Six of MLB’s top breakout pitching candidates for the upcoming 2025 season Spencer Arrighetti, Astros It’s always good to bet on strikeouts. The batting average on a strikeout is zero, at least. And among starters with at least 140 innings last season, Spencer Arrighetti’s 27.1 percent strikeout rate was 15th. Ahead of Luis Gil. Ahead of Shota Imanaga. Ahead of Bryce Miller. Ahead of Pablo López. Ahead of him on the list there isn’t a stinker, just a bunch of guys who will be drafted ahead of Arrighetti. So why did he have an ERA over four and a half last year? Three reasons: 1. Bad luck 2. Walks 3. Homers The first should easily swing toward the Astros’ righty this year. Batters hit .321 on him when the league average was under .300. His SIERA, an ERA estimator that has been as predictive as any, was 3.93, and his peripherals supported that sort of number, at least. With average luck next year, Arrighetti will provide lots of strikeouts and a mid-level ERA. The second is a fact of life for Arrighetti. His Location+ numbers suggest he can command the cutter well but has a harder time with his other pitches. His fastball pitch chart (below) shows he can yank the pitch sometimes and misses arm-side and up a fair amount. The good news is that command isn’t very sticky year to year and he could make an improvement here without surprising any projection system. In fact, every system has him improving his walk rate by some amount in his second try at the league. Spoiler The third is the biggest source of noise in pitching because home run rates take forever to become fully meaningful, like on the level of three seasons. At no point in the minors did Arrighetii have a full season at a level and show a home run problem, but most projection systems say he’ll have just about the same rate as he showed last year (1.3 homers per nine innings). Not the OOPSY projection system, though, because that’s powered by Stuff+, and Arrighetti does well there. Inside the Stuff+ machine is a function that predicts home runs based on the shapes of their pitches, and all of those breaking pitches Arrighetti throws “should” have produced a home run rate in the 49th percentile, or 1.2 homers per nine. Give the pitcher average luck, his best projected walk rate and a better home run rate, and he should sneak under a 4.00 ERA with a great strikeout rate.
Every single level he's struggled at the beginning. He was dogshit awful the first 6 or 8 weeks and those numbers are probably doing a lot to bring his projection down. I'm hoping that by sub 4 era they really mean sub 3.5 era with all the other stuff they talk about. That wouldn't make me unhappy in the least...
When evaluating Spencer, you have to take out the few bad games he had because they were really bad and skewed his season averages by a lot. He had 4 games where he gave up 7 or more runs. One game that he gave up 9 runs. However, he had 20 games where he gave up 3 or less runs, and 9 games where he gave up 1 or less runs. I don't see him getting hammered as often this season just because he has more experience. I also don't see the staff letting him get hammered because they know him better.
I also think Arrighetti (and Blanco) will benefit from a healthier/deeper pitching staff. Early on last season, these guys were thrown to the wolves and left in games where they weren’t competitive because the staff was already stretched thin because of injuries and a lack of minor league depth. Both of those issues should be mitigated this season, barring bad luck. I am not expecting Arrighetti to be a star, although I do think the potential is there. But I do expect him to significantly outperform his 2024 numbers and his 2025 projections.
I think he is like Javier where he can have crazy good run. If he gets his command right, he could definitely be a star. But that can be said about all our pitchers.
Maybe it's nothing, but interesting that Taggs would write a story on someone he doesn't think will make it..
Arrighetti is a guy who doesn't have good command of all of his pitches. A guy who has a WHIP of 1.41 is not going to have a good era. And you can't just take out the bad starts and tell the story of his season. He's got to improve his control if he's going to be more than a high strikeout, MoR pitcher.
Arrighetti's 7+ runs blowout losses were: 4/10 @ KC - 3IP, 7H, 7R. 6/15 vs Det - 1.1IP, 5H, 7R. 7/2 @ Tor - 4IP, 6H, 7R (6 earned). 9/4 @ CIN - 0.2IP, 5H, 9R (3 earned). I don't see any of those as being thrown to the wolves or left in non-competitive games. He didn't get past 4 in any of them, one was less than an inning. The last one involved some bad fielding. I haven't checked with Blanco's game log, maybe he suffered from what you're talking about.
Also they came in April June July September Looks to me like he was a young pitcher with great stuff, and those guys tend to have some stinkers from time to time Some will have long careers and always have several games like that each year. Those guys are "high end" mid rotation guys, the ones you always hope can figure it out and be more consistent Some turn the corner and their poor outings become 5 innings and 3-4 runs, those guys end up at the front of a rotation. Arrighetti has a chance to be the latter, but even if he just becomes a little more consistent version of what he was last year, thats very valuable
Rookie Pitcher Has Rookie Games! News at Eleven! edit: Maddux had an ERA well over 5 for his first 20+ starts
On Brendan Rodgers, there is precedent for guys performing better away from Coors after leaving the Rockies. I remember when we traded for Fowler I hated it because of his splits, but he was pretty much fine after leaving with no dropoff. Not saying that will happen, but I certainly get wanting to give it a try
I like all those things too … but we are a similar age so maybe we are both on the cusp of old men. You are not as old as Keith Law when it comes to player scouting though. He literally only looks at 2-3 things … I’ve read your player reviews before and you are better than that.
Rodgers has complained low key for years about Coors Field and having to change his swing and approach and it keeping him off kilter. Went as far as a couple years ago saying he felt he had two different professions - one playing at Coors and another playing baseball everywhere else. He is worth a flyer- talented baseball player with the athleticism, bat speed and pitch recognition ability to be an all star - but known as kind of a guy that over thinks and hits the ball too often on the ground.
Yeah he is a very nice and empathetic person. He will admit he plays a jerk in his columns as an alter ego. He is actually a sensitive nerd that has battled depression and anxiety.
