero is Philly’s seventh-ranked prospect at MLB.com (one spot behind De Los Santos, nine ahead of Irvin), but he isn’t on the 40-man and hasn’t earned a promotion anyway. Romero sports an ERA a tad south of 10.00 in seven Triple-A starts.
Not only do the Phillies lack starting options they’re fully comfortable with below the majors, but their big league rotation hasn’t lit it up. The team’s starters rank 19th in the majors in K/BB ratio, 24th in ERA and 25th in FIP, owing in part to Arrieta’s disappointing performance. Now in the second season of a three-year, $75MM contract, the 33-year-old has pitched to a 4.67 ERA/5.07 FIP with 7.08 K/9 and 3.33 BB/9 in 108 innings. Arrieta’s contract gives him the right to opt out after the season, while the Phillies could void his opt-out and opt into two more years and $40MM. Neither one of those things will happen, though, so the Phillies will end up owing him another $20MM in 2020.
Despite the Phillies’ pricey commitment to Arrieta, they’ll run the risk of having him continue to pitch through injury for the time being. Regardless of whether he holds up, the Phillies seem like shoo-ins to fortify their rotation from outside before the July 31 trade deadline. In the meantime, the club will start the second half of the season Friday at 47-43 and a half-game up on the NL’s second wild-card spot.
Terrible idea
This is awful…
Remember when people were yelling about collusion because he wasn’t signed. Good times. Sign free agents for no more than a year.
Yeah good luck throwing a team together with that philosophy. At least you might net Trevor Bauer
Take all the player that signed one year contracts form this last crop of free agents put them on the same team and you would have a contender
The guy’s had a 6.63 ERA over his last 7 starts and is hurt. Sounds like a great idea. If you can’t find SOMEBODY in your minor league system to at least give you that, you’ve got big problems.
The Phillies have big problems.
@Scuba, Watching him is painful right now because you can see over the past few starts that he’s having a tenuous hold on his command. When he was having trouble prior to that it was because he would occasionally take a while to figure out what certain pitches were going to do on a particular day. Then he’d calibrate in on what and how things were working. Now it’s a total spray and pray. They have to shelve him now because it’s obvious that there’s something very wrong with his arm, Pick the best AAA guy and roll on until a trade happens.
And Arrieta wonders why no one wanted to sign him to his ridiculous contract demands two years ago. He was declining then and now as the injury to accompany it. Bad idea by the Phils, but they may not be able to pull off a trade for a starter with all the money they blew on Harper and Realmuto. Anyone know if they got the space if does go down?
No salary cap in baseball chief. Just depends on if they r willing to actually spend more or not
We’re playing for the Wild Card, at best…Shut him down, clean up his elbow and get him ready for his swan song season with The Phightins’….
Not only playing it safe, but smart as well
It should be a personal choice and his choice only. He can live with the pain and repercussions if so be it, but can also look himself in the mirror at the end and say “I gave it all with no regrets” hopefully..
As a division foe, nothing but respect in that team first attitude.
Ugh, I think his employers who are paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to pitch in baseball games for years to come have at least some say in how best to handle the situation.
So what does your salary need to be where you no longer have control over your medical decisions and your body? 100k? 1 million? Should you (curse the thought) develop cancer, should your employer decide your course of treatment because they have invested money in you?
They won’t even have paid him $100mil when his contract is up, let alone hundreds of millions.
I think Kepler meant to compare a fully healthy Arrieta to an injured Arrieta rather than to a AAA pitcher.
What? first of all its Kapler, Kepler’s an OF for the Twins and second… what? His quote was pretty straightforward saying Arrieta at 85% is better than anyone they have in AAA even at their 100%
Literally the worst idea
I do not think it a good idea.Arrieta is running about 60%,not 85,and should not be pitching at this point.Put him on IL and then evaluate him.Give him a rest.
Klentak and Kepler have made questionable decisions over the last 1 1/2 years.Some of this new age stuff is fine but not all.
Common sense is not always common.
Yeah right, this never ends well
As a Braves fan I gotta love this. Let him continue to pitch to the tune of a 6.00+ ERA for the rest of the season. Then give him the surgery in time to pay him $20 mill to not pitch most of next season. Then, once he is finally healthy, watch him pitch well after the Phil’s have already fallen out of the race next season on his way out the free agent door. I get why Callaway and Martinez have gotten so much flack this season but Kapler is clearly the worst manager in the NL East. The Mets biggest problem is their GM.
How do you blame Kapler for this one? He’s got to use the tools he has. He has 1 starting pitcher and a bunch of garbage. It isn’t Kapler’s decision whether or not Arrieta gets surgery.
You think they have the farm to make a bid for bumgarner? Could provide a spark for a struggling club
Their manager just said they don’t have anything better than Arrieta on the farm, so it seems they would have a hard time trading for a Bumgarner jersey.
Questionable- that’s an incredibly uniformed way to look at things. Just because they don’t have any better major-league ready pitching options doesn’t mean they don’t have the pieces to make a trade happen. You know there’s other positions besides pitcher, right?
They don’t not have the farm for Bumgarner, and they should not trade for a rental. They have a very loose hold on the Wild Card and they’re are quite a few teams who will likely pass them soon.
Arrieta is a competitor. This isn’t surprising. This also isn’t smart. Maybe one good start after the break thanks to the added rest, but on regular rest he’ll have a very difficult time dealing with the bone spurs.
Guy must have a dent in his head
Courtesy of the Toddfather
Bleh
Suspend him for what he said about Frazier…
Arrieta’s comments were foolish, but Frazier had a temper tantrum on the field, and it wasn’t Frazier’s first incident this year. They’re both babies if you ask me.
It hasn’t worked for Folty so I doubt it will work with you
The Phillies might be thinking that they don’t want Arrieta on the roster anyhow, so if he blows out his arm, they’ll collect insurance.
Jake was one of many poor decisions by the Dartmouth Dunce.
How about demanding Arrieta have the surgery now? Then he might be ready for the start of spring training seven months from now .
What good is a semi crippled starting pitcher who works to a 5 ERA , going every 5 days for a club likely to miss the playoffs, and then being out until
May following surgery he delayed for no good reason??