Jake Arrieta is eligible to become a free agent after the 2017 season, and the Chicago Cubs ace does not seem willing to give the Cubs a hometown discount.
According to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times, Arrieta simply said “No” when asked if he’d give the Cubs a break in price. Still, that doesn’t mean that the Chicago ace is looking to leave the team.
“I think I’ve made it clear that I like Chicago. I think everybody knows that,” Arrieta said, per Wittenmyer. “If I had my way, I’d stay here. But that’s just one side of the story.”
First thing’s first. The Cubs should be relieved that Arrieta wants to be there. They should also work very hard to get a long-term contract done before their ace hits the open market.
Arrieta’s numbers since coming to the Cubs have been fantastic. His numbers over the 2015 and 2016 seasons have been downright otherworldly.
Jake Arrieta has been pretty darn good with the #Cubs #CubsTalk pic.twitter.com/C7KGW3sYbv
— Sportsnaut (@Sportsnaut) May 11, 2016
Secondly, under no circumstances should Arrieta be willing to accept a hometown discount.
If baseball was a sport with a salary cap, this would be a slightly different matter. With a salary cap, one player milking a team for every possible penny has a direct impact on how many other quality players can be signed or kept. In baseball, that’s not the case. So, any player that does take a discount of any kind is really being selfless.
We also must remember that by baseball standards, Arrieta is not a young guy and his status as a late bloomer only makes taking a discount less sensible. He’s been so great with the Cubs that it’s easy to forget that he toiled in absolute mediocrity with the Baltimore Orioles from 2010-2013. He got traded to Chicago in July of 2013, and as you can tell by those numbers he revived his career.
But as a late bloomer, Arrieta has never had the benefit of signing a big money, long-term deal. If the Cubs and Arrieta sign a long-term contract today, the earliest it would start would be 2017, when he’s 31.
Given that any long-term deal likely wouldn’t expire until Arrieta is in his late-30’s, it’s fair to speculate that the first big contract that he signs will also be his last. A discount might seem like the nice, selfless thing to do, but it would not make any sense.