Philadelphia Phillies: The true meaning of signing Jake Arrieta

We break down the true meaning of the Philadelphia Phillies signing Jake Arrieta.

The Philadelphia Phillies now have an actual shot at a wild card slot in 2018. Moments ago, it seemed, that sentence was entirely implausible. In an optimistic prediction by Baseball Prospectus on Mar. 9, the Fightin’s were expected to win 74 games, but signing Jake Arrieta to a three-year deal made that projected eight wins over their ’17 total moot.

Expect Baseball Prospectus’ next evaluation to jump the Phillies over .500 and then the New York Mets in their division – go ahead, see if they’ve adjusted yet here.

This isn’t about why that should be, about how Arrieta’s alleged decline has been overstated, but it would be amiss not to point out Joe Giglio’s data on the former Cub’s second half last year.

This is about what the signing of the former Cy Young Award winner should mean to the third, fourth and fifth slots in the Phillies’ rotation, jobs that very likely will now be filled by players already on the team’s 40-man roster.

This is about more than an inspiration for those young pitchers, although one of them, Nick Pivetta, is already on record that Arrieta’s presence can’t be anything but positive — or at least that’s what he apparently said. His remark was in Casey Stengel’s tortured-diction tradition:

"“When you get a guy like that [Arrieta] into any clubhouse, even bringing in a guy like Santana, just brings a leadership role to those rookies, me being one of them. It’s just going get a little more up with the guys in the clubhouse. I think it’s a smart move.”"

Not Just Inspiration for the Young Pitchers

No, Arrieta’s signing should be about a collective pause on the part of those young starters still vying for spots in the rotation. Despite evaluations the Phillies rotation was nearly set just before that signing, it isn’t. Those several pitchers available for slots three through five should think about what their employer has just become: a team that expects to win now.

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Oh, of course, they probably won’t “win it all” this season, but over this past winter, the Phillies committed $169 million to four players over the next three years. And this past winter didn’t begin to offer the talent that will be available after the coming season.

In other words, team officials’ past declarations they could be competitive this year may have seemed strained, but Phillies management and ownership now probably do expect to win more games than they lose this summer, and that doesn’t mean two or three games more.

The players competing for the back end of the Phillies rotation – Jerad Eickhoff, Vince Velasquez, Pivetta, Zach Elfin, Ben Lively, and Thomas Eshelman – need to appreciate that their careers thus far don’t say they belong on a winning MLB squad.

The five players among them who have major league experience already are a combined 45-66; their mean career ERA is 4.89. (Eshelman has a “promising” minor league record.) On Opening Day these guys will all be between 23 and 27 years old. The youngest is Eshelman, the oldest Eickhoff.

Maybe the following isn’t true yet for Eshelman, but it is time for the other five to take the next step, very much in the same way everybody in the Philly area is saying this year Maikel Franco faces a substantial challenge.

Next: Jake Arrieta inks multi-year deal, is it worth it?

Eickhoff has already appeared in 65 games over the course of three seasons, all of them as a starter. Velasquez once struck out 16 batters in a game. Minimally, it is time for them to move out of the “promising” category.

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