Chicago Cubs: Decade’s top five single season performances

Chicago Cubs: What Jake Arrieta did in 2015 was historic

While there is certainly an argument for Kris Bryant’s 2016 season being number, this list is going to give that to Jake Arrieta‘s 2015 Cy Young season.

What Arrieta did in 2015 was historically good. He became must-see TV every time he took the mound. The Cubs were rising back up into contention and Arrieta became one, if not the biggest, stories of that team. His no-hitter in Los Angeles on August 30th exposed his greatness that year to a national audience and his name became bigger around baseball.

Numbers wise? 1.77 ERA, 2.35 FIP, 0.86 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, .184 average against, and a 7.0 fWAR in 229 innings pitched. Three of his 33 starts were complete-game shutouts. Put this in perspective; Arrieta, a pitcher who goes every five days, had an fWAR just 0.9 behind what Bryant did in 2016.

Go a step further and just look at his second-half stats: .148/.204/.205 slash against with a 0.75 ERA and 113 strikeouts in 107 1/3 innings. In his final 23 starts (from June through October 2nd) the Cubs went 20-3 and he pitched to a 1.21 ERA in that time frame. From August 4th through the postseason the Cubs lost only one game he started, which was game 2 of the NLCS in New York. Speaking of postseason…who can forget that complete-game shutout in the Wild Card game against the Pirates?

So many crazy historical numbers and that is why Arrieta’s 2015 was our number one. What is your list?