Expectations for Greinke going forward?

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Zach now has 4 starts under his belt, and should be getting close to max effectiveness after shaking off the spring rust.

His counting stats other than ERA are pretty/very solid 21 IP 2 BB 29K 1.24 WHIP, but those 4 home runs and a few bad innings have really hurt his ERA.

 

As we get into June/July and later the stretch run of the season, is it reasonable to expect his ERA and ability to limit "the big inning" will continue to improve? His WHIP at 1.24 is pretty good, but its probably unreasonable to expect that 14.5 K/BB ratio to continue, and if his walks increase even just a bit, he'll be looking at a WHIP in the 1.35-1.40 range.

 

I'd really like to see him turn in a 3.00 ERA 1.1 WHIP 10+ K/BB ratio here on out, but I guess I expected him to have a bit more early success since many NL hitters had never faced him

[TheCrew]

With the amount of K's he is putting up, I'm really not that worried - he's had a history of bad spring training's, so it isn't that surprising that he is showing a lot of rust. Once he gets going I fully expect him to dominate.

[derflotr]

Not that I'm a scout or anything, but I just get the impression he hasn't gotten the feel for any of his off-speed stuff yet. The fastball is there but that will only take a pitcher so far. Once he starts spotting the slider in particular he'll be in good shape.

[And That]

Greinke's BABIP against is .370(!), his strand rate is 49%(!!) and his HR/FB rate is 21.1% (!!!). For perspective, his career levels are .308, 72.2% and 8.7%, respectively. He's been extremely unlucky. His FIP is 2.91, SIERA is 1.74 and xFIP is 1.47.

 

Apart from that... he's obviously not able to keep his breaking stuff sharp yet very far in to the game, but that won't last much longer. The combination of Greinke finding his breaking stuff with the inevitable regression in his luck points to a very, very good run of starts in the near future.

[TheCrew]

to add onto the last post, defense hasn't been great behind him during his starts either (to say the least)

[Funketown]

Thanks And That.

 

There's no reason to worry about Greinke. He has made many hitters look foolish and he isn't giving guys free bases. He has been fine so far.

[RobDeer 45]

Ya I think ZG starts getting in to his own in June. I just feel like these starters are feeding off each other right now and are just making everyone better. We have some studs and it's really exciting to watch them.

[JohnBriggs12]

Greinke's BABIP against is .370(!), his strand rate is 49%(!!) and his HR/FB rate is 21.1% (!!!). For perspective, his career levels are .308, 72.2% and 8.7%, respectively. He's been extremely unlucky. His FIP is 2.91, SIERA is 1.74 and xFIP is 1.47.

 

Apart from that... he's obviously not able to keep his breaking stuff sharp yet very far in to the game, but that won't last much longer. The combination of Greinke finding his breaking stuff with the inevitable regression in his luck points to a very, very good run of starts in the near future.

I'm sorry but I'm not buying the "extremely unlucky" assessment. He's allowed 4 HR in 21 innings including one to a pitcher. Opponents are slugging .576 against him. I was there when he pitched against the Pirates and allowed in succession, HR, Double, Double, Double, Triple, Single. None of those hits were remotely "lucky".

 

While he's certainly capable of turning it around and it is for him very early, I'm a little concerned about everyone making excuses for him. This guy is supposed to be a premier pitcher. Premier pitchers don't generally ease into a season. They hit the ground running. The Brewers emptied their farm system to get him. Yes he was set back by injuries, but I expect better than what I've seen so far. It is fortunate that he's gotten plenty of run support so far so his struggles haven't been all that detrimental to the team. Let's hope we see the guy we all hoped to see soon though.

[And That]

I'm sorry but I'm not buying the "extremely unlucky" assessment.

I'm not heartbroken.

 

Opponents are slugging .576 against him.

That would seem to be a perfect example of why he's been unlucky.

 

Premier pitchers don't generally ease into a season.

Hyperbole. "Premier pitchers don't generally break ribs in the preseason" would be a more correct statement.

[Ennder]

Premier pitchers don't generally ease into a season. They hit the ground running.

