Strengths:
- "Pitched remarkably well, without the benefit of an elbow... Terrific competitor. Enjoy listening to him talk about pitching and love to see him bamboozle opposing lineups." - Diamondhacks
- "I don’t think he was really that bad in his 14 starts. He had a 4.08 ERA which is slightly better than what I thought he’d give us." - Paulnh
- "His performance when he was pitching was satisfactory." - preston.salisbury
- "He probably will be able to come back relatively quickly, from the TJ surgery, considering he won’t need to get his velocity all the way up to 96 to be effective" - Jim McLennan
- "If he never got injured and did what he did during may for most of the season I would have easily given him a 4 " - AzRattler
Weaknesses:
- "His poor start was definitely a big factor in the team’s terrible start, and really when the team needed him most, to step up in April and help right the ship and stabilize the rotation after the Corbin injury and Cahill and McCarthy implosions, he didn’t do that." - shoewizard
- "a meh season out of a "name" FA pitcher. I was expecting the injury from the day he was signed" -TylerO
- "The fact that he couldn’t pitch for most of the year was not [satisfactory]" - preston.salisbury.
- "His performance was pretty mediocre, though it’s hard to know how much was due to the injury he was carrying." - Jim McLennan
- "I'd speculate that he ignored the forearm tightening or other early warning signs of an elbow problem last year. The winter rest probably allowed it to start the season." - xmet
- "His effectiveness was intermittent, likely due to injuries. It appears he never tells coaches about pain and injury, which is a cause for dissatisfaction." - makakilo
- "His job was to provide rotation stability, which he only did after the season was essentially lost. He was abysmal before that, when a flailing rotation could’ve really used a steady veteran performance." - Diamondhacks
- "I didn’t expect him to make me happy, and he didn’t." - Cardscrazy247
- "To quote the famous Yelp reviewers of our time "I would give him 0 stars if I could but I have to give 1"" - Clefo
Towards 2015:
- "I predict he will not make a positive difference in 2015 or 2016." - makakilo
- "If the Diamondbacks look to replace Bronson Arroyo with a FA acquisition for 2016, is the FA at $4.5 million (the buyout) + his new contract a better use of financial resources than just paying Arroyo $6.5 million for an additional year? - James Attwood
- "They thought they were buying a durable, reliable, above league average innings eater. Instead they got an old, injured, slow starting veteran on a relatively big contract, who is not likely to be an effective major league pitcher for at least the first half of 2015." - shoewizard
The tally:
- 5 - Highly satisfied: 4%
- 4 - Fairly satisfied: 22%
- 3 - Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied: 29%
- 2 - Somewhat dissatisfied: 22%
- 1 - Very dissatisfied: 22%
A lot more of a spread here, compared to Anderson, with four of the five answers receiving votes in the 20-30% range. More were generally dissatisfied than satisfied with Arroyo overall (44%-26%), and I think the key factor here was how much responsibility you felt Bronson deserved for suddenly turning into a 37-year-old whose arm already had over 350 career major-league starts on it.
The leader-board:
- Chase Anderson: 4.18 (161)
- Bronson Arroyo: 2.63 (125)