CHICAGO (AP) — Jake Arrieta, a key pitcher on the Chicago Cubs' 2016 World Series championship team, has decided to retire.
Arrieta made the announcement during a
“I haven’t signed the papers, man, but I’m done. It’s time for me to step away from the game,” he said. “At some point the uniform goes to somebody else and it’s just my time, really.”
The 36-year-old Arrieta went 5-14 with a 7.39 ERA in 24 starts for the Cubs and San Diego Padres last season. He finishes his career with a 115-93 record and 3.98 ERA in 285 games, 279 starts, over 12 years in the majors.
Arrieta won the NL Cy Young Award with Chicago in 2015 and helped the Cubs win the 2016 World Series for their first championship since 1908.
He was first acquired by Chicago in a July 2013 trade with Baltimore, a key move in the franchise’s rise from the bottom of the NL Central to one of the majors’ best teams.
Arrieta, a fifth-round pick by the Orioles in the 2007 amateur draft, was a dominant force in 2015, going 22-6 with a sparkling 1.77 ERA in 33 starts. He followed his Cy Young campaign with 18 wins and a 3.10 ERA in 31 starts in 2016.
Arrieta also performed well in the postseason during his first stint with Chicago. He tossed a five-hitter in the Cubs’ 4-0 win at Pittsburgh in the 2015 NL wild-card game. And he won both his World Series starts at Cleveland in 2016, compiling a 2.38 ERA in 11 1/3 innings.
The 6-foot-4 right-hander signed a $75 million, three-year contract with Philadelphia in March 2018 and went 22-23 with a 4.36 ERA in 64 starts with the Phillies.
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