What does all of this mean? Perhaps Arrieta wasn’t as sharp in 2016 as he had been in 2015, leading to a conclusion that was whispered around baseball as soon as Arrieta faced struggles - what if his mechanics from Baltimore, the ones that nearly destroyed his chance at being a successful pitcher, were making their way back into his repertoire? We’ve done quite a bit of coverage this season at BP Wrigleyville on Arrieta’s mechanics in 2016, and now that we have a full season in the books in which virtually the only thing to have changed so drastically is the rate at which Arrieta gave up home runs and the spike in his walk rate, two things which are often linked to mechanical difficulties, it’s safe to say that this was likely the cause for Arrieta’s regression in 2016. All this indicates that the pitches these batters saw from Arrieta likely weren’t entirely as deceptive as they needed to be. Batters also swung less at Arrieta’s stuff overall, and racked up less swinging strikes. There’s a lot more where that came from, but the main thing to focus on here is that batters stopped swinging as much at pitches outside the zone, while making contact on them just a bit more.
Take a look at some of the PITCH f/x data on Arrieta from 2015 to 2016: More on that later.Īrrieta’s plate discipline numbers stayed virtually the same from 2015 to 2016, and his BABIP actually dropped just a tad, going from. In a good pitcher, a pitcher with a strong track record, those things usually stem from poor mechanics. Walks come from a lack of control, not having enough swing and miss stuff, and not being able to locate pitches where you’d like them, thus leaving them more viable to allow contact. Arrieta walked 9.6 percent of batters he faced in 2016, which is something he hasn’t done since 2013, a season in which he was still in Baltimore walking 12.1 percent of batters. He struck out just under a quarter of batters he faced, which was a slight drop off from his 27.1 percent mark in 2015 - but really, it’s best not attempting to compare history to a solid season’s effort at every turn of the coin here.Īrrieta still flourished in all the important statistical categories in 2016, however walks were the main issue Arrieta faced in 2016. It’s natural.Īrrieta still finished 2016 with an ERA in the top 15 in baseball, and the top 10 among the National League (min. The thing is, any good baseball minded person understands that that’s just how the sport works, and that regression in this context is okay. Regression was knocking at Arrieta’s door, and he knew he had no choice but to let it in. “I’m thinking about not playing anymore after this season,” was what Arrieta said back when he was the Orioles version of himself back in 2013, which seems far away from the version of Arrieta seen today.īut baseball is a game of odds, and the odds of Arrieta repeating his historic run from 2015 were next to impossible, and not just by Arrieta, but by anyone in the sport for likely a very long time and certainly not in 2016. We know the facts, 2015 and specifically the second half of it brought Arrieta to national prominence in baseball’s version of a rags-to-riches type story. Well, maybe no banner was actually involved, but a trophy of the Cy Young sort was. But when looking at the achievements of each player individually, it’s easy to point out that 2016 actually wasn’t starting pitcher Jake Arrieta’s banner year - 2015 was.
#Arrieta baseball prospectus swing and miss series
Of course, I don’t simply mean that metaphorically - there will be a literal banner raised come April 2017 to celebrate the team’s first World Series championship in 108 years.
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