Bronson Arroyo – Let’s Hope It’s Just the Mono

In honor of Chad’s birthday, I thought I’d take a look at one of his favorite players this week: Bronson Arroyo. First, a note: Arroyo is one of a handful of pitchers for whom I simply don’t trust WAR, and you won’t see those numbers here. Arroyo consistently outperforms his FIP (which is used to figure WAR). For his career, his ERA is 0.26 runs better than it “should” be. For his Reds career, the numbers are even better. Arroyo has thrown enough innings to tell us that FIP doesn’t value him correctly, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. If we were to make a list of pitchers who are hard to figure, Arroyo would be near the top of the list. We have all gotten used to a certain level of consistency from Arroyo over the last five years. He blows up a few times a year, but otherwise throws a lot of innings and junkballs his way through lots of quality starts. This year, sadly, has been different. Arroyo has been off more than he’s been on, and though he’s still eating plenty of innings, th...