Zack Greinke Signing Deal With Arizona Diamondbacks, Reports Say

The sources spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because there hadn’t been an official announcement. Yes, the Diamondbacks. Not the San Francisco Giants or the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were the supposed front-runners for the right-hander.

Greinke, who spent the past three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, will earn more than $34 million per year, beating the annual average earned by Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera and Boston Red Sox pitcher David Price by more than $3 million.

The other is Johnny Cueto, who reportedly rejected a six-year, $120-million offer from the Diamondbacks.

For the $32 million a year they were offering Greinke, they could afford two starting pitchers. That they bested the Dodgers and Giants for the 2015 Cy Young Award runner-up qualifies as one of the biggest free-agent upsets ever. Arizona surprisingly joined the Greinke sweepstakes late in the process and were able to land him on a six-year mega-deal, as written here. He finished second in the voting for the NL Cy Young Award after posting the lowest ERA in the Majors in 20 years (1.66) while leading baseball in WHIP (0.84) and opponents’ OPS (.507). They have a powerful offense – led by Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock – that finished second in the National League in runs scored (behind Colorado) and third in OBP, along with a defense that finished first in the MLB in defensive runs saved. He immediately upgrades a Diamondbacks staff that ranked 29th in baseball in innings pitched, 23rd in ERA and 23rd in strikeouts last season.

Greinke’s new deal contains deferred money.

So the Sleeper Pick to win in 2016 nails the Sleeper Free Agent signing on the eve of next week’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.

Adding Leake to a rotation that features Greinke and Patrick Corbon would make a ton of sense for the Diamondbacks. Greinke had a scoreless streak of 45 2-3 innings this summer.

Losing Greinke to the Arizona Diamondbacks – because the Dodgers wouldn’t kick in a sixth guaranteed year to a 32-year old who has thrown more than 33,000 major-league pitches – is not a good development, obviously, for the Dodgers’ chances in 2016. There was three years and $71 million left on the contract.

The Dodgers made the playoffs this year but lost to the New York Mets in the National League Division Series. With the signing of Greinke comes the loss of the 13th overall draft pick, as well as an inflated payroll. The Dodgers required a man inches behind Clayton Kershaw, as Greinke just completed the finest season of his career in that very role.

But the reality is, the Giants have Madison Bumgarner to front their rotation (an excellent spot in which to be) and Chris Heston as a promising 28-year-old behind him.