Greinke Poll

by John Sickels on Aug 30, 2005 5:15 PM EDT in News Comment 19 comments

Lots of comments lately in the diaries about Zach Greinke.

I think I will write a piece called "What the Hell is STILL Wrong with Zach Greinke" when I get back home this weekend, going over my thoughts on the matter. In the meantime, I am posting a poll about his future in the comments thread.

Poll

Will Zach Greinke Ever Turn Things Around?

Yes, Greinke will turn into an excellent pitcher.

29 votes

Yes, Greinke will turn into a very good pitcher.

90 votes

Yes, to some extent. He will rebound and become a league-average pitcher with a long career

54 votes

Sort-of, he'll rebound a little but end up being slightly below average.

11 votes

No, he will always suck

9 votes

He'll suffer a serious injury and it won't matter

6 votes

199 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs | Comment 19 comments

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Comments

Can I Choose?

Yes, to some extent. He will rebound and become a league-average pitcher with a long career but also suffer an injury along the way.

by irwin on Aug 30, 2005 5:39 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Also, my opinion...

Hello everyone,

I agree with Irwin - I believe he will rebound to some extent and become a league-average pitcher. Most likely a #3 guy.

This is presuming that KC gets someone in there who can help Greinke develop or Greinke goes to another organization within the next few years.

If KC continues on the same path, I don't know if Greinke will ever develop; he may be below-average at best if KC keeps doing what it is doing - their track record of developing pitchers over the last 10 years has to be one of the worst, if not the worst, in baseball.

That's why I'm not convinced Greinke will develop with KC unless they make changes.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

by indiansfan on Aug 30, 2005 6:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Track Record..

You must not know of the team in Cincinnati..

by cincyinco on Aug 31, 2005 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Change of Scenery

If my name were John Schuerholz, I would be alert to any signs of the Royals growing weary of Greinke's slow development, under the theory that KC will undervalue his potential and I could pick up Mazzone's greatest reclaimation project yet at a nifty discount.

by NBarnes on Aug 30, 2005 7:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not if

Mike Maddux can get the Brewers to swing one.

by drjayphd on Aug 31, 2005 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Greinke

I'm done with Stinky. Let somebody else try to figure him out.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

by Goodfella on Aug 30, 2005 10:00 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Wow

After three months of not great pitching, at age 21? I admit that there are some warning signs, but man. That's doesn't even qualify as impatient, that's like the quickest hook ever.

by Flynn Blake on Aug 30, 2005 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Quick

I'm from Boston. We have quick hooks.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

by Goodfella on Aug 30, 2005 11:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Which is ...

... obviously why Grady Little got run out of town the way he did.

by Flynn Blake on Aug 30, 2005 11:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

I agree with you but I can only carry 13 players over for next season. I'd rather just drop Greinke and keep some other promising pitchers. I hope Greinke can turn it around. He should be able to.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

by Goodfella on Aug 30, 2005 11:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's not three months.

It's not three months of not great pitching. It's all of this year, plus all of last year. It's his entire major league career. Even last year, he was a pretty mediocre pitcher(DIPS ERA of 4.76), and he has continued it this year(FIP ERA of 4.73).

Those who saw the 3.97 ERA last year and refused to look deeper for the troubling signs in his peripherals were just closing their eyes to the truth.

It's even worse than a defense neutral talent level 4.75ish however. Greinke's numbers also aren't very conducive towards having traditional peak seasons where he becomes a very good to great pitcher for a few years.

The reason for that is that he already has proverbial old player skills. It is historically unlikely for a player's K rate to drastically improve at this point in Greinke's career. Without a drastic improvement in K rates, as a flyball pitcher, his chances of becoming a top flight pitcher are pretty minimal.

When of the three major peripherals(Ks, BBs, and HRs), the only one you are likely to be particularly imrpessive in are the BBs, your future is pretty suspect.

Flyball pitchers who are sucessfull on the level that Greinke's supporters expect almost all need to have significantly better K rates than Greinke has shown any capability for putting up.

That's what it comes down to really. He's not a particularly good pitcher now. He wasn't a particularly good pitcher before. And finally, from a statistical standpoint, there isn't much reason to expect much improvement, given that his skillset is the kind that suggests he's already a pretty mature pitcher, and not just a thrower.

As a pitcher ages, their K rates go down from like age 22 forward. Their walk rates improve until they reach peak years. Finally, GB/FB rates are relatively constant throughout. Given that the main avenue of improvement for a young pitcher, BB rates, is already essentially maxed out for Greinke, he would need to buck the odds and be the rare pitcher who improves one of the other facets of his game instead.

While that is certainly possible, betting on any individual pitcher to be the guy who defies the odds is generally a bad idea. There just aren't many guys with Greinke's statistical profile at a young age who went on to have good major league careers. I in fact can't think of any, but I assume there's at least one guy out there...

It would take a relatively unlikely event for Greinke to pull it together. While he certainly seems to have the stuff to make batters swing and miss, the batters themselves seem to disagree, which is really the more relevant criteria.

by bibigon on Aug 31, 2005 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah

Yeah...that's what I was talking about. Ha Ha
Nice post!

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

by Goodfella on Sep 1, 2005 10:05 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Give him a few years

When he's finally out of that blackhole in Missouri, he'll be an excellent pitcher. Give him to the Red Sox please. They could actually benefit from his 6.3 ERA.

