2017 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Zack Greinke

Zack Greinke

33 years old

Bats/Throws: R/R 

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 190 lbs

Position: Starting Pitcher

THE NUMBERS

THE SKILLS

First off, no one is worth $206.5 million. Do yourself a favor and remove the contract from the discussion that follows with Greinke.

Second, the skills he flashed last season suggest that he shouldn’t be viewed as a 4.37 ERA guy, something the fantasy universe agrees with as he’s being taken in the top-25 at the starting pitcher position.  

Let’s talk ERA.

For his career, Greinke owns a 3.42 ERA. His career SIERA (3.55) and xFIP (3.50) suggest he is exactly that guy. From 2013-15 the ERA mark was 2.30 with a 3-year high of 2.71. So why the 4.37 mark last year? Note that over the last 10 seasons last year was his first mark over 3.85. Even last season, if you remove his first five starts you end up with a 3.94 ERA over his final 21 starts. The truth is that he couldn’t stop the bleeding a handful of times that he took the hill and it crushed his ERA. He allowed seven earned runs twice in April and he allowed nine runs on August 14^th and eight on September 5^th. That’s four starts with 31 earned runs allowed over 17 innings. Remove those four starts and his other 22 outings resulted in a 2.92 ERA. For the majority of last season he was pretty much “normal” Greinke, at least in the ERA column.

Greinke posted a 7.60 K/9 rate last season. That was a 3-year low but given that the mark was 8.08 in 2015 and is 8.07 for his career it’s really not as big of a fall off as it sounds like on the surface. Though he had a four year low in the swinging strike category, the 10.4 mark was (A) better than the league average of 10.1, (B) better than his career mark of 9.8, and (C) the fifth best mark of his 13 year career. He wasn’t anything other than normal here.

Let’s talk first pitch strikes. For his career his first pitch strike percentage is 62.7 percent. Last year the mark was much better at 67.8 percent. In fact, that was a career best rate. Actually, amongst pitchers who threw 150-innings last season Greinke’s 67.8 percent mark was the 5^th best mark in baseball. He was elite in this measure.

Did he throw fewer strikes? Last year 41.5 percent of his pitches were in the strike zone. For his career the mark is 45.8 percent. Certainly sounds like a down effort until you realize the following: from 2011 to 2015 the mark was between 39.9 and 41.4 percent every year. He was exactly the same guy last year.

He generated a 35.9 percent swing rate on pitches outside the strike zone. That was way above his 28.8 career rate, and right in line with the 36.0 and 33.3 percent marks he posted the previous two years.

The only significant downturn from last season was his 90.5 contact rate on pitches swung at inside the strike zone. His career mark is 87.3 percent, a small but significant difference, but it hardly spells doom for Greinke though it is something to keep in mind given that the mark was between 84.8 and 85.3 percent the previous three seasons. He allowed a few more hits than normal as a result. In fact, he allowed a lot more hits than normal as 2016 was the first time he allowed a hit per inning since 2007. Still, his 9.13 hits per nine inning mark last season wasn’t that far off his 8.52 career mark.

Was his BABIP out of whack? Nope. It was .294 and his career mark was .298.

What about his hit dispersal chart, that any different?

Do you see any appreciable difference there? Me neither.

One of the only stand out issues with Greinke was that homer rate. From 2012-15, four years in a row, that HR/9 mark was 0.85 or lower. Makes a lot of sense of course since his career rate is 0.87. So what happened last year with his 1.30 HR/9 rate? As we established, his fly ball rate was totally “normal” last season so it must be that HR/FB ratio then, right? Yep. The mark last season was 13.9 percent, the second worst of his career. By the way, his career rate is 9.5 percent. Two things. (1) Know what his HR/FB ratio is the last two years? Try 10.3 percent which is totally expected given the totality of his career. Therefore, it seems logical to expect some pull back on the mark in 2017. (2) Even though his home park is offensive minded, you can read more about that in Playing Time below, you should be aware that his road HR/FB ratio last year was 1.14 which is lower than the mark he posted on the road (1.46). His home park wasn’t really to blame for the homer spike.

Honestly, one of the only significant differences last season seems to be the location of his fastball, especially against lefties. In 2015 he attacked lefties away while in 2016 he tried the inside half of the plate with less than ideal results (graphs from Fangraphs). Note all the red on the inner half last season (the view is from a left-handed batter so the part on the right side of the graph is the inside half of the plate).

2015

2016

HEALTH – PHYSICAL AND MENTAL

Greinke missed 37 days last season with a strained left oblique. In his second start back on the bump he was battered in a nine run outing while he recorded five outs. Why the “F” is a manager allowing his pitcher to all nine runs and three homers while getting five outs? Clearly the removal trigger should have been flipped much sooner in just Greinke’s second start aver missing more than a month of games. Perhaps we should give some deference to his struggles last season being partly related to injury.

Now the non-scientific portion of this piece. Greinke is a different person. Not all in a bad way mind you, but there are some aspects of his life that can be challenging like the fact that he deals with social anxiety disorder. I have no idea if that played a part in his early struggles last year or not, but it doesn’t take much of a stretch to think that a guy pitching in a new city, with the pressure of living up to more than $200 million can be stressful on anyone, let alone someone with a disorder. As noted above, and I’m connecting dots in a way that isn’t scientific, he pitched much better as the season wore on, so that’s something to tuck away with Greinke.

PLAYING TIME

As of this writing Greinke is a D’back. However, rumors are hot n’ heavy that he could be dealt (see Buster Olney’s article). According to Park Factors, Chase Field was 2^nd best for offense last year in runs scored (1.225 or 22.5 percent better than the league average). The park was also second in homers (1.292) and third in hits (1.139). Obviously, a deal out of Arizona would be beneficial for Greinke, at least in terms of his home field disadvantage, a fact that is driven him when you notices he had a 4.81 ERA at home with a 1.37 WHIP and .462 SLG.

For more on Park Factors see Know Your Ballparks.

CONCLUSION

Greinke is 33 years old, and coming off his worst season in six years. He also failed to throw 170-innings for the first time since 2007 as his homer rate spiked. There are some concerns. But given his skills and his career arc, I’m still on Team Greinke and believe he will rebound in 2017. Not to 2015 level of course, maybe not even to 2014 levels, but a season like he posted from 2011-13 sure seems probable to this scribe.

10-Team Mixed: A third starter who you can count on.

12-Team Mixed: A second starter here, though if you do take him as your second you would be wise to back him up with an innings eating, stable, third starting pitcher option.

15-Team Mixed: With his ratio’s likely to improve, and always solid strikeout totals, Greinke is a nice target in this setup. He usually finds a way to win games too, for what that’s worth, with an average of 14.8 wins the last nine years, there’s no reason to fade his services.

NL-Only League: He could be dealt. It’s a fact. Make sure you are league allows you to keep players if they are dealt to an AL-only club. If you cannot keep the player, Greinke then becomes a player you don’t want to target.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).