NEWSLETTER
OK. Whew. You made it through one of the worst annual traditions in baseball: the off-day after Opening Day. I don’t hate it in the sense that I totally understand why it’s necessary (if Opening Day is rained out, the home team needs to have the ability to reschedule that special game right away) … but I do hate it in the sense that it is awful and painful and I hate it.
Especially after the Cubs lose a game like they lost on Sunday night …
[adinserter block=”1″]
“[G]oing back to his June 22 start through the end of the regular season (17 starts), Arrieta posted a 4.31 ERA, a 4.44 FIP, and a 4.23 xFIP over 104.1 innings. His strikeout rate (20.6%) was below league average, and his walk rate (10.4%) was well above league average. The spread between his strikeout rate and walk rate was nearly halved after June 22, from 19.3% (just about top ten in baseball) to 10.2% (way below the league average of 13.0%).
Even on a more granular level, there were alarming signals. Arrieta’s swinging strike rate from June 22 through the end of the regular season was just 9.8%, below league average (10.1%). Before June 22, that number had been a healthy 11.4%, and for all of 2015 it was 11.1%. Even if Arrieta’s game is more about inducing weak contact than getting whiffs, he previously was getting a ton of whiffs – and why wouldn’t he, given his nasty stuff and velocity? But without the ability to effectively locate pitches, the batter’s task of spitting on pitches he’s not going to be able to touch becomes much easier, regardless of the stuff or velocity.
Moreover, Arrieta gave up much more hard contact from June 22 on, and more contact in the air: 27.8% hard contact, 21.0% line drive rate, 30.2% fly ball rate, each up dramatically from his pre-June 22 numbers (21.9%, 17.7%, and 24.8%, respectively). His groundball/fly ball ratio fell like a stone, from 2.32 to just 1.61.”
[adinserter block=”2″]
When batters swung at a Luke Gregerson pitch last year they missed 43.1% of the time. 2nd highest % since 2008 pic.twitter.com/GgmYBkNKy4
— Daren Willman (@darenw) April 4, 2017
[adinserter block=”3″]
Heads up: Looks like Lids just flipped a bunch of Cubs gear to clearance, plus an extra 30% off: https://t.co/OrQvH8ywVp pic.twitter.com/WhLrZLpf0M
— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) April 4, 2017
Is This Red Sox Prospect's Delivery The Weirdest You've Seen?https://t.co/b43fsu7Eav pic.twitter.com/ZkyrDy9zXf
— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) April 3, 2017
