At the start of spring training Zack Greinke was diagnosed with elbow inflammation and at the time of the diagnosis was seen a minor injury. That proved to be true as he was able to begin the year on the opening day roster. Other than Carlos Quentin breaking his collar bone Greinke had a healthy season. Despite what the ERA suggests, there are some major red flags with Greinke heading into 2014.
First of all he started throwing the slider a lot less compared to previous years (image below from BrooksBaseball.net). In past years, he’d thrown it between 15-20 percent of the time. However, last year, it’s about five percent of the time. I will mention during the last two months of the season there was a spike in his slider usage, which resembled the usage of previous years. Why does decreased slider usage have a big effect on his 2014 value? Since 2008 the slider has been his most used secondary pitch. During that time the slider has a 53.6 percent strikeout rate, which makes it even more odd he would suddenly scrap that pitch in 2013. A possible reason why he scrapped the slider was due to elbow problems, which can be exacerbated by throwing a lot of sliders.
Instead of throwing the slider he threw more cut fastballs and changeups. This change resulted in the strikeout rate dropping two and a half percentage points last year, which was the lowest its been since 2010. To recap, he abandoned the slider the same year he reportedly had elbow inflammation. Therefore, I’m concerned about his health moving forward.
Second, Greinke had a great year, but there are signs he was lucky. For example, he had a six percent HR/FB rate on the road, which is not likely to be repeated again. Also, the .276 BABIP and 81 percent LOB% rates are clear numbers that should regress as well. Overall, Greinke’s numbers are going to regress from 2013; add a potential elbow problem that manifested itself in a decreased usage of the slider, his best pitch, creates a recipe I do not want to have on my fantasy team.
If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.
