Quick Hits: Today in MLB, 3/14/2018

Arrieta Prepares Himself to Take the Mound

The Jake Arrieta signing sends the signal that a brighter future may be a lot nearer than originally anticipated for Phillies fans.

On a cool, breezy morning in Clearwater, Florida, recently acquired hurler Jake Arrieta took the mound and fired off his first official bullpen for his new squad in front of teammates and front office members alike. While his competitive debut will have to wait (there is a chance that he'll appear in a minor league spring training game this coming Saturday), his new club was excited with what they saw. "He looks great to me," pitching coach Rick Kranitz told reporters, "He always stays in shape. There's no question about that. What I was looking for today was how the ball was coming out of his hand - it was coming out great. I didn't expect anything different, but it's always great to get eyes on him." Moving forward, one of the challenges for Arrieta will be getting up to speed as opening day rapidly approaches. While he threw forty pitches today and he hopes to throw around fifty during his debut outing this Saturday, Arrieta will need to do some serious catching up to the rest of the league. While he has been throwing every second or third day this off-season, pitchers and catchers reported roughly a month ago and that is a lot of physical conditioning to make up in a short amount of time. That being said, the Phillies will likely take a cautious approach with their seventy-five million dollar investment should Arrieta need more time to ready himself for the season."This is a significant investment for a long stretch of time," said GM Matt Klentak in a statement to the media. "We want to make sure we do the right things to keep him healthy. We don't want to rush into this and put him in a tough spot."

Klentak's position on Arrieta's preparation should come as no surprise. The thirty-two year old righty out of Farmington, Missouri went 14-10 last year with a 3.53 ERA across thirty starts (168.1 innings). While those numbers appear relatively tidy on first glance, there are some underlying troubling trends to Arrieta's performance that most likely explain why he remained unsigned so deeply into spring training. Arrieta led the league with fourteen wild pitches while seeing a negative slant to the majority of his peripheral stats.

	K/9	K%	BB/9	BB%	HR/9	AVG	WHIP	GB/FB	FB%	IFFB%
2015	9.28	27.1%	1.89	5.5%	0.39	0.184	0.86	2.47	22.8%	9.3%
2016	8.67	23.9%	3.47	9.6%	0.73	0.194	1.08	1.89	27.9%	7.6%
2017	8.71	23.1%	2.94	7.8%	1.23	0.234	1.22	1.31	34.3%	7.9%

As we can see from this chart, Arrieta's performance has slipped across the board from his historic 2015 season in which he went 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA. While that is to be expected (outside of a certain lefty in Los Angeles, nobody in today's game has put up numbers that extraordinary on a year-to-year basis), this statistical decline should still merit some concern. Trading strikeouts for walks is not a recipe for success yet this is the trend that we're seeing with Arrieta. One of my biggest concerns with Arrieta is the spike in home runs he is giving up as well as a general increase in fly balls allowed overall. While a 1.23 HR/9 rating isn't terrible for a starting pitcher, seeing Arrieta yield more fly balls and induce fewer ground balls is going to be a huge issue for him moving forward especially with the hitter-haven known as Citizens Bank Park serving as his home field. 

However, the most telling number is this: 92.6. Arrieta's 92.6 MPH average on his fastball last year marked a drop of 2.3 MPH since 2015. With 686.2 innings credited to his name over the past three years (spring training, regular season, and postseason combined), one has to wonder whether Arrieta is beginning to feel all those pitches catching up to him.

Danny Espinosa Released by New York Yankees

It's been a difficult twelve month stretch for Danny Espinosa, who will be on the lookout for a new team moving forward.

In a relatively unnoticed move, infielder Danny Espinosa was released from his minor league deal by the Yankees on Monday shortly after the team signed free agent second baseman, Neil Walker. The move should come as little surprise as Espinosa was a long shot to make the Yankee's roster in the first place, even more so after the team traded for third baseman Brandon Drury at the end of February and then signed Walker. With prospects Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres likely headed back to the minors for more seasoning, there was little need for Espinosa to provide organizational depth for the Yankees moving forward. Despite his excellent defensive abilities (Espinosa has been worth 6.0 dWAR over his career), Espinosa's performance with the bat has largely disappointed over the past few seasons. Over his past 896 plate appearances, Espinosa has struggled to a paltry .197 batting average with a dismal 238 strikeouts (for you stat geeks out there, that's a 31.5% strikeout rate...yikes!).

Despite his recent struggles, Espinosa will likely latch on somewhere on a minor league deal. While his days as a major league starter are likely in the past, Espinosa has some defensive versatility (he's appeared at first base, second base, third base, shortstop, and left field in his career) and he does have a bit of pop in his bat (98 career home runs including two 20+ home run seasons). Furthermore, now that he is no longer constrained by the Yankee's draconian dress code rules surrounding facial hair, Espinosa can now get back to what he does best...growing salon-quality facial hair!

It's rumored that a glimpse of Danny Espinosa's beard can put women at risk of spontaneous pregnancy.

Max Scherzer Sharp in Latest Outing for Nationals

National's ace Max Scherzer will be hunting for his third consecutive NL Cy Young Award during the 2018 season.

For Max Scherzer, opening day can't come soon enough as the hurler looked primed to continue on his recent run of success with a dominating performance this past Tuesday afternoon. Against a New York Mets lineup that included major league starters Juan Lagares, Amed Rosario, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Todd Frazier, Scherzer spun 5.0 innings of one-hit baseball while using only thirty-nine pitches! He struck out nine batters and walked only one as well (for a complete box score of that game, click here).

Scherzer has been a model of consistency since joining the National's organization in 2015. The five-time All-Star has strung together a 50-25 record over the past three years and has led the league in strikeouts over the past two. With a healthy Scherzer in tow, the Nationals should once again be the team to beat in the NL East and a favorite to reach the World Series out of the senior circuit.

All images are courtesy of MLB.com.