Stephen A. Smith's Jake Arrieta rant was even dumber than you thought

Ryan Fagan

Stephen A. Smith's Jake Arrieta  rant was even dumber than you thought image

I’ll start with an admission.

MORE: Inside Skip Bayless' shocking defection from ESPN

I don’t watch the ESPN show “First Take,” ever. Well, I guess technically there have been times the past few years when I’ll turn on my TV in the morning, after watching either a baseball or college hoops game on ESPN the previous night, and I have to listen to Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith yelling for a couple unfortunate moments before I can slam my thumb on the mute button and throw the remote on the couch in disgust. 

MORE: Arrieta and other likely first-time All-Stars | Schilling calls ESPN employees racist 

Other than that, though, I steer clear. Guess I have an aversion to inanity. 

Sometimes, though, clips of the show get brought to my attention. This is one such clip, when Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless were talking about Cubs ace Jake Arrieta on Wednesday morning. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote a story about Arrieta that included a quote from the right-hander about steroid suspicions he’s heard. Arrieta gave a pretty impassioned and lengthy response, and laughed at the suspicions. 

Naturally, the First Takers offered their takes, with Stephen A. offering up the opening salvo. I had to listen multiple times to fully grasp the cluelessness of their opinions, because it was hard to take it all in the first time through. 

So what we’re going to do here is offer up an homage to FireJoeMorgan.com — an amazing site that drove every writer to be better out of fear of somehow appearing there one day — and go through a take-by-take breakdown of that two-minute clip (go ahead and open it). I’ll give you the moments to stop the clip so we can all admire the absurdity together. 

:03. Stephen A.: “I’m looking at this guy, 4-0 this year …”

Ugh. We’re starting with a pitcher’s record? Still? What if the Cubs had gotten shut out every time Arrieta took the mound and he was 0-0? Would he be beyond suspicion? At least pretend that you’ve read any type of baseball analysis in the past decade or so.  

:15. Stephen A.: “But you know what I’m paying attention to? How deep he goes into games, how his arm never gets tired ...”

Arrieta has one complete game — a no-hitter against the Reds — to go with two seven-inning outings and one eight-inning start. That no-hitter was the only time he's thrown more than 100 pitches in an outing. You know what they call starting pitchers who can't stay strong through 100 pitches? They call them ex-starting pitchers. 

:31. Stephen A.: “How innings pitched the last two years, 156 and then last year, 229. Before then, for three years before then, Skip, he pitched 75 innings, 23.2 innings, he only started three games at that time, and then, of course, you had 51.2 innings.”

This is so dumb — and just flat-out wrong — that I had to listen a couple times to make sure I correctly understood what he was trying to say. Stephen A. is saying the innings boost in 2015 and 2016 is worthy of suspicion because Arrieta pitched a total of 75 (and 1/3, technically), 23 2/3 and 51 2/3 innings in the three previous years. 

Um, no. Stephen A., I guess, forgot to notice the “2013” in front of all three of those numbers.

See, those are the big-league splits for Arrieta’s 2013 season, when he was traded from Baltimore to Chicago in July. He threw 23 2/3 innings with the Orioles before the trade, 51 2/3 with the Cubs after the trade, for a total of 75 1/3 in the big leagues on the season. In that one season. Not in three seasons.

Oh, and he threw 49 innings for Baltimore's Triple-A club and 30 1/3 innings for Chicago's Triple-A club that year, too. So Arrieta actually threw 75 1/3 innings in the majors and 79 1/3 more innings in the minors in 2013. 

Not only did Stephen A. really say that, which is hard to fathom, but he used it as the focal point of his argument. Stupid facts, always getting in the way.

:38. Stephen A.: “In 2012, if I remember correctly, he got demoted to Triple-A by the Orioles.”

I assume he forgot to add “from when someone told me this two minutes ago” to the end of the “if I remember correctly” clause in this sentence. Arrieta’s eternal major-league struggles in Baltimore and the resulting trips between Triple-A Norfolk and the big-league club were very well documented, and the source of consistent headaches for Orioles fans everywhere. And not just in 2012, but in 2013, too. Don’t act like it’s your thorough knowledge of Arrieta’s career arc that allowed to you recall an oft-forgotten fact.

:47. Stephen A.: “You never had more than 10 wins in your career, but last year you went 22-6.”

Seriously, when are we going to stop with the pitcher wins? (To be fair, this isn't just a Stephen A. problem.)

1:19. Stephen A.: “I’m just looking at it, and I’m saying to myself, alright, I’m not going to accuse you of using performance-enhancing supplements, drugs, whatever you want to call them, but I will say that you shouldn’t just be laughing at those who are looking at you and saying, ‘Excuse me, what the hell is going on here?’ ”

This is where Stephen A. goes full Ricky Bobby. You never go full Ricky Bobby. 

1:29. Skip: “I also have no sympathy for him, because he’s a victim of …”

Damn victims, always wanting sympathy. 

1:38. Skip: “He’s a victim of those who came before him and adamantly shook their fingers at us …”

Sounds like Skip’s still stuck on the Rafael Palmeiro thing from 2005, eh? Timely. 

1:40. Skip: “Rafael Palmeiro.”

Shocker. 

1:56. Skip: “We have all been taught to be suspicious, to remain vigilant, especially when somebody comes out of nowhere, and Jake Arrieta came out of nowhere.”

But as reporters, Skip, we’ve also been taught to do at least a cursory amount of reporting/research/fact-checking and ask a few basic questions before spouting off. Let’s start with this: What benefits do steroids/PEDs offer an athlete? Essentially, they allow athletes to get stronger, and for baseball players that added strength allows them to hit the ball farther or throw a ball harder, right? 

So let’s take a look at Arrieta, who turned 30 on March 6. His 2012 season with the Orioles was a bit of a disaster — as Stephen A. “remembered” correctly, he spent time in Triple-A — and he finished the big-league season with a 6.20 ERA. He had a 4.02 ERA in 10 starts for Norfolk. 

Thanks to the indispensable BrooksBaseball.net, we can take a look at how hard Arrieta was throwing during that 2012 season, when he was awful (he went 3-9, Stephen A.). 

His fastball averaged 94.5 mph, his sinker was at 94.4, his change was at 88.2 and his slider was at 88.4. 

So let’s jump to 2016, when he’s going deep into games and has a 4-0 record (that’s for you, Stephen A.) with a 0.87 ERA.  

His fastball’s averaging 95.1 mph, his sinker is at 94.8, his change is at 88.4 and his slider/cutter is at 89.7.

Huh. Those numbers look pretty similar, eh? 

So maybe, just maybe, Arrieta’s newfound success isn’t about an out-of-nowhere increase in PED-influenced strength and actually has more to with a change of scenery and a change in approach, with a new pitching coach who helps him work to his strengths and doesn't force him to fit some cookie-cutter mold. 

And maybe, just maybe, his newfound success throwing his slider/cutter hybrid freely with the Cubs has made all his other pitches better, and that resulting confidence has transformed an always-talented thrower from a work-in-progress project into an elite pitcher. 

So ... yeah.

Quite frankly, I'm sorry I made you watch this clip. 

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.