RADIO
Zack Greinke cashed in big time on his impressive 2015 campaign. After posting the lowest regular season ERA since Greg Maddux in '95, Greinke signed a six-year, $206.5 million dollar deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The question now becomes, will he perform at a level that justifies the deal? More importantly, is he worth burning a top five or top 10 pick on? My answer is no. Don't get me wrong, I think Greinke will still be a very good pitcher for the D-Backs, but I don't think he will live up to his performance from last year.
Pitching at Chase Field won't be a good thing for Greinke. The ball tends to fly out of there, especially once the weather heats up. Also Greinke's FIP from 2015 suggests that he will be due for some regression. He didn't walk a lot of batters, but he also wasn't generating a ton of strikeouts. Pitching to contact like that means it's very possible that some of those balls that get put in play will find holes. I will also say that the back end of the bullpen is not as safe in Arizona as it was in Los Angeles. I would trust Kenley Jansen over Brad Ziegler for saves and I could see Greinke having less wins as a result of the closer downgrade.
He will still be in the upper echelon of pitchers, but remember that pitching is deep and there's no sense overpaying for Greinke when you can get comparable production later on in the draft.