I don't know how you can't succeed when you have a 94 MPH heater and a 66 MPH curve. You just can't adjust to that as a hitter.

by Klostrophobic on Aug 30, 2005 10:54 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I would hope the Indians would get him, but...

Hello everyone,

I would hope the Indians would get him as well, but in our case, KC probably won't trade him within the division (although you never know with KC's front office. :-)

Klostrophobic - Good point, but someone else mentioned in another Greinke diary that his 94-MPH heater is actually very straight - therefore, I don't think he throws that hard.

What I mean by that is, if you throw a straight fastball, no matter how hard you throw it, it's going to get hit, eventually.

Therefore, I believe a guy's maximum velocity should be the hardest he can throw with some movement on it. Therefore, I would believe Greinke's maximum fastball would be 92-93 MPH at best (maybe only 90 MPH) because, at that velocity, it would still have movement.

That still is a good separation from his 66-MPH curveball and would still be very difficult for a hitter to adjust to, but if his 94-MPH fastball is straight, in my opinion, he needs to reduce the velocity on it so that it can be an effective pitch.

Otherwise, it will likely get crushed just like it is right now. Even if he only throws 88-92 MPH with movement, it will work better with his 66-MPH curveball than a straight 94-MPH fastball.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

by indiansfan on Aug 30, 2005 11:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

i dunno...

Being a Red Sox fan, I'm not so sure I'd want him... 6-2 and only 175? In my opinion, hes going to burn his arm out, no matter what his age. Luckily, he can't get out of the early innings, conserving his pitch counts...

Just looking at numbers though, I think its a little to early to write him off. A total of only 35 minor league games for a kid coming out of high school? Only 6 Triple A games!?! I think he would have benefited from more time in Triple A. To bad the Royals rushed him. At this point, his youth might start to work against him. Lets see if he has the poise to come back from the season hes having, and continue to trust his stuff.

by forage on Aug 30, 2005 11:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

young

He's 175lbs. at 21 years old. Let the boy grow. In a couple years, he may look like David Wells.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

by Goodfella on Aug 31, 2005 2:08 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thoughts on Zack

I just wanted to drop a few lines before John does. Just to see if we are thinking along the same lines.

When I first saw Greinke pitch on television, I didn't see Maddux-like stuff or control. My first impression of Greinke is the same impression I get from him now - Brad Radke.

Radke is 6'2 and 185 lbs. He works off a decent 90-92 mph fastball and an EXCELLENT changeup. He compliments those 2 offerings with a slider. He is a flyball pitcher who gets hit on and gives up HRs. He did have more time to refine his stuff in the minors than Greinke, but Radke completely skipped AAA at the age of 22. He went on win 20 games in his 3rd pro season and has since been the #1 starter for some of worst Minnesota teams in history. Let's not forget that those 20 wins came on a team that won 68 games total in 1997. Except for he emergence of Johan Santana, Radke would STILL be the #1 starter for the Twins.

I don't think it is too far fetched to say that the struggles Greinke is experiencing stem from the fact he was simply rushed by Kansas City. I also don't think it's out of the realm of possiblity that he could follow a similar career path to Radke's. I am thinking the solution is something along the lines of how he approaches hitters. Now that the league has seen him a couple times, he just needs to find the most effective approach to each hitter. He does need to refine the movement on his fastball a bit and learn to mix the slider and curve, but these are issues that can be fixed.

Ask a kid like Jeremy Bonderman what the learning curve is like at MLB level, and then lets see if it's time to give up on a kid like Zack. Granted, 2 different types of pitchers. I think the ages warrent comparison though.

In the end, my point is really the same as most of the Greinke supporters - Just because he has "appeared" to take a step back does NOT mean he is as good or bad as the generalizations.

"If you cant answer a man's argument, all is not lost, you can still call him vile names" - Hubbard

by QuixoticQuasiQuandary on Aug 31, 2005 1:13 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Remember at the start of the year

someone put his "bust factor" at 0%. Unbelievable.

I can't believe I'm going to loose a bet to a co-worker who said Lima would be a better pitcher this year!!!

Brian

by bfos7215 on Aug 31, 2005 11:18 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Cincinnati is not great now, but I still think...

their track record is better than KC.

Hello everyone,

cincyinco - I agree that your pitching doesn't look good right now and your track record over the last 10 years is probably in the bottom 5 or 10.

However, you have had

RHP Danny Graves
RHP Scot Sullivan
RHP Scott Williamson

I don't know if there were others, but those three were good for I believe, at least 2 years (I'm pretty sure of that with Graves and Williamson; I'm not so sure about Sullivan,) but that puts you ahead of KC by at least 2-3; I can't say that KC has even had 1 or 2 pitchers who have had more than one year of success in the last 10 years.

I know that not all of them (if any of them) were drafted by the Reds, but I believe they all spent some time in the Minors (I believe Graves did, I think, but I'm not sure if I'm correct) with the Reds, so I still consider them to have been developed, at least to some extent, by the Reds.

Granted, Cincinnati hasn't done a great job of developing pitchers lately either, but I still believe KC's track record is worse by a slight margin.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

by indiansfan on Sep 1, 2005 9:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs