This article was prompted by the following tweet from @JRagan8280:

I realize Jake Arrieta won't be same but won’t be top-4 pitcher this year? What would scare you off that?

So many things to say (note that the top-4 thing was in response to another fellas tweet that I was also on – it wasn’t sent directly to me).

Let’s go through everything.

Arrieta was first in baseball last season with 22 victories.

Arrieta was second in baseball in ERA last season at 1.77.

Arrieta was second in baseball in WHIP last season at 0.86.

Arrieta was sixth in baseball in strikeouts last season at 236.

Arrieta was third in baseball in innings pitched last season at 229.

He was simply amazing.

Then there was his run to end the year.

Over his last 15 starts Arrieta did the following:

Arrieta went 12-1 with a 0.75 ERA, 0.73 WHIP, 9.48 K/9, 1.93 BB/9 and he allowed a .147 batting average and just two homers over 107.1 innings.

Flat out amazing.

In the 21st century how many times has a pitcher won 22 games with an ERA under 1.80, a WHIP under 0.90 and posted at least 235 strikeouts? One – Jake Arrieta last season.

So how could Arrieta not be a top-4 pitcher this year coming off that effort?

History, logic, baseball.

Explanation.

No one can be as good as Arrieta was in the second half last season over the course of a season. Remember, no one has been as good as Arrieta was over the course of the whole season last year at any point in the 21st century.

Second, Arrieta never threw 160 big league innings in a season before last year so workload is a concern (he also threw an additional 19.2 innings in the post season).

Arrieta posted a walk rate, per nine, that was half a batter better than ever before.

As good as his stuff is, allowing a mere 15 homers over 58 starts the last two years just doesn’t seem like a sustainable pace.

He’s not going to repeat his 80 percent left on base percentage, pitchers just don’t do that.

So those are some of the personal concerns with Arrieta. The bigger issue though is history.

(1) Pitchers don’t post back-to-back seasons like Arrieta did last season. The mighty Clayton Kershaw has never posted 17 wins in back-to-back seasons and only once in his career has he matched the ERA and WHIP Arrieta posted last season.

(2) Pitchers get hurt all the time. All the time. Remember when I noted that Arrieta reached 160-innings for the first time last season. Any pitch, for any hurler, can lead to a DL stint.

(3) A study at Baseball HQ looked at the last decade of drafts found out the following. There is a roughly 1/3 chance that a player taken in the first round – defined as 15 selections – will return first round value in that season. Obviously Arrieta is not a first round option this season but do you think the odds are better with a player taken later in the draft will be better? I don’t.

(4) Repeating excellence isn’t that easy. Let’s take a look at some of the top arms in 2015 by comparing what they did to their 2014 efforts. I will leave out Arrieta who we’ve already discussed took a massive step forward.

 

 

W-L

ERA

WHIP

K

IP

Zack Greinke

2014

17-8

2.71

1.15

209

202.1

 

2015

19-3

1.66

0.84

200

222.2

Max Scherzer

2014

18-5

3.15

1.18

252

220.1

 

2015

14-12

2.79

0.92

276

228.2

David Price

2014

15-12

3.26

1.08

271

248.1

 

2015

18-5

2.45

1.08

225

220.1

Gerrit Cole

2014

11-5

3.65

1.21

138

138

 

2015

19-8

2.60

1.09

202

208

Matt Harvey

2014

N/A

 

 

 

 

 

2015

13-8

2.71

1.02

188

189.1

Chris Sale

2014

12-4

2.17

0.97

208

174

 

2015

13-11

3.41

1.09

274

208.2

Chris Archer

2014

10-9

3.33

1.28

173

194.2

 

2015

12-13

3.23

1.14

252

212

Corey Kluber

2014

18-9

2.44

1.09

269

235.2

 

2015

9-16

3.49

1.05

245

222

Carlos Carrasco

2014

8-7

2.55

0.99

140

134

 

2015

14-12

3.63

1.07

216

183.2

Even the best of the best deal with the ebb and flow of the game. Note that a couple of the guys gained and lost innings, and that often time is the variable that gets elite level players.

(5) Last season there were a lot of top end arms that certainly lived up to expectations – think Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, David Price etc. However, how many folks predicted that Arrieta would be a top-5 pitcher? What about Dallas Keuchel as top-10? Chris Archer top-15? Carlos Carrasco top-25? John Lackey top-30? Marco Estrada top-35? Etc. Every year it’s not just that the arms we expect to excel struggle, it’s also that pitchers we didn’t expect to be much of anything do excel. Remember that.

 

Could Arrieta be a top-5 arm in 2016? Absolutely. Is it a lock that he will? Hell no.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).