Happy Greinke Day, part two
Zack is back!
Every once in a while the baseball gods smile upon Kansas City.
How else would you describe what happened on Wednesday? Zack Greinke is coming home.
Shortly after spinning left-handed starter Mike Minor for left-handed reliever Amir Garrett, the Royals needed innings to shore up their young rotation. They solved that problem almost immediately, but using the salary they cleared in their trade with the Reds to bestow a one-year, $13 million deal on Greinke. The legend is back in Kansas City.
(I’ll have more on the Garrett trade soon.)
I’m not a fan of sentimentality in baseball. It can be tough watching former greats try to recapture what they once had for an ever so fleeting moment. We saw that recently in Kansas City with the return of Wade Davis and Greg Holland. Their successes are so firmly entrenched in our memories, that to see them struggle in the twilight of their careers…it’s uncomfortable.
Yes, there’s a sentimental aspect of Greinke returning to Kansas City. This is the franchise that drafted him out of Apopka High School in the first round of the 2002 draft. He broke in with the Royals. Won a Cy Young. And in between battled social anxiety disorder and depression. But there’s here’s a fact:
The dude can still pitch.
He’s thrown 200 or more innings in five of the last seven seasons. He hasn’t posted a walk rate above 2.0 BB/9 since 2017. He has lost the heat behind his fastball but has evolved into a pure pitcher, offering the kitchen sink of a pitching arsenal when he’s on the mound.
No, this isn’t some sort of farewell tour. This isn’t the move of a franchise looking to sell some tickets before a former star rides off into retirement. Greinke is in Kansas City because the Royals need innings from the back of the rotation and that’s exactly what he can provide. He can slide into that fourth or fifth starter role and take the ball every fifth day. And he can provide quality. He’s been a better-than-league-average pitcher nearly every year of his career. Would you be surprised if Grienke finished the 2022 season with 200 innings and an ERA around 4? I wouldn’t.
The mix
This is not the same pitcher who suited up for the Royals in 2009. Not that you would expect that.
Greinke works four-seam with a changeup along with the curve and slider as his four primary pitches. When he was last in Kansas City, the changeup didn’t feature as much. Now, he’s throwing it almost a quarter of the time.
It has almost no velocity separation. He brings the heat at around 89 mph, while the change checks in at 86 mph. What the slower offering does have is some nifty drop.
Before we get to that, here’s a fun Greinke changeup fact: Of the 573 changeups he threw in 2022, only 18 of them were called strikes. That’s an astounding 3.14 percent called strike rate. It includes two to Carlos Santana. Like this.
You don’t really see it in the above gif, but according to Baseball Savant, the pitch has 32 inches of vertical drop, which is about 10 percent more movement than the average change. And if it’s coming in at the same velocity and same arm slot as the fastball, hitters are going to be swinging over that pitch. Like…Carlos Santana later in that same game.
That’s the pitch with the vertical drop. Opposing batters hit just .205 against the change last year. It was .149 in the small sample of 2020.
Another reason for that kind of success with the change is location. The pitch above to Santana was away, but he’s mostly working that first base corner.
Yeah, he’s not going to get hurt there. Especially if the slider is working in concert. Dig this overlay from the Pitching Ninja.
I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the pitching trickery that Greinke will now deploy from time to time. Last year, he threw a pitch 65 mph or less, eight times. Including this beauty to Clint Frazier to open an at bat.
Are you kidding…53 mph? That pitch alone is worth the price of admission to a Greinke start.
The money
Greinke’s contract is for one year at $13 million. He can earn an additional $2 million in bonuses depending on innings pitched. According to Dayton Moore on Wednesday, one of the reasons Greinke selected the Royals in the free agent dance was the fact the club wouldn’t put any kind of innings limits on him. This makes so much sense for a pitcher at this stage of Greinke’s career. If he wants to throw, turn him loose. He threw 171.1 innings last year for Houston. Last year, the Royals had one starter (Mike Minor at 158.2 IP) who topped 135 innings.
The money is a little over what I had anticipated. Ok, a lot over what I had anticipated. In a dispatch last week, I listed Greinke as one of the four free agents the Royals should be targeting. I figured he could be signed for $8 million. Predicting free agent contracts is not my thing.
If Greinke can provide 2 fWAR (basically the production and innings he’s been tasked with by replacing Minor in the rotation), that’s a good deal for the Royals.
With the new contract on the books, along with the earlier addition of Amir Garrett, the Royals payroll for the 26-man roster currently checks in at around $90 million. There still should be some money available to make another free agent splash, should the Royals decide to pursue another arm. Or bat.
The legacy
Greinke most definitely has Hall of Fame credentials. The 219 wins. The 3.41 ERA. The 123 ERA+. With 3,110 innings, he’s been one of the best starting pitchers in the game for over a decade. In an 11 year stretch, covering his Cy Young award-winning 2009 season at age 25 to his trade to Houston at the end of 2019 at age 35, Greinke posted a 3.08 ERA in 2,231.1 innings with a 133 ERA+. That’s with a 2.0 BB/9 and 8.6 SO/9. It was just a prime stretch of dominance.
Could this be Greinke’s final season? At age 38, his career has come full circle by returning to Kansas City. Despite his travels, he’s thrown more innings in a Royals uniform than any other. While he pitched at his best for the Dodgers in his prime, it seems likely that once he’s enshrined in Cooperstown, it will be a Royals cap that will be featured on his plaque. That’s a huge deal for a franchise like the Royals, which has had a good deal of team success, but only one Hall of Famer since its inception over 50 years ago.
Greinke should make that two.
I’m just tickled that Greinke is coming home. His 2009 season was exhilarating…an event every time he pitched. When he asked for a trade following the 2010 season and the Royals accommodated him, the return was Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi. Cain, of course, was the best player on those championship teams. Escobar was some kind of ambushing, October wizard. And Odorizzi was spun as part of the package to Tampa for James Shields and Wade Davis. Greinke, just entering his prime, wanted to pitch for a contender, and in return, he pushed open the Royals’ own window of contention.
It’s different this time around, but it will be nice to have number 23 back on the bump at The K.
I don't get excited about brining former Royals back. I like watching them bounce around in an old friend alert.....But Zach is different - he can still get the job done. You know what you will get when his name comes up. Garrett- doesn't have to "save" the bullpen - just play a role. I think this will be a good addition. Wednesday was a good day to be a Royals fan.