Baltimore Orioles: Why the Jake Arrieta Trade Was a Fair Deal
By Ben Palmer
Most fans think the Jake Arrieta trade in 2013 was one of the worst trades in Orioles history. But it wasn’t, in fact, it was a perfectly fair trade.
It’s a day that Baltimore Orioles fans will be forced to relive frequently, the Jake Arrieta trade. July 2, 2013, the Orioles decided to unleash the Jake Arrieta trade, which sent him and Pedro Strop to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Scott Feldman and catcher Steve Clevenger.
At the time, it didn’t seem like that big of a trade. A struggling prospect who was near the end of being considered a prospect (Arrieta) and a good reliever (Strop) for a decent starting pitcher (Feldman) and a backup catcher (Clevenger). It wasn’t a blockbuster deal by any means, and it barely registered on the radar of anyone who wasn’t a fan of either team, but it’s ended up being known as one of the biggest trade blunders in Orioles, and probably baseball, history. And I’m here to say that it shouldn’t be at all. The trade was a fair trade.
It seems stupid to say that now, considering what Jake Arrieta has become. Now he’s a Cy Young winner who’s thrown two no-hitters. He threw an incredible 1.77 ERA last year and has so far had a 0.80 ERA this year. The guy is putting up Clayton Kershaw numbers (minus a few strikeouts) and I think you could absolutely make the argument that he’s the best pitcher in baseball.
To understand this trade, and to understand why the trade made complete sense at the time, you have to understand what Arrieta was when he was with the Orioles, not what he became. At the time of the trade, Arrieta was 27 years old and had already logged 358 innings in his career with a 5.46 ERA. His best year in the majors, he pitched 100.1 innings with a 4.66 ERA and only 4.66 K/9.
Arrieta was part of a batch of young pitching prospects for the Orioles that was supposed to be an all-star rotation of the future. Along with Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, and Zach Britton, Arrieta was supposed to be a future star. He had incredible stuff, everyone saw it, but it wasn’t coming together. He was walking people left and right, he had no control and his stuff was eminently hittable. After five years of Arrieta, the Orioles were ready to cut bait and see if someone else wanted to take a chance on him.
In exchange, they got Scott Feldman, who at the time was doing pretty well for the Cubs. Feldman was 30, he wasn’t going to be an all-star, but with his 3.46 ERA at the time, and his .227 BAA, he was going to be one of the best pitchers on the Orioles, that’s how badly the team needed a pitcher.
The Orioles were vying for a playoff spot, they were just 2.5 games out of first place, and needed someone to sure up the rotation, and for that, they traded a seemingly lost prospect and a reliever. Even Feldman’s teammate at the time, Jeff Samardzija, was upset that Feldman was leaving, saying he didn’t believe Feldman’s departure improved the team and wondered why the guy had to go.
Now, there seems to be more to this story, and that’s the contentious part. As far as Arrieta is concerned, it’s essentially the Orioles’ pitching staff’s fault that he didn’t fulfill his potential in Baltimore.
He believed that the Orioles were messing around with his delivery and his pitches, forbidding him from throwing a cut fastball and not letting him throw the way that felt natural to him. Once he got to the Cubs, the reins were off and he could do what he wanted, and he believes that’s what got him to where he is now.
Former Orioles pitching coach Rick Adair claims that Arrieta was held back because he was recovering from injury, that he had a bone spur in 2011 and he was still getting his feel back. Arrieta doesn’t seem to buy it and claims that the coaching staff not only messed him up, but Tillman, Matusz, and Britton too.
Tillman has developed into a decent starter for Baltimore, Britton into one of the best closers in baseball, and Matusz has fizzled out into a lefty-specialist, none of them developed into the aces they were supposed to, so it’s only natural to be suspicious. In fact, considering the Orioles haven’t had an ace starter in years (Erik Bedard maybe?), it’s perfectly reasonable to be suspicious of the coaching staff.
Ultimately, we’ll never truly know why the Jake Arrieta trade went down and how he couldn’t develop into the ace that he is now while he was in Baltimore. Perhaps it was the coaching, perhaps it was his fault, perhaps it was injury, perhaps it was a mix of everything. But what I do know is that on the day of July 2nd, 2013, I saw that the Orioles had traded Arrieta away and I thought it was perfectly fair, and I still do.
It’s easy to hate the trade in retrospect, it’s easy to sit there and think back to the Orioles trading away Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnisch for Glenn Davis and think this is just a repeat, but it’s not.
As an Orioles fan, do I get a little twinge every time I see Arrieta pitch? Sure. Does it suck seeing our pitching staff bomb into one of the worst staffs in baseball each year? Sure. But the Jake Arrieta trade wasn’t awful, it’s just baseball.