The Ugly
Jake Arrieta
Arrieta has been the mystery of the season so far. I don’t care so much about the velocity. Yes, it’s down. But his biggest problems have been command and location. He has missed his spots with the utmost consistency this season, one of the biggest reasons he’s already surrendered eight home runs. He’s not walking people as much as he did in the second half of last year, but his 5.44 ERA and 1.46 WHIP are not really a fluke.
There are numbers to suggest that part of Arrieta’s struggles have been bad luck. For example, according to Beyond the Boxscore, his average exit velocity ranks 308th out of 373 pitchers, and his average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives ranks 309th. Pretty damn good. But hitters are making a lot more contact and laying off a lot more “bad” stuff than they have in past years. That’s not an accident.
The hope is that these struggles don’t become a mental block for Jake. He’s in a contract year, and with each bad start comes mounting pressure to make up for it and more in the next start. That’s a death spiral waiting to happen. Let’s hope he gets it together.
Fielding / Defense
The best defense in the league last year has looked sloppy, and at times, disinterested this year. Throwing errors, missed-catch errors, you name it. It’s been bad all around on defense. Even Javy Baez, the glove wizard, has looked mortal. The Cubs “lead” the league in unearned runs given up, which is a terrible, terrible stat.
The defense has compounded issues for their pitchers this year. Errors mean that starters need to throw more pitches to get out of the same inning. And relievers to work out of unnecessary jams in pressure-packed situations late in games. The glove work needs to tighten up for this team to have a shot at repeating. Plain and simple.
Dishonorable Mentions: Brett Anderson, Justin Grimm
