Breaking out as a star pitcher and receiving Cy Young Award votes in 2014, Arrieta turned a really good 2015 season into a historic campaign come the second half.
With the 2025 Chicago Cubs securing a postseason berth Wednesday for the first time in a full season since 2018, many fans on the North Side are looking back to the previous era of Cubs success, one that took off on all fronts in 2015.
It was a decade ago when the Cubs finally began to see a long-winded rebuild bear fruit, and it did so in a monumental way – the Cubs went from a forgettable 73-89 team in 2014 to a 97-65 finish in 2015, good for the third-best record in all of baseball, which also happened to be the third-best record in the National League Central.
Despite finishing behind the 100-win St. Louis Cardinals and 98-win Pittsburgh Pirates in the standings, the Cubs went on to stymie both in October, shutting out the Pirates in the NL Wild Card Game before dispatching the archrival Cardinals 3-1 in the best-of-five NLDS.
Though the Cubs went on to get swept by the New York Mets in the NLCS, 2015 marked the thunderous start of a new era in Chicago, one that peaked the following year with a World Series title that broke a 108-year drought.
A central piece to the Cubs’ breakout in 2015 was the season of Jake Arrieta, one that turned from very solid to historic, must-watch TV in the second half that led to an unreal season stat line.
Arrieta finished the 2015 campaign with 8.3 Wins Above Replacement, a 22-6 record and 1.77 ERA with 48 walks and 236 strikeouts in 229 innings of work. The right-hander threw four complete games, three of which were shutouts with one of those being a no-hitter.
While it was Arrieta’s second half that especially dazzled, his season-long stats that earned him the NL Cy Young Award and a sixth-place finish in NL MVP voting offer plenty to look at.
Over the course of Arrieta’s 229 innings, he allowed just 10 home runs and 150 hits, resulting in a league-best 5.9 hits-per-nine innings rate and a 0.4 home runs-per-nine innings rate.
Arrieta’s dominance knew no bounds in 2015, but he was especially potent in the situations one would expect most pitchers to be a bit more vulnerable in. Left-handed hitters managed a miniscule .159/.221/.228/.449 offensive stat line against Arrieta on the year, while he held a 13-1 record and 1.60 ERA away from Wrigley Field.
Arrieta went on to make 15 starts after the July All-Star Break, and posted a truly mind-boggling stat line over those games:
12-1, 0.75 ERA, 2 CGSHO, 107.1 IP, 23 BB, 113 K, 0.727 WHIP
The Cubs’ right-hander yielded just 16 extra-base hits in the second half, with only two of those leaving the yard. Arrieta was especially effective in August and September/October, allowing only eight extra-base hits and one home run over the 12 starts made in that span.
The only game Arrieta lost in the second half came on July 25, when Phillies southpaw and then-future Cub Cole Hamels tossed the first no-hitter against the Cubs since 1965 in a 5-0 shutout victory. From there, Arrieta was simply in cruise control.
Opposing hitters were simply shown no mercy throughout the second half when facing Arrieta, managing just a .367 OPS in August, which further decreased to .341 in September/October. After allowing two earned runs in a start on the South Side against the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 15, Arrieta would go on to allow just two more earned runs over his final nine starts.
This sensational stretch was laid bare for all to see on Aug. 30 in Los Angeles, when Arrieta tossed a no-hitter against the eventual NL West champion Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball, issuing just one walk while striking out 12 hitters.
The no-hitter capped off an August that saw Arrieta post a 6-0 record with an incredible 0.43 ERA, yielding just two earned runs and 19 hits across 42.1 innings of work.
Somehow, Arrieta had even a better month in store still in the tank as the Cubs geared up for their stretch run.
Arrieta’s incredible second half performance was also one of multiple catalysts in kickstarting a great stretch of baseball for the Cubs, with the team holding a 55-47 record at the end of July before going 42-18 over the season’s final 60 games.
In six starts across September and October, Arrieta was 5-0 with a 0.39 ERA, posting four walks to go with 46 strikeouts while allowing just 22 hits and two earned runs across 46 innings of work.
Arrieta’s terrific stretch partially continued into the postseason, with the Cubs’ ace tossing a complete game shutout in his playoff debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates, allowing just five hits with no walks and 11 strikeouts to pave the way to a 4-0 win in the NL Wild Card Game.
Arrieta started twice more in the 2015 postseason for the Cubs, but appeared the most vulnerable he had been since the first half of the season in both starts, going 5.2 innings and 5 innings in NLDS and NLCS starts respectively, allowing four earned runs in each outing.
Though Arrieta was dominant in essentially every aspect of his performance, it’s notable how effective he was when opponents were able to apply rare pressure.
Opposing hitters were 23-for-135 with runners in scoring position against Arrieta, managing just three home runs and 17 walks for a paltry .565 OPS. With two outs and runners in scoring position, opponents were 12-for-74 with two home runs and 10 walks, amounting to a .568 OPS.
While my award voting redux series will eventually reach the 2015 NL Cy Young race, what’s perhaps most incredible about Arrieta’s season and the 2015 season in general is that he actually had extremely stiff competition for the Cy Young Award, winning 17 of 30 first-place votes.
Chief among them was Dodgers starter and future Hall of Famer Zack Greinke, who actually bested Arrieta to win the Major League ERA title with a video game-like 1.66 ERA. Greinke led all pitchers with 8.9 Wins Above Replacement, and was also the MLB leader in WHIP and ERA+, with measures of 0.844 and 222, respectively.
Greinke’s unreal season won him 10 first-place votes and placed him as the clear runner-up to Arrieta, yet one of his teammates also compiled a campaign that likely would have won a Cy Young Award in most other seasons.
Clayton Kershaw, who had already won three Cy Young Awards at this point, remained sensational in 2015. Leading all of baseball with 232.2 innings pitched, Kershaw was 16-7 with a 2.13 ERA, walking just 42 hitters while leading the majors with 301 strikeouts. Putting up 7.2 WAR for the year, Kershaw finished third in voting and received three first-place votes.
Though Arrieta followed up his 2015 season with a solid All-Star campaign in 2016 that saw him play a pivotal role in that year’s postseason en route to a World Series title, the righty never regained the greatness he showcased through his incredible stretch to finish 2015.
Arrieta’s season ERA increased each year after his 2015 season, and he retired after an abysmal 2021 season that was primarily spent with the Cubs before concluding with a brutal four-game stint as a San Diego Padre.
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