Stop me if you have heard this story before: a young player with a lot of potential struggles early on in the majors, and then finally realizes said potential after his original team decides to trade him away for what seems like pennies on the dollar. Most people attribute the player’s newly realized success to a “change of scenery”. Perhaps he couldn’t handle the pressure of playing in a large market, or maybe he didn’t get along with his coaches or fellow players. When most people talk about a player succeeding because of a “change of scenery”, they are usually referring to player getting a fresh start and a chance to prove himself with a new club and in front of new fans who have yet to see him struggle before and, therefore, aren’t lamenting his wasted potential every time he steps on the field.
While these factors may contribute to a player’s new success, the truth is that it is often the result of being exposed to different coaches who provide different instruction. Arguably no player in baseball better fits this description than Jake Arrieta. On July 2nd, 2013, Arrieta was traded, along with reliever Pedro Strop, from the Baltimore Orioles to the Chicago Cubs for starter Scott Feldman and catcher Steve Clevenger. A former top-100 prospect in 2009 and 2010 according to Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America, Arrieta had compiled a 5.46 ERA over 358 innings from 2010-2013. Cumulatively, he had been worth only 0.3 bWAR during his time in Baltimore. Though he had a decent strikeout rate (7K/9), Arrieta had one of the 10 highest walk rates in baseball since his debut (4BB/9) and his WHIP of 1.472 was one of the 15 worst in all of baseball during his time in Baltimore. Needless to say, his top prospect shine had seemingly faded.
Fast-forward just over two years since the trade and not only has Jake Arrieta been better since joining the Cubs, he has turned into a legitimate ace. His ERA since joining the Cubs is 2.68, less than half of what it was in Baltimore in nearly as many innings (356 innings). He is striking out two more batters per nine innings than he was with the Orioles and has cut his walk rate to 2.6BB/9. His home run rate is also less than half of what it was in Baltimore and thus he has lowered his WHIP by over 0.45. Last year, he finished in the top-10 among pitchers in bWAR and placed 9th in the Cy Young voting. This year, Arrieta is also top-10 in bWAR among pitchers and seems poised for another top-10 Cy Young finish. His stats from this year are nearly identical to those he compiled last year over the same amount of innings, proving that Jake Arrieta is no fluke.
So remember all those things I listed for reasons a player may need a change of scenery? Well, with Jake Arrieta, it is clear he needed to be around coaches who better understood his repertoire. He has definitely found that with the Cubs. After finishing the season with the Cubs in 2013, Arrieta adjusted his approach and began throwing a lot more sliders, or cutters depending on who you speak to. BrooksBaseball lists it as a slider, while PitchFX lists it as a cutter. Regardless of the specific name of the pitch, it is clear he has been throwing it far more often and with much better results. From 2010 to 2013, Arrieta was throwing his slider around 15 percent of the time, give or take one percent, in each year. In the past two years since joining the Cubs, Arrieta has thrown his slider 31.77% and 35.92% of the time, in 2014 and 2015 respectively, which represent some of the highest rates in all of baseball (6th most frequently in all of baseball in 2014 and 3rd in 2015).
As I said earlier though, he’s not just throwing his slider more, he’s also have much greater success with the pitch. Over the past two seasons with the Cubs, Arrieta is generating more ground balls and fewer fly balls with the slider than he did in any other period of his career. In fact, Arrieta is generating almost half as many fly balls per ball in play with Chicago than he did in the two preceding seasons in Baltimore, and predictably this has led to a drastic reduction in his opponents’ slugging percentage against the pitch. Arrieta’s slider has legitimately become one of the best sliders in baseball.
It is clear thought that the coaching in Chicago has had a big influence on Arrieta’s change in approach, further evidenced by the fact that they did the same thing with Jason Hammel. In 2012 and 2013 in Baltimore, Hammel was throwing his slider 22.4% and 21% of the time, respectively. Since joining the Cubs, Hammel has thrown his slider 32.9% and 35.8% of the time in 2014 and 2015, respectively. These two seasons with the Cubs also represent the two seasons with the lowest ERA in his career. That is probably more than just a coincidence. According to information from Fangraphs, obtained through Baseball Info Solutions, Hammel has had one of the top-10 sliders in baseball in each of the past two seasons.
Maybe this is a case of poor pitching instruction in Baltimore, but I’d tend to lean towards giving the Cubs credit for recognizing flawed pitchers and understanding how to maximize their potentials. When we talk about a player succeeding because of a “change of scenery” it doesn’t necessarily mean the player couldn’t handle the pressures of playing in front of a certain crowd. Often it is about being exposed to different instruction and learning from people who better understand a pitcher’s talents. Jake Arrieta and is a perfect example of this, and now the Chicago Cubs have themselves a legitimate ace.
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