Roch: Rick Adair Talks About Jake

[Phantom]

No. We tanked him.

[Snutchy]

No. Why would someone jeopardize their career like that? It makes zero sense. He needed a change of scenery and a fresh set of eyes. His pitch repertoire was publicly limited here because it's a known fact that DD doesn't like cutters and doesn't want them to be thrown. Chicago changed his delivery and position on the rubber. They helped him get better, the Orioles did not.

[Palmoripken]

It hurts like hell but I do feel happy for Jake in the sense that his struggles with us weren't from a lack of effort but I'd be lying if I said this one hurts big time.

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[Redskins Rick]

Why does this trade hurt more, than trading Finely, Harnisch, and Curt Schilling?

Remember Curt Schilling? Possible Hall of Fame pitcher.

I dont think Jake is going into the HOF.

[Snutchy]

It hurts like hell but I do feel happy for Jake in the sense that his struggles with us weren't from a lack of effort but I'd be lying if I said this one hurts big time.

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It's like raising your child and watching them go off to college. Maybe he'll come back home like LeBron did after he won a couple titles. .

[Palmoripken]

Why does this trade hurt more, than trading Finely, Harnisch, and Curt Schilling?

Remember Curt Schilling? Possible Hall of Fame pitcher.

I dont think Jake is going into the HOF.

Easy answer, it happened a couple years ago. Not agreeing it's worse, just that recent stuff that impacts the team now hurts more than stuff with all parties retired.

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[ReclaimTheCrown]

Obviously its incredibly frustrating to see Jake so dominant in Chicago (though I'm happy for him personally). The most important thing to me, though, is what do we take away from this experience as an organization? We clearly screwed up royally, somehow, with Jake. Most on here, and I don't purport to know, attribute these failures to overly stringent guidance for our pitching prospects (no cutters, no throwing across the body, emphasize time to the plate). That seems reasonable to me; moreover, perhaps it was something as simple as trying to mold Jake into something he wasn't, and the Cubs were more willing to just let him do him.

I hope this leads us to recognize that not all pitchers are the same, so we shouldn't try to make them the same. Or, if that wasn't what went wrong with Jake, that we do some serious soul searching as we look at our development and try to understand what did go wrong. What we take from this going forward is the most important thing.

[Palmoripken]

It's like raising your child and watching them go off to college. Maybe he'll come back home like LeBron did after he won a couple titles. .

Well if he gets us to a series like Lebron did I'll take it but yeah.

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[Redskins Rick]

Easy answer, it happened a couple years ago. Not agreeing it's worse, just that recent stuff that impacts the team now hurts more than stuff with all parties retired.

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You are right, some posters forgot the successes of the past 3 seasons this season.

[Palmoripken]

You are right, some posters forgot the successes of the past 3 seasons this season.

Yeah if we were in the playoffs, this wouldn't be dwelled on or if starting pitching wasn't an obvious weak point this year. Just stinks since he was so meh for us and this year he's probably a good bet for Cy Young.

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[FanSince88]

It's like raising your child and watching them go off to college. Maybe he'll come back home like LeBron did after he won a couple titles. .

Don't hold your breath. I'm sure he's delighted to be out of Baltimore. If he comes back at all, it will be a Willie May to the Mets type of situation where he's a shell of his former self.

He will make the Hall if he strings together a few more years like this.

I think he hated the coaches here and wanted out. Pitching poorly might have been the only way he could think of to get a ticket out of town. I'm sorry, but small adjustments don't take a pitcher with a 7.50 ERA to 0.75 ERA. He cost us the postseason in 2013. Two short years later, he's pitching the Cubs into the postseason. So yeah, I'm angry about that. The Cubs were a perfect place for Jake. No pressure to win, unlike Baltimore where we had a pennant to chase and couldn't afford his six freaking walks per start. How nice for him that he got to hide out in Chicago for a season and a half under the radar with no expectations.

[Redskins Rick]

Jake career WAR is still only 14.9, so he has a long way to go to acquire the numbers needed to be mentioned for the HOF.

Go back and read the comments about Jake:

He also noted how Arrieta underwent surgery late in the 2011 season to remove a fibrous mass in his right elbow - similar to a bone spur, but softer - which led to the decision to scrap the cutter.

"When you take something out that big, and there was a lot of discussion whether to do it or not because the integrity of the elbow was in question taking out a mass that big," Adair said. "It was somewhere between like a golf ball and a walnut or whatever. When you do that kind of surgery on an elbow, the last thing that comes is a guy's feel. Jake had always worked around the ball. He didn't have flexibility in that elbow, he had pain, and he did things in his delivery to compensate so that elbow wouldn't swell up.

[canonfaz]

Jake had MANY opportunities with us. We were in a pennant race when we traded him and he sucked and was out of options, we had to trade him, he was hurting the team.

Sometimes a dose of reality (getting traded) can do wonders for you.

Be happy for him. Life is too short to stress about a pitcher we traded 2 years ago.

[Reboulet'sStache]

Jake had MANY opportunities with us. We were in a pennant race when we traded him and he sucked and was out of options, we had to trade him, he was hurting the team.

Sometimes a dose of reality (getting traded) can do wonders for you.

Be happy for him. Life is too short to stress about a pitcher we traded 2 years ago.

This would be fine if we had also traded away the staff/organizational mindset that was unable to develop him, and really any pitcher. Then you say, "whatever, it sucked, but we've moved on." But we haven't moved on.

[JR Oriole]

Schilling, Harnisch, and Finley obviously went on to have very good careers....so that trade will always hurt because Davis was a bust for us. But those 3 guys were all human....what Arrieta is doing is not even human. The best second half in the history of a sport that has existed for well over 100 years! This hurts so much because he was lousy with us and now he is literally pitching better than the best who have ever pitched. Meanwhile, we have completed 32 straight seasons without a World Series appearance. If we had won the World Series last year, I think this doesn't hurt nearly as much. But all of us are wondering, when the hell is it going to be our turn...so everything hurts right now..

I noted it earlier on this thread and several others have done so as well.....what can we as an organization learn from this situation and how can we use it to fix the biggest area of concern we have. The budget is what it is and our market is what it is. We need to seriously rethink how we develop pitchers, because it is very obvious that it isn't working and hasn't for a long time. If I am a young pitcher drafted by the Orioles, what evidence do I have to believe that this organization knows how to maximize my potential? I am trying to build a career and be great one day, and I am concerned that a lot of people who are really bad at their jobs will ruin me.

Are we Shawshank Prison for young pitchers?