Currently, he's on pace to have these sweet numbers:
19-5, 178 K's, 2.382 ERA, and a 1.137 WHIP.
Before this year, I considered him as a 4.00 ERA+ option. However, this year he's been spectacular. When/Will he implode and return to his usual stuff?
arroyo is definitely the real deal in my opinion. he`s currently 8-2 and the course he`s on looks very promising. i dunno about other people, but i believe the reason why cincinatti is in 1st for the NL Central is because of the Harang-Arroyo punch. I have both on my fantasy team and they`ve kept me happy through the weeks.
teddyballgamemvp wrote:Arroyo doesn't throw a bunch of fastballs which is what NL batters are used to. He had a lot of QS against AL East teams which have vicious lineups.
Exactly, Arroyo put up pretty decent numbers in the AL, mind you the AL East. His move to the NL and away from the Yankees lineup puts his talent into a better perspective.
That said I think last year was a fluke. He only had 4.4 k/9 after 7.2 k/9 in 2004. He's back up to 7.3 k/9 this year. I think that's fairly reasonable to expect him to keep up. He's also reduced his bb/9 to 1.9 from 2.4 the last two years. I think that just shows growth as a pitcher and is also reasonable to expect him to keep up.
That said, he's a fly ball pitcher (3-2 fb/gb ratio). Great American Ballpark is where fly ball pitchers go to die (see Eric Milton). Eventually he's going to see his hr/f ratio regress back to at least 11% from the park adjusted 7.4% that he's put up so far. That would indicate an increase from 0.86 hr/9 to 1.28 hr/9.
If he regresses to that point and keeps up the other component numbers you can expect an era around 3.86 and a whip around 1.229. Solid numbers and on the Reds certain to get him quite a few wins but nothing near what he's posted to this point.
I suspect his success so far is largely due to his being an unknown in the NL, getting some easy Ks against pitchers, and that he's been a streaky pitcher in the past and he's on the good side of one of his streaks.
The no DH factor is probably a huge part of it. Besides the fact that you've got an almost sure out in the 9th spot, it also allows you to pitch the 8th slot hitter differently. You can be more aggressive, or if you get into a hitter's count, you can pitch around them to get to the pitcher.
There were periods of time in Boston that he looked this good, then he'd lose it for months at a time.
There is a chance though that he's maturing as a pitcher, but I suspect he;ll come back down to earth, either through the NL adjusting to him and/or he cools off on his own.
i used to watch arroyo pitch for the red sox all the time and i can say with a good deal of confidence his era will be above 3.5 by the end of the year. when he joined the sox from pawtucket he was making hitters look stupid with his nasty breaking pitch, but then all of a sudden hitters began driving the ball against him and everytime he went out on the mound, there would be a good chance he would have a bad outing.
i think it all comes down to some regained confidence and the lack of AB's the NL hitters have gotten off him. i dont think hes good enough to be THIS good and should return closer to his '05 self.
Doesn't Arroyo pitch a slurve? How much of his success can be attributed to that pitch, which most hitters haven't seen anyone throw much of? I think that once hitters start to figure out how to hit that pitch, he'll go back to the same unspectacular numbers we've come to expect.
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by Weasel_King » Thu Jun 08, 2006 11:06 pm 
