Chicago Cubs: Can Jake Arrieta Fix His Biggest Flaw Uncovered This Past Season?

After having a bit of a disappointing statistical season following his 2015 NL Cy Young Campaign, Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta needs to get back to doing the basics in 2017; throwing more strikes early and often.

The Chicago Cubs had the best record in the league this past season while winning the World Series in large part because of Jake Arrieta. He won 18 games during the regular season while posting a respectable 3.10 ERA. Opposing batters hit a pedestrian-low .194 against him. Overall, his season was one in which any pitcher would be proud to have in any-given year.

Still, Jake Arrieta’s 2016 stats do not paint the entire picture; his underlying struggles to harness his command while pitching. In 2015, Arrieta posted a microscopic 1.77 ERA in 33 regular season starts. That season saw him pitch four complete games, while throwing for 229 innings.

Arrieta from a season ago was able to pitch deeper into games while giving up fewer runs, in large part because he minimized giving up walks to hitters.

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2015 Arrieta walked only 48 batters, while 2016 Arrieta walked a whopping 76. Those 76 walks came in roughly 32 fewer innings pitched. The problem that Arrieta had throughout 2016 was that he struggled mightily not only getting ahead of hitters early on in counts, but also with putting them away in two-strike counts.

Opposing hitters this past season recognized that in order to have success against Arrieta, they needed to drive up his pitch count. Doing so would result in Jake exerting way too much energy during the early portions of games pitched, resulting in him fighting just to make it through five or six innings.

Batters were reluctant to chase Arrieta’s pitches thrown outside of the strike-zone, especially his off-speed stuff. Arrieta’s slider, which was his go-to put-away pitch back in 2015, was not nearly as effective in getting hitters to chase after this time around. According to Fangraphs, Jake threw his slider 561 times in 2016, 64% of them for strikes. Those numbers are a sharp contrast from 2015, where his slider was thrown 989 times, 70% of them for strikes.

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What these statistics mean is that because Arrieta would struggle to get ahead of hitters early in counts thanks to spotty fastball command, he was less reluctant to throw off-speed pitches, most notably his slider. And when he chose to throw his slider, hitters weren’t as fooled into chasing it.

This ultimately resulted in Arrieta walking more hitters or throwing them more “hittable” fastballs just to avoid giving up free passes. Case in point: according to Fangraphs, Jake threw fastballs 65% of the time in 2016, compared to 50% in 2015.

Maybe these statistics explain also why Arrieta gave up 16 home runs to opposing hitters, compared to just 10 in 2015. Batters could just sit and wait on his fastballs due to being in good hitter’s counts from time-to-time.

The 2016 postseason further showed the command problems that have recently plagued Arrieta. He failed to make it past six innings in any of his three postseason starts, despite at times having “no-hit” stuff.

Overall, if Arrieta wants to have another breakout season next season like he had in 2015, he’ll need to start throwing more strikes early and often in counts with his fastball. Doing so will give him much more confidence in throwing his wipe-out slider more frequently, and possibly for more strikes if hitters decide to take the bait, not being in hitter-counts.

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Also in the process… if performed correctly, Arrieta might enjoy collecting a few more late-game innings. Something he did not do regularly in 2016.