Look at his innings this year and look at his velocity in the last two games he threw. Those things may have a correlation.
rowe33
1722
Yep, Arrieta going from 154 to 176 to 229 in the past 3 seasons is probably finally wearing on him.
I have Arrieta in a keeper fantasy league and next spring will have to decide if he is one my three keepers for 2016. And I’m leaning against it for that very reason, despite his late-season superman show.
But he and Harper helped me win it all this season. $300 first place prize money. Thanks, Jake!
mtkafka
1724
eh, both losses I knew from the first inning each, they’d lose. Just that Cubbie feeling. Doom I tell ya. Plus I think a high strikeout hitting team that is streaky doesn’t help much.
OH WELL~! TIL NEXT YEAR~!
rowe33
1725
For me it would just depend on the cost - wouldn’t shock me to see him make an appearance on the DL next season though, especially with the extra post-season starts.
I have Jake cheap; keeping him will probably cost me a pick in the 15-18 rounds. We get three keepers; I have Trout and Harper (drafted them both when they were still in the minors) so my third would either be Arrieta or another Cubbie, Schwarber (cost would be a 23rd round pick). The likelihood of a DL stint for Jake has me leaning toward Kyle. But things could obviously change between now and March.
Lantz
1727
The thing about Schwarber is that he’s been really pretty awful against lefties so far in the majors. It’s small sample, but it’s pretty normal for young lefties to take a few years to slowly improve there. I think it’s likely that he’ll still be platooned pretty heavily next year (if the Cubs keep him) and he gets subbed out a lot for late inning defense. If he goes someplace where he could DH or play 1B it changes things, but from a fantasy baseball perspective I think that PAs will be an issue all year.
The other thing about the “velocity drop” is that it was very cold, pitcher velocity goes down when it is cold. All those innings is a bit of a concern but I’d keep him over Schwarber for sure.
No need to put velocity drop in quotes. It’s quite real, with regards to Arrieta in the last two games he’s pitched in the postseason. And if the cold makes velocity go down by 2-3 mph, Syndegaard would’ve been throwing about 103, since he was sitting 97-99.
I do think Arrieta is fine for the long term, though. This is just a new area for him, and something I expect he’ll push through.
Thanks, Lantz. I’ll keep all that in mind.
… what? Is there open talk of trading him?
On another front, my hometown team, the Hapless Phillies, have outrighted one-time-sure-thing Domonic Brown off the 40-man roster, after two seasons as one of the worst outfielders in baseball.
Dom had one torrid month in the bigs, back in May '13, when everything he hit just about flew out of the park. Then injuries, and even when he was healthy he was never the same. He was arbitration eligible. Now, I believe, he’s a free agent. He needs and will get a change of scenery.
Lantz
1730
I guess I just don’t feel like velocity was his issue even though it has gotten a lot of attention. His playoff games have had fastball velocities of: 94.45 95.95 93.54 so he wasn’t even one MPH below his start in PIT where he was nails. Noah has had: 98.70 99.31 98.41. Lester lost 1.1 MPH off his fastball between his two post season starts pitching in the cold (93.51 to 92.45). It does look like Arrieta might be hitting a wall, but I think it is more manifest on the command side. I don’t think he has the signs of an injury based long term velocity drop.
Lantz
1731
Oh not at all. But he’s kind of a tough fit in an NL team with an entrenched first baseman. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they keep him, I just meant from the fantasy baseball side you always have to consider the odds of a trade and team playing times in the equation and I think the only way he’s a top three keeper type player is if he moves into a position where he’d get more ABs than it seems like he’ll get in Chicago.
Daniel Norris, who was the pitcher acquired by the Tigers for David Price, announced he has thyroid cancer today on social media.
The good news is that it sounds as if they’ve known about this for a while, and I’m assuming the Tigers were told of this at the time of the trade. Norris was actually told he could, and maybe should, keep pitching, which he did for the next few months.
At any rate, best wishes for a speedy recovery. They seem confident they can treat and remove the cancer surgically.
There’s no small cancer, of course. As cancers go, though, thyroid is usually close to the best case scenario since they can’t really spread anywhere.
Yeah that they gave him the option to complete his season after detecting this has to be a good sign for his life prognosis and career prospects.
CraigM
1735
Well so much for that.
The most Cubs possible way to blow the playoffs.
Damnit.
Schwarber: great hitter, maybe not so great in the field.
Diddums
1737
Germans, Pearl Harbor, etc.
~~
Save some angst for Back to the Future day tomorrow.
There’'s always next century.
Disappointing, but not surprising. I just keep reminding myself that back in spring training, I didn’t think the Cubs were ready to even make a run at the playoffs, much less the NL pennant. To get this far is a runaway success at this point in the organizational development. And you never know, four in row has happened before!
Ah, this game is starting out exactly how you’d expect a Cubs elimination game to go. No drama, just spot 'em 4 runs in the top of the 1st and make the fans suffer.
