Phillies: Jake Arrieta developing into albatross player
By John Town
Phillies starting pitcher Jake Arrieta is hitting a steep decline and will only hurt the team until his $75 million contract ends.
Jake Arrieta‘s start Saturday night against the Mets was indicative of what his time with the Phillies has developed into.
Arrieta surrendered a season-high 11 hits in 4.1 innings, giving up six runs in the process. It was the sixth time he allowed five or more runs and ninth time allowing four or more out of his 18 starts this year.
After the game, Arrieta mentioned that he was dealing with an elbow injury. Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of the Athletic initially reported, and manager Gabe Kapler later confirmed that Arrieta has a bone spur in his right elbow.
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The injury led to Arrieta losing all semblance of command on the mound and hitting three batters, prompting a laughable war of words between him and Todd Frazier. Arrieta was the first player since 1940 to give up 11 hits and hit three batters in less than five innings.
Despite knowing something was wrong earlier in the week, Arrieta insisted on pitching Saturday, leading to one of his worst starts of the season.
He will be evaluated during the All-Star Break, and the team will decide how to proceed from there.
Arrieta will ultimately need surgery to remove the bone spur; it’s just a matter of when the operation happens. He tried to pitch through a bone spur when he was an Oriole in 2011, but he still wound up having season-ending surgery in August.
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The team is stuck between a rock and a hard place with Arrieta. They either keep letting him pitch with the rest of his starts likely playing out similar to Saturday’s, or lose him for the season and leave a gaping hole in the starting rotation.
Arrieta was already trending downward before this injury arose. From the fifth start of this season on, he has a 5.51 ERA, 2.39 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and 1.69 home runs per nine innings. He hasn’t been effective for quite some time with a 4.78 ERA and 4.93 fielding-independent pitching since June 2018. Connor Byrne of MLB Trade Rumors summarized everything leading to Arrieta’s decline.
Whenever Arrieta does get the surgery, does anyone expect him to come back and be better next season at 34 years old? If the surgery is delayed at all, that only means more of his sieve-like pitching. This injury all but assures he will pick up his $20 million player option for next year. It will be nearly impossible to trade him, as much as everyone may want to.
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Arrieta will continue to be a black hole of production, healthy or not, for the rest of his time as a Phillie. Barring a career revival next year, no one will be too sad to see him go.