As we
get closer to the beginning of Spring Training, Bronson Arroyo still doesn’t
have a current employer. In each of the past two years, Arroyo has thrown over
200 innings and has had an ERA under 4.00 despite poorer peripherals. Given his
durability, why hasn’t he found a home? Maybe it’s because the Royals haven’t
jumped on the opportunity yet.
As a
pitcher who is 1 standard deviation below the middle in walk rate and between 0
and 1 standard deviation below the middle in strikeout rate, we can expect
somewhat below average performance from Arroyo. In addition to his homer
problems, this is probably why he hasn’t found a job yet. These issues would
not be a problem for the Royals.
Arroyo,
in addition to being a low walk and low strikeout pitcher, tends to get a few
more fly balls than normal. The narrative is that fly balls in the Cincinnati
Reds home ballpark are much easier home runs than at many other stadiums; however,
looking at Arroyo’s career home/road splits, he appears to be no worse at
giving up home runs at home than on the road. It is difficult to say whether or
not Arroyo’s home run issues would decrease with Kauffman as a home ballpark,
but it probably couldn’t hurt. In addition, the Royals’ outfield defense is a
fair bit better than the Reds’ outfield defense and could likely help depress
how well batters perform on Arroyo’s fly balls that do stay in the park.
As a
Royal, Arroyo would have a very good chance of outperforming his peripherals
and producing somewhere around 2 wins of value determined by actual runs given
up. Arroyo would basically be a better version of Jeremy Guthrie, who had a
4.04 ERA with poorer peripherals. With the pitching market focused on A.J. Burnett,
Ubaldo Jimenez, and Ervin Santana, Arroyo’s asking price might be a bit
deflated. Arroyo made $16.4M in the last year of a 3yr/$35M contract; if the
Royals could get him on a cheap-ish 2 year contract, say $7-9M/year, Arroyo
might be worth the risk.
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