In this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated, Kansas City Royals pitcher Zack Greinke is on the cover with the headline The Best Pitcher in Baseball.
Without question, Zack Greinke’s meteoric rise into the pantheon of top pitchers in Major League Baseball has been one of the best stories this April.
Zack Greinke’s story — falling into the abyss of social anxiety disorder and coming back from it — deserves both respect and adulation. The following passage from the SI article paints the depressing picture perfectly:
During a dreadful 2005 season in which he would finish with a 5–17 record and a 5.80 ERA, Brian Anderson remembers Greinke once suddenly announcing in the dugout, “I’m going to throw a 50-mph curveball next inning.” That was all he said.
Next inning, Greinke threw a preposterously slow curve to Detroit’s Dmitri Young, the kind that made the whole crowd shout “Oooh.” Anderson stuck his head out of the dugout to get the reading. It was precisely 50 mph.
The incident says something about Greinke’s quirkiness and a virtuoso’s feel for pitching, but it reveals more than that, too. It shows that Greinke was in trouble. He hated pitching so much that he had to invent little games to keep himself from crumbling. Everything was falling apart. He feuded with his pitching coach, Guy Hansen, who wanted him to move five inches to the left on the rubber. Never close to his teammates, he became even more distant, occasionally hostile.
The SI story about Zack Greinke, from where the above passage is taken, is written by Joe Posnanski, one of the most consistently sublime sportswriters out there. If he says that Zack Greinke is the best pitcher in
baseball, then Greinke has a pretty powerful and respectable source in his corner. (And, truth be told, Posnanski does only say that Greinke is the best pitcher in baseball “for the moment.”)
I have to say, it’s pretty hard to argue with Zack Greinke’s stat line thus far through his first four games in April:
- Record: 4-0
- ERA: 0.00
- WHIP: 0.86
- K/BB: 36/6
- Complete game shutouts: 2
- Consecutive starts without an earned run dating back to last season: 6
To say that those numbers are preposterously good would be an understatement. If I was playing a video game and had a pitcher with those kind of stats I would raise the difficulty level. So it is hard to dispute that at this very moment Zack Greinke is the best pitcher in baseball. He may even be, at this very moment right now, the best player in baseball — bar none (with apologies to Albert Pujols).
But is Zack Greinke really the best pitcher in baseball?
Off the top of my head I can think of a few guys that I would certainly consider to be on Greinke’s level who are far more proven over the long haul: C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay, and Jake Peavy. Tim Lincecum, while only in his third year, has already proven that he can be dominant over the course of an entire season, which is something that Greinke has yet to do.
I can’t say off-hand whether I would take any of these guys over Zack Greinke if I was the GM of an MLB team, but I do think they would all be worthy debates.
There is one pitcher, however, for whom there would be no debate: Johan Santana — the true best pitcher in baseball.
I know that Sports Illustrated wants to go out on a limb with their cover claim in an effort to sell more magazines, and that calling Johan Santana the best pitcher in baseball has become something of a cliche, but that’s because it is true. And if SI’s cover story is any indication of the general perception of baseball writers or baseball fans, then we are not truly appreciating the consistent greatness of Johan Santana.
As insanely good as Zack Greinke’s start has been, is anyone noticing the incredible four-game start of Santana this season?
- Record: 3-1 (and his one loss was a 13K gem in which he went 7 innings while giving up only 3 hits and no earned runs)
- ERA: 0.70
- WHIP: 0.90
- K/BB: 37/6
Clearly, Greinke’s start has been better. But let’s compare their numbers from last season:
- ERA: Santana – 2.53 | Greinke – 3.47
- WHIP: Santana – 1.15 | Greinke – 1.28
- Ks: Santana – 206 | Greinke – 183
- IP: Santana – 234.1 | Greinke – 202.1
Greinke was good last year, and certainly my hat is off to him for overcoming what he has overcome to rebound from his awful 2005 season, but I think SI is jumping the gun just a bit by proclaiming him the best pitcher in baseball. Johan Santana is only 3 1/2 years older than Greinke and has been producing at a high level in the majors since 2002. Greinke finally started coming into his own last season, and has followed that success up with a ridiculous start to this season, but just look at the year-by-year career stats of Johan Santana compared with the year-by-year career stats of Zack Greinke.
There really is no comparison.
If the claim was “best pitcher in baseball over the last 6 starts,” then yes Zack Greinke is your choice. But we all know that high atop the list of important characteristics for a pitcher is the ability to produce consistently over the long haul, season after season. Zack Greinke may yet prove that he can be this type of pitcher, but no one, not even the great Roy Halladay, can compete with Johan Santana in this area right now.
Besides, just by putting Zack Greinke on their cover and subjecting him to the infamous jinx, Sports Illustrated may be ensuring that he will not continue to be the “best pitcher in baseball.” Maybe from that perspective Johan Santana is happy they did not choose him. Of course, Santana has been on the SI cover before and it hasn’t seemed to bother him much.
(Update: And the SI cover jinx may have already begun. In his first start since the new SI was issued, earlier tonight against Toronto, Greinke gave up his first earned runs of the year. It wasn’t a complete jinx though, as he improved to 5-0 and struck out 8 over 7 innings. Johan Santana also pitched tonight, going 7 innings, giving up two earned, and striking out 7.)
If I was starting a team today, and I could choose any pitcher in baseball to start it with, I’m choosing Johan Santana without even a split second thought. And when I think of the best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana is the first and only pitcher who comes to mind.
Sports Illustrated picked a great pitcher to profile, and Joe Posnanski was his usual proselific* self, but Zack Greinke still has a ways to go before I would even consider him as the best pitcher in baseball. Considering his personal backstory, and the underdog nature of his team, I wouldn’t mind seeing him get there though.
Kudos to Zack Greinke for beginning to fulfill his immense potential, but best pitcher in baseball is a torch that will have to be passed by Johan Santana, rather than handed out by the SI headline writers.
What do you think?
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* – Just made that one up while typing. Pretty apt word to describe Joe Posnanski, don’t you think?
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