Jake Arrieta Struggles Not What it Seems
For the better part of the last two seasons Jake Arrieta has been unstoppable on the mount for the Chicago Cubs. His incredible run 1 him the 2015 National League Cy Young Award, and his stretch of incredible clay was on par only with St Louis Cardinals great Bob Gibson.
But there’s been a different story over the course of the last several weeks. Jake has looked almost normal while on the mound for the Cubs, and everyone is taking notice. The Cubs have consistently said Arrieta’s recent struggles are fixable, it still doesn’t feel comfortable hearing this be said about the reigning National League Cy Young and team ace.
The most comforting part of the Arrieta struggles is, it doesn’t appear to be injury or fatigue. You don’t see a change in velocity, or changes in pitch movement.
Whst really is going on with Jake is twofold. The first is mechanical. The second is hitters approach.
Mechanically he seems to be rushing, especially when in trouble. A perfect example was the May 31st start against the LA Dodgers. In the sixth inning Jake got himself into trouble. Walking Howie Kendrick, Yasmani Grandal, and Carl Crawford with two outs. He would eventually get out of the jam without giving up a run, but he was clearly rushing through the inning creating the situation.
@BrianSandalow looks like he's rushing
— Jamie Baker (@rljmb23) June 1, 2016
Now he would eventually get out of the inning, but the Jake post that inning has been worse than the Jake pre that inning.
I was posed the question on Jake on Twitter, and dissecting his delivery compared to last season. In the video you can see Jake’s delivery changed a bit, most notably his leg is higher off the ground at the same point in his delivery.
Some Arrieta sinker side by sides as we head to extras. 15 on left, 3 from 16 on right. Anyone notice anything? pic.twitter.com/fIoJZI9guc
— Corey Freedman (@CFCubsRelated) June 29, 2016
Here is a closeup.
@CFCubsRelated @bradrobinson8 @jwyllys @CubsRelated oerthrowing? (R) Leg is higher, would like to see side view. pic.twitter.com/lYfasquVDF
— Jamie Baker (@rljmb23) June 29, 2016
Now this could be the result of hurrying and overthrowing, or it could just be catching something at the right/wrong time. Usually when a pitcher raises up while weight is back he is overloading, which could be overthrowing or even just a natural subconscious reaction to hurrying. While you may not experience an uptick in speed, the small change in delivery can change the pitchers timing, causing him to be a little wild.
The second issue is, players just stopped swinging.
The first chart is the swing percentage on Arrieta pitches throughout June, the second is the swing percentages over 2015 until the end of May 2016. We can easily see that he just isn’t getting batters to swing at his pitches over the past month.
Here again, Jake’s ability to get hitter out, out of the zone has drastically dropped over the past month. This is in large part to Jake possibly being the most scouted pitcher in all of baseball, and hitters becoming somewhat familiar with the angle at which his pitches come in the zone.
The guys over at MLB Tonight spoke specifically about this.
Here again, and especially Mike Morse, talks about Jake Arrieta’s cutter and how hitters fall victim more than often to this pitch. Tom Verducci points out that hitters know that a pitch in the zone is often a ball because of the angle at which Arrieta throws.
While this isn’t something likely to change, Jake can create more swings by coming in the zone with pitches more often, not allowing hitters to patiently wait out at bats by taking those pitches. While putting more pitches in the zone does leave him more susceptible to getting hit, Jake’s whiff rate has always been strong enough and hitters do not tend to hit Arrieta strong anyways.
This begins to come down to a chicken or an egg conversation. Did hitters become more patient which caused some mechanical issues as Jake pressed? Or has his slight mechanical issue caused hitters to be able to recognize pitches quicker, allowing them to lay off pitches out of the zone? Whichever the case this small mechanical issue is completely fixable, just as the Cubs have proclaimed, and through a side session or two it could easily be corrected.