 

Justin Verlander - 5.64

Cole Hamels - 5.28

Jon Lester - 4.71

Dan Haren - 4.50

 

 

Those are the 2010 April ERAs of 4 pitchers that a lot of people would have called aces last year. Premier pitchers struggle at times just like everyone else, especially when they start their season in such a weird way. Greinke hasn't really pitched poorly, he has had poor results so I'm not really worried at all. If he weren't striking anyone out or he was really wild and walking players I'd be worried but not when his peripherals are solid and his variance stats are wonky.

[FVBrewerFan]

I expect him to be an ace. Basically, pitch like Marcum. He's shown enough even in his first 4 starts that he's capable of being that ace. Frankly, doesn't matter what WE expect, it's what the Brewers expect. They didn't give up all that talent for a #3 SP for a couple years.

[Tedaldtada]

I don't know how anyone can look at Greinke's periphs. and not think that he has been very unlucky. You'd have to be a habitual contrarian or something.

[TooLiveBrew]

Those are the 2010 April ERAs of 4 pitchers that a lot of people would have called aces last year.

 

Ubaldo Jimenez through yesterday's start: 6.14 ERA

[rluzinski]

I don't know how anyone can look at Greinke's periphs. and not think that he has been very unlucky. You'd have to be a habitual contrarian or something.

I don't think that's it in this case. A significant segment of sports fans reject the notion of luck playing any significant role in player performance and game results. I think there are two reasons for this. First, they don't fully appreciate the concept of binomial uncertainty (statistical "luck") and what role it plays in sports. They understand that if we flip a coin 10 times, we don't always expect to get 5 heads. They don't necessarily understand how that applies to a baseball game, however.

Second, they don't want to believe that the result of a sporting event is not always dictated by just the skill of the players involved. It's not as much to fun to have to admit that luck may have played a role in your favorite team winning or losing. So they mold their reality to fit their preferences.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

When a guy has a 29/2 K/BB ratio, it's hard to NOT imagine luck playing a role in a guy having his ERA.

 

Yeah, he threw a bad pitch to a pitcher. Yes, he's given up more homeruns than wouldn't be expected. Like someone else said, the BABIP at this point is outrageously high. Anything can happen over a small sample, and that's exactly what's happened here so far.

[And That]

Another start today with a mind-blowing K/BB ratio. 7 IP, 5 H, 1 BB, 10 K. He was able to limit the hits today by keeping the over-eager Nationals off balance. He still didn't have great command of his breaking stuff, and you almost saw that HR he gave up coming, but overall a good outing from ZG. Hopefully, a sign that the tide is turning.

 

That's 3 walks and 39 strikeouts through 28 innings this year, BTW. Not too bad.

[topper09er]

Right now he has a 49% Runners left on base % and a .370 BAbip against. For his career he has a 72% LOB% and a .308 BAbip against.

 

ERA = 6.43, FIP = 2.91, xFIP = 1.47

 

He will be fine, every time he starts we have the advantage in the pitching matchup and we have a good chance to win.

[joepepsi]

Second, they don't want to believe that the result of a sporting event is not always dictated by just the skill of the players involved. It's not as much to fun to have to admit that luck may have played a role in your favorite team winning or losing. So they mold their reality to fit their preferences.

I think this is a key reason why the athletes themselves are often better at shrugging off a loss than the fans. They deliver post game quotes that sound trite and cliche, but they understand better than the fans that sometimes things just don't go the way they should even if you played the game just the way you wanted. So you "tip your hat" to the other guy, "stay within yourself", and get to ready play again tomorrow.

[topper09er]

Second, they don't want to believe that the result of a sporting event is not always dictated by just the skill of the players involved. It's not as much to fun to have to admit that luck may have played a role in your favorite team winning or losing. So they mold their reality to fit their preferences.

 

Almost no sports fans at all, casual and educated, understands a basic principle: YOU CANNOT TAKE LUCK OUT OF SPORTS. Yet you hear people constantly talking about it, things like balancing the schedule, having instant replay.. etc, etc. No matter what you try to do the difference between the tops teams is LUCK. Lucroy had a nice AB last night, but was very late on a fastball he was trying to pull/hit up the middle and instead it landed on the RF foul line. The brewers got lucky and won, this is no different from an ump making a bad call in your favor. No matter what you do you cannot remove the luck in sports.

