Jake Arrieta is a magnificent physical specimen on the cover of ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue
Things Jake Arrieta posseses: Perfectly lush beard, perfectly devastating sinker and, as we know now, a perfectly sculpted body. Arrieta is featured as one of the cover models for ESPN The Magazine's 2016 Body Issue, and he looks more like a sculpture of a baseball player than a fallible human being:
He even gave a full breakdown of his delivery on the mound, wearing nothing but his glove:
But Arrieta revealed in his interview with the magazine that just because he always looks ready to tear his way through a brick wall on the outside, he might be feeling a little less dominant on the inside:
"I expect to beat everybody I play. It's kind of that quiet confidence that I have inside that I try to present to the opponent without getting too overboard. Because there are times when I seem composed but inside I'm losing my mind."
Arrieta is the only MLB player in this year's Body Issue, but he's certainly not the first to appear in the buff -- remember when Prince Fielder was a cover athlete in 2014?
Check out the full interview to learn why Arrieta says his flexibility is his most important asset, how he handled struggling in Triple-A and why he has to shave his back so often ("I yell at my dad every time I see him for passing it down.")
And Arrieta will put his body to work against the Mets on Saturday night. Although, unless MLB has instituted a new shirts vs. skins policy, he'll probably be wearing his uniform on the mound.