7 years agoPhiladelphia Phillies starting pitcher Jake Arrieta had a tough time finding a team this offseason, partially based on his salary demands and partially based on a drop in performance. Arrieta was a dominating 22-6 with a 1.70 ERA in 2015, but has slipped in each of the last two seasons, down to a 14-10 record and 3.53 ERA last season. Furthermore, he has led the National League in wild pitches in each of the last two seasons and has seen basically every statistic drop in each of the last three seasons. After being acquired by the Cubs from the Orioles in 2013, Arrieta was 36-13 with a 2.26 ERA in his first two-plus seasons with Chicago; those numbers have slumped to 32-18 with a 3.30 ERA in the last three seasons and his strikeouts per nine have dropped in each season since 2014 as well. Many can point to his extra workload (with the Cubs making the playoffs in each of the last three seasons) and Arrieta has gone from throwing 229 innings in his Cy Young 2015 season to just 168 1/3 last season. Not shockingly, a lot of Arrieta's advanced statistics are not glowing, led by his 29.4% hard hit ball rate, which was his worst in a full season. He has also seen his ground ball rate plummet, down from 56.2% in 2015 to 52.6% in 2016 and finally 45.1% last season. Not only has he allowed more hard hit contact, but also general contact, as he allowed 80.1% contact last season (his worst since 2013) and his 8.7% swinging strikes were his worst since 2013 as well. He has seen two miles per hour come off of his fastball since 2015 (and he has used it about 13% more) and his FIP has been worse than his ERA in each of the last three seasons as well. While there are issues with Arrieta, he is still a solid pitcher, just not the ace that he was in the past. Just as MLB teams have not valued him as an ace, fantasy owners should not either; he will make a nice SP3, but should not be off of the board before the 100th pick of the draft. Going to a hitter's ballpark in Philadelphia might not be ideal for Arrieta, nor is the fact that the Phillies may not be a competitive team in 2018.--Chris Zolli