Expectations for Greinke going forward?

[YoungGeezy]

I expect him to hit right around .200 to. 220 and figure 3-4 HRs. Don't expect to many walks, swing gets a tad bit long. Id be happy with a. 550 OPS.

 

Oh we are talking bout his pitching, my bad. I expect him to be the pitcher we thought we were getting. Time table wise he is still really in Mid to late April. Against what JohnBriggs believes, plenty of elite pitchers often struggle early but build as season goes on. I think Sabathia and Beckett are to prime example. I think Greinke will only get strong and more sharp. Right now he is struggling off- speed allowing teams to sit fb. Once he gets that stuff working, we'll be dangerous. Right now his stats really don't line up with his ERA and that is a good sign. Really needsto end those 1 inning old Dave Bush meltdowns

[danzig6767]

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.

He has given up a sizable number of hard hit balls when he's made mistakes this year, so people aren't saying that's Grienke has been getting bad luck via a bunch of seeing eye grounders and flares finding openings. What they are saying about Grienke not having much luck this year is when a pitcher has such an insanely good K/BB rate, he's not pitching terribly, just when he does make mistakes, batters are rarely bailing him out by not hitting a rocket line drive somewhere or home run.

 

It's fairlyy rare for a starting pitcher to pitch so well in a game that they don't make any mistake pitches by leaving at least a few pitches more over the plate than they wanted. Often enough though, even when a pitcher leaves a ball over the plate, the batter will still only hit a ground ball, fly out, foul it off, and/or hit the ball hard right at a defender. When Grienke had made mistake pitches so far this year, he rarely is catching a break by the batter not centering on the pitch. Take two of the homers he's given up also. The one Neil Walker hit out wasn't a bad pitch at all left over the plate, Walker just golfed it out. Then the one the Colorado pitcher hit out, yea that was a bad pitch right over the middle of the plate. That said, throw that same pitch to Hammell 20 straight times and he likely wouldn't hit another one out for a homer, but that time he did hit it out. Again, bad pitch there to Hammell, but some bad luck that he jacked it 380 feet given that pitchers constantly get thrown pitches to them right down the middle with little to no harm as a result.

 

So for me at least, while i agree with you in that Grienke so far has given up to many hard hit balls, especially at more inopportune times than say with nobody on, the 39/3 K/BB rate gives me plenty of confidence that the runs being allowed should soon start decreasing significantly. That fabulous K/BB rate shows that nothing is wrong or off with his stuff, more just a mix of making to many mistake pitches at less than ideal times in the games and Grienke not catching many breaks when he does miss with a pitch.

[And That]

To follow up on my last reply, I found where Baseball Reference keeps their IP/GS stat.

 

In 2010, the following pitchers averaged 7 IP/GS or more:

• Roy Halladay (33 GS)
  
• Cliff Lee (28 GS)
  
• Felix Hernandez (34 GS)
  
• CC Sabathia (34 GS)
  
• Adam Wainwright (33 GS)

In 2009:

• Roy Halladay (32 GS)
  
• Felix Hernandez (34 GS)
  
• Tim Lincecum (32 GS)

In 2008:

• Roy Halladay (34 GS)
  
• Cliff Lee (31 GS)
  
• CC Sabathia (35 GS)

That's six unique pitchers in three years.