 

However, I think this is actually a good thing, because from a fans perspective it is awesome when you get lucky, and the only way you will win the world series is by getting lucky a lot. If there wasnt luck then the game would be totally predictable and not fun to watch. An example I like is deals with fantasy football scoring, a few years ago it was very standard to have 6 points for a TD and 1 point for 10 yards, so a Jerome Bettis type with 10 yards and 2 TDs outperforms a guy with 25 carries for 100 yards but no TDs. Then people started getting all mad because they dont understand the concept that you cannot remove luck from sports, and people started making TDs worth less points. All this did was make fantasy less exciting, because now when your guy scores a TD it is less exciting, but the outcome is still the same because the guys who wins end up with the most luck from other ways.

 

People who cannot accept this really shouldnt even bother being a sports fan and should just go play blackjack or flip coins and feel satisfied when after a big sample they get the outcome they expect. It really bothers me when people with this mentality refuse to give up on just being a sports fan who gets excited when good things happen to your team and try to engineer evey possible little rule adjestment so nothing unlucky can ever happen to them and instead just make the game less exciting...like pushing for instant replay.

 

When the ump makes a bad call in your favor its awesome, when it goes against you it sucks. Same with broken bat single and line drive outs.

 

[Ennder]

I would argue that it isn't actually luck, it is variance. When you get enough of a sample you finally get to see the skill without the variance getting in the way. Of course these samples are pretty huge. People always fail to recognize that even half a season isn't really a very large sample when you are talking about how good a player is, heck a full season isn't really a very good sample, that is why people use the 3 year averages etc so much.

 

I have a friend who plays poker for a living, he has made hundreds of thousands of dollars with it now so is obviously a skilled player. He still sometimes goes months at a time where he loses money over huge samples of hands. Baseball is no different, so much of what happens is out of the individuals hands it takes a long time to get a really good idea how good someone is.

[topper09er]

I have a friend who plays poker for a living, he has made hundreds of thousands of dollars with it now so is obviously a skilled player. He still sometimes goes months at a time where he loses money over huge samples of hands.

And if he entered a 30 person poker tournament it would be won by whichever one of the better players gets luckiest during that tournament...just like baseball.

 

[pretendastronaut]

And if he entered a 30 person poker tournament it would be won by whichever one of the better players gets luckiest during that tournament...just like baseball.

 

I agree with your general premise that luck has a role in sport and people fail to understand it's role, but that statement makes it seem that luck is the only thing that matters, which isn't the case. As Ennder got at, there are a lot of variables, and they effect luck, and luck effect them. The better players are able to deal with the luck they're dealt and the luck their opponents are dealt. And sometimes even the best players can do nothing about it.

[Hammer]

What do I "expect"? I'm not going to get in to all of the stats that are being thrown around...but will put out hard numbers. I expect 7 innings every start and 3 or less earned runs per start. I really don't care what stats lead to these numbers as long as this is what he is able to give the team as the ace of the staff.

[And That]

I expect 7 innings every start and 3 or less earned runs per start.

If Greinke pitched 7 innings and allowed 3 runs per start - I know you said "or less" but bear with me for a second - he would have a 3.86 ERA. That's quite a bit worse than he's capable of. Even with his "bad" start, I think he finishes the year with an ERA between 3.00 and 3.25.

 

As for 7 innings every start... if you assume 34 starts in a season, that's 238 IP. Pitchers rarely hit that number anymore. In the past three years, only four pitchers have done that. Halladay has eclipsed that all three years, Felix Hernandez two years and Justin Verlander & CC Sabathia have each done it once. I don't think 7 innings every time out for a whole year is a realistic expectation.

 

And yes, I'm sure there are a few more guys that averaged 7 or more IP per start in almost-full partial seasons, but you get my point.

[endaround]

Then you will be sorely disappointed. There is Roy Halladay and then there are really good pitchers who are still human. Not one pitcher who was a consistent starter in the NL averaged over 7 innings a start last season aside from Halladay.