Official 2009 ILB Thread for Zack Greinke (and Teammates of Zack Greinke)

"Sometimes I call the same pitch that I throw"

-Zach Greinke, throwing his 2 pitch when he calls a 2

"Most of the time it’s not the same pitch"
-Zack Greinke, the next sentence

lol guys

Zack Greinke said the only career milestones he pays attention to are 10 home runs and 10 stolen bases.

"Then I got traded to the American League and that made it harder."

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) March 1, 2021

(he has nine of each)

Greinke sat in on Odorizzi's arbitration hearing, which was against the Rays, who had James Click at the table. Odorizzi models himself after Greinke and was traded for him.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) March 9, 2021

The Astros had a “dress like Zack Greinke” day for their flight to Anaheim, according to Yuli Gurriel’s Instagram story. pic.twitter.com/eB7IrmIu7q

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) September 19, 2021

never knew my wardrobe was greinke-core

same, except for the whole foods bag (which i'm told is key)

went to see greinke pitch opening day today, there were good vibes all around, royals fans were happy to see him back. it was cold and super windy and intermittently sprinkling with occasional snow flakes, but greinke was basically the only guy not wearing long sleeves under his uniform.

greinke has seven strikeouts in 28 innings

(and also a 2.57 ERA!)

lol his bWAR is 1.1 and his fWAR is 0.3

I guess fwar assumes that if you’re not striking guys out, you must not be all that good?! (Tho his babip is pretty low and his lob% is a little high I don’t think that alone can explain a 0.3 WAR for a 2.57 ERA)

Posnanski's column today is about Greinke and his strikeout rate:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/zack-and-strikeouts-and-ten-who-missed?s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

xp fWAR is primarily built on FIP which only factors in Ks, BBs and HRs

is it actually that simple? i thought FIP took a whole bunch of defensive/park stuff into account too?!

fWAR itself does, along with things like catcher framing and infield pop-ups, but FIP is just those three things and that's the heart of it

huh. just when you think you know a stat

Gausman is the anti-Greinke this year: he's given up a hit per inning, but with zero walks or HR, he easily leads pitchers in fWAR while not in the Top 10 in bWAR.

Splitting the difference still seems like the best idea to me.

i respect greinke for what he's managed to do thus far, but regression is going to bury him

in any case i would MUCH rather have gausman -- no walks is cool, no homers is amazing

lmao

Another chapter in the book of Greinke

(via @revive85KC) pic.twitter.com/kpty5SaYzG

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) June 27, 2022

If I was that guy I would both be 100% grateful for the experience and 100% pissed off at Zach Greinke. Maybe 101% grateful actually

not certain i trust that dude's word for it, but if true that's a totally unfunny dick move

Ross Stripling was recently chatting w/ Zack Greinke.

"Man, I really think the Blue Jays are using you right," Greinke said.

Stripling asked what he meant.

"They don't let you go through a third time," Greinke said. "That's perfect for you."

"Thank you?" Stripling said. https://t.co/faVzziOlyP

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) August 24, 2022

amazing

https://www.mlb.com/news/zack-greinke-strikes-out-1000th-different-batter

Only ("only") 20th on the career K list--moving around a bit helps.

Scherzer must be really close; Verlander, in the A.L. his whole career, probably not.

Saw a post in one of these FB baseball groups that argued Greinke was hurting his HOF chances by hanging on too long and having a miserable season with a miserable team (possibly in search of 3,000 K). I assumed Greinke was already in, and therefore he couldn't hurt his chances--Carlton was terrible near the end, and of course it didn't matter--but for the sake of argument, assume Greinke's not a sure thing. Can a player hurt his HOF chances at the very end? It doesn't really make any difference to the career he's already had. I don't mean someone who peters out during the second half of his career, a big chunk like Fred Lynn or Dave Parker, but rather a 75-80% guy for the last year or two.

nah i don't think so, i think there are clearly guys who didn't play like HOFers over a big chunk of their career (Griffey, Pujols, Ichiro, Frank Thomas to a lesser extent though he was probably at a lower tier HOF level when healthy) but Greinke was good enough recently to not be dinging his stats too much. I do think he's clearly on a lower level at least for consistency vs Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander as far as pitchers go. I mean he's only had eight seasons outta twenty where he was above 4.0 bWAR. i could see him getting dinged more on that vs how he ended things this far down the line. he probably really will get in on the strength of those two huge peak years. If they were merely as good as his other "best" seasons, he'd be closer to an Ian Kinsler kinda guy.

I agree with Omar-- the case against Greinke is his lack of great, CY-caliber seasons, and this year doesn’t change that.

I think he's a cinch too. Dollarama has been periodically putting these out the past few years for four or five dollars: I've bought three (and Scherzer, deGrom, Nelson Cruz, and Bumgarner).

https://cdn.shoplightspeed.com/shops/602407/files/390160/600x800x1/imports-dragon-mlb-figurine-zack-greinke.jpg

He's 1-15 now. Assuming he really is done after this year, is the worst ever season by a probable HOFer?

Adam Wainwright is having a worse season but he's not a HOFer. Then again, if you take away Greinke's two best seasons, or even just knock them down a bit, then you get Wainwright's career more or less.

he's been bad but 1-15 is beside the point

i mean he's only marginally better than replacement-level and can't strike anyone out but he's no 2014 jeter

Carlton over his last two years was awful:

6-14, 5.74
0-1, 16.76

That last season, with the Twins, was only 9.2 IP, but still: 20 hits, 5 walks, 18 earned runs.

Together: 6-15, 6.40, 5.77 FIP, 1.707 WHIP. Putting W-L record aside, and just looking at one season--Carlton's 1987--I'd say Carlton was even worse.

I know that it's about more than the W-L record -- all his stats are awful -- but looking at the numbers, yes, Carlton was worse.

When I wrote my comment I was thinking about pitchers but if we also consider position players then wow, I'd forgotten how awful Jeter was.

I think there is more of a reason to keep sending a bad pitcher out there every fifth day because a lot of teams need somebody to eat innings. But with a bad position players, it really takes a perfect storm of awful player, awful contract, dim-witted nostalgia, oversized player ego, etc. to give him 634 (!) PA without feeling the need to turn him into a part-time player. Ichiro, for instance, was terrible his last few years but played part-time and rarely started.

Niekro was really bad in his final year too, 7-13, 6.30 ERA, negative WAR for each of three different teams, but to be fair, he was 150 years old and Greinke is only 40.

For position players, Willie Mays' last season with the Mets--only 239 PA--is a famous shell-of-himself season: .211/.303/.344. He was 3-10 in the postseason, but no XB hits and no walks.