Both Arrieta and Eovaldi struggled early in their careers. Thanks to a change of scenery and a new pitch, Arrieta became one of the best pitchers in baseball. After getting traded to the Yankees and developing his splitter, Eovaldi, too, looked like a new pitcher. If he can become even nearly as good as Arrieta, the Yankees will take it.
Jake Arrieta is a right-handed starter that started his career off poorly. His superficial statistics were bad, and while his peripheral statistics weren't much better, there were reasons for optimism. He was then discarded by his old team, the Orioles, in exchange for a lackluster return (Scott Feldman).