As baseball's offseason takes shape, we will take a look at each player on the Phillies 2020 roster and where they fit in the future. We'll go through the roster by uniform number, lowest to highest for position players, highest to lowest for pitchers, and alternate daily.
Today: Pitcher Jake Arrieta
Career rundown
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After struggling to find consistency with the Baltimore Orioles early in his career, Arrieta was traded to the Chicago Cubs in 2013 and for a brief time blossomed into one of the best pitchers in the game. He spent four-plus seasons in Chicago, pitched two no-hitters and won both of his starts as the Cubs broke a 108-year drought with their World Series championship in 2016.
Arrieta won the National League Cy Young award while going 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA in 33 starts for the Cubs in 2015. Overall, he was 68-31 with a 2.73 ERA in 128 starts over for that club.
Arrieta showed signs of decline, particularly with a drop in velocity, in 2017, and that didn't help his free-agent market during that offseason. He lingered until March when the Phillies jumped in and signed him.
Arrieta pitched brilliantly for the Phillies in May 2018 — he had an 0.90 ERA in five starts — but otherwise struggled with inconsistency and injury during his time in Philadelphia. He was 22-23 with a 4.36 ERA and in 64 starts with the Phils and averaged under six innings per outing. Both of his last two seasons in Philadelphia ended on the injured list with elbow and hamstring injuries, respectively.
MLB
How he became a Phillie
The Phillies signed Arrieta to a three-year, $75 million contract in March 2018. It wasn't the deal Arrieta had hoped for earlier that offseason, but he took it and during his first season with the Phillies drew a salary of $30 million, which, at that time, was the largest one-year salary ever for a Philadelphia athlete.
Arrieta was the first of several major acquisitions that the Phillies made as they thought they were coming out of a rebuild. He was followed to Philadelphia in subsequent seasons by free agents Andrew McCutchen (three years, $50 million), Bryce Harper (13 years, $330 million), Zack Wheeler (five years, $118 million), David Roberston (two years, $23 million) and Didi Gregorius (one year, $14 million) and the Phillies still haven't had a winning season or made the playoffs since 2011.
2020 season
Healthy after having a bone spur surgically removed from his right elbow in late August 2019, Arrieta seemed prime for a good season in 2020. He did have a couple of strong starts but was otherwise inconsistent, going 4-4 with a 5.08 ERA in nine starts. His season ended with a hamstring strain on September 15.
What lies ahead
The Phillies expected more from Arrieta when they invested $75 million in him three years ago. It'll be interesting to see what kind of interest the veteran draws this winter. He'll pitch at 35 next season and will probably be looking at a cut-rate deal with a team looking to fill out a rotation.
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