Zack Greinke deserves better, says this blog.
I'm hard-pressed to disagree. Oh, not better than the Darwin Finches, his BARB employer. Greinke, while not dominant, was among the league leaders in a few categories halfway through his year with the Unnatural Selections. I'm talking about the (ugh) Royals, who (along with the Pirates and the Padres) seem to have set up permanent residence in the second division these days.
Here's a stat not mentioned on the above article: Greinke is 15-9 with a 2.55 ERA since August 1st last year. Pretty good, but consider: in June of this year, Greinke put together five straight quality starts (six or more innings, three or less earned runs), fanned 39 in 32 innings and an overall 2.53 ERA . . . and went 0-3 with two no-decisions. This is cosmic suckiness in the run support department.
If he was on any AL East club, Greinke would probably win the Cy Young. As it is . . .
5 comments:
I disagree. If he was on an AL East club he wouldn't be as effective.
I don't follow that logic.
The Central and Eastern divisions of the AL are the same size, which means that each club in those divisions plays 18 games versus each of their divisional rivals (a total of 72), whereas each plays at total of 10 games against each of the five teams in the opposite division (a total of 50). So, yeah, if Greinke moved from the AL Central to the AL East his TEAM would play in 22 more games against AL East foes. But he wouldn't pitch in all of those. In fact, even allowing for schedule quirks, he would probably make only 6-7 additional starts against such teams.
Now, what is the difference in the run-scoring environment in the two divisions? Currently, AL East clubs are averaging 525 runs scored, whereas AL Central clubs are averaging 479 runs scored. That's a 9.6 percent difference in the run-scoring environment. Now, will it hurt Greinke more that he will have 9.6 percent more offense AGAINST him in 6-7 starts, or will it help him more that he's going to have 9.6 percent more offense behind him in ALL of his starts? I mean, even the Orioles have scored nearly 80 runs more than the Royals!
But let's play Devil's Advocate. Let's assume that Greinke made ALL of his starts in his own division, both before and after switching. Well, again, you're talking about a 9.6 percent increase in runs scored across the board going from Central to East. That would boost a (say) 2.00 ERA to, what, 2.21? 2.22? At the same time, though, he would get anywhere from 20-45 percent increase in run support from any of the AL East teams compared to the (pitiful) Royals.
So, the intuition that Greinke would be more hurt than helped by switching to a higher-scoring division is not born out by careful analysis, sorry!
I disagree with pretty much that entire statement...
The AL East has better pitching and better hitting than any other division in the AL. The Royals have no hitting at all, which means that I do not believe they would get a 9.7 percent increase in offense if they were to move to the AL East.
Greinke hasn't had to face Boston or NY this season. He has a .333 BA against TB and a 5.25 era against the Blue Jays.I guess you can hang his 2.08 ERA against the Orioles on a plaque. But it takes more than that to impress me. CC was unbeatable in the Central. Now he isn't. Theres a reason the best pitchers move to NY every year and fall apart, or at least they fall down from pitching heaven. The AL East is too tough to pitch in.
Does it matter? What if the entire Red Sox lineup was named in the 2003 tests? The numbers, when compared to the league average are well above the average; however, their numbers are included in the average which skews the averages. The AL East cheats (Too many big names have been documented as cheating: Ortiz, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Clemens, Palmeiro, Tejada, Giambia, Schilling, etc.) Point is, Greinke's numbers are extremely impressive considering his team, but they may just be numbers either aided or hampered by the steroid/performance enhancing scandals. This is a sad day for baseball because I have to be skeptical of a great pitcher, Greinke, due to the environment of baseball...
The Royals have no hitting at all, which means that I do not believe they would get a 9.7 percent increase in offense if they were to move to the AL East.
But that's not what I'm saying. I'm not talking about moving the Royals. As a team, they would clearly do WORSE in the AL East than in the AL Central. I'm talking about moving Greinke from the Royals to any AL East club. In which case, my argument still stands on that point.
Further, you appeal to Greinke's individual performance this season vs. AL East teams. Surely you must recognize that you are generalizing from a rather small sample? If you go back to 2008, when his performance started to rise, you'll see that he had a very respectable 3.80 ERA vs. AL East clubs.
But all that is beside the point. No one was claiming that Greinke wouldn't give up more runs in the higher-scoring AL East environment. The claim I made was that he would likely win a Cy Young Award in that environment, because he would have much more run support. I'll stick by that claim. No one has countered my argument, which is that he would be helped by the higher level of run support in ALL the games he pitched, but only face stiffer competition where offense was concerned in 22 out of 162 games pitched.
By the way, since the beginning of the 2008 season Greinke has compiled a 1.83 ERA against the Yankees. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, Frank Sinatra sang.
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