Scouting Jake Arrieta's Saturday Start Against Texas

[Jordan Tuwiner]

With this I would like to welcome Don as our Director of Scouting. He's going to be contributing a report every 7-14 days and adds a whole new dimension to the ON team.

http://orioles-nation.com/?p=9672

Jake Arrieta is a power pitcher with a full arsenal that consists of six pitches, but really he sits with a basic four. He will live and breathe off the powerful fastball, his aggressive nature, and round it out with sharp breaking pitches. His effort sometimes reaches more than you want to see out of a starter, but it's something I feel will decrease with age and experience. I still rate him as a “thrower” rather than “pitcher” until he completely learns the craft. I have first hand sources that suggest he is eager to learn from others and one day he can become a top of the rotation arm with a few minor changes to his overall makeup.

[Don]

All it took was to slightly tweak his approach. He had Tex guessing and caught him with an outside change up and he was swinging for a fastball and the looked on Tex's face was "wow, I did not see that coming"

If he conitunes to use the change up off the fastball, he can be more than a solid pitcher.

[Jordan Tuwiner]

Very nice rebound start from Arrieta.

He knows what he needs to improve on and does a good job doing so.

[Don]

Yep

I go completely against the major beat writers that lable him a mid-rotation type ceiling. He throws in the mid to upper 90's and has a array of pitches at his disposal that are slightly above average or better. The true test of his ceiling will be met once he learns his craft. He is working his way from "thrower" to "pitcher"; he maturation process might take time, but it should play well in Camden for a long time.

I mean these are the same cats that thought Jeremy Guithrie was an after thought and a poor top of the rotation type guy. I have always thought Jeremy had three or four plus pitches and was an absolute steal from the Indians. I am glad to see Cliff Lee's comments and simply reiterate that not every opinion you hear from BA, BP, or any other major site is not the gospel and alot of "baseball men" will not agree with thier assessments.

[ShowalterPower]

Yep

I go completely against the major beat writers that lable him a mid-rotation type ceiling. He throws in the mid to upper 90's and has a array of pitches at his disposal that are slightly above average or better. The true test of his ceiling will be met once he learns his craft. He is working his way from "thrower" to "pitcher"; he maturation process might take time, but it should play well in Camden for a long time.

I mean these are the same cats that thought Jeremy Guithrie was an after thought and a poor top of the rotation type guy. I have always thought Jeremy had three or four plus pitches and was an absolute steal from the Indians. I am glad to see Cliff Lee's comments and simply reiterate that not every opinion you hear from BA, BP, or any other major site is not the gospel and alot of "baseball men" will not agree with thier assessments.

It truly is amazing to see people look up to BA like they are a god. In all reality, I am sure if you stacked up a fan's top 100 prospect list to BA's you really wouldn't see much difference.

These big sites' calls on prospects probably aren't any more accurate than the average somewhat educated prospect fan.