Astros: After 200 Wins, is Zack Greinke Building a Case for the Hall?
As Houston Astros starting pitcher Zack Greinke earns his 200th career win, we look at his case for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
When Chad Pinder grounded out to Carlos Correa to end the game between the Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics on Sunday night, Zack Greinke joined just two other active pitchers in the 200 win club. Only CC Sabathia and his teammate Justin Verlander have accrued more victories in their careers, in an era where the pitcher Win is becoming more and more of a rarity.
In the age of analytics, where managers are often relying more on matchups and manipulation of their ever-expanding bullpens, the role of the starting pitcher seems to be gradually shrinking, as starters yield more and more of their precious innings real estate to lefty specialists and fireballing 1 inning hurlers. It seems as though the days of “give him the ball and watch him work” are going the way of the dinosaur, and those pitchers who do find their way deep into games are being hailed as “old school” or “elite”.
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Greinke is one of those latter types of pitchers, throwing at least 6 innings in 23 of his 26 starts this season, and he’s doing it with great efficiency, never topping 104 pitches in any start in 2019, between Arizona and Houston.
For Greinke, this season has just been business as usual, but as he continues to make his way towards another 200 inning season, knocking down milestone after milestone, one has to ask themselves:
Is he a Hall of Famer?
Taking a look at his resume, and the case becomes pretty clear:
- 200 Wins (more than Dazzy Vance)
- 3.36 Career ERA (Better than Tom Glavine)
- 2,828.1 Innings Pitched (more than Pedro Martinez)
- 2,578 K’s (More than Don Drysdale or Jack Morris)
- 125 ERA + (Better than Bob Feller)
- 70.5 Career WAR (more than John Smoltz)
If he retired today, then his case would already be pretty strong. What is most intriguing about his career though, is that his style and pedigree leads us to believe that there’s more to come from the eccentric hurler.
He’s not a high-velocity pitcher (12th percentile on his fastball per Baseball Savant) and has made at least 23 starts every year of his career except 2006 when he missed almost the entire season to deal with severe depression and anxiety issues. All signs point to more productive years ahead for him, and that is only going to further cement his case as an easy Hall of Famer.
Even one or two more productive seasons would put him ahead of Tim Hudson (298) in Innings Pitched, Mike Mussina (229) in strikeouts, and Curt Schilling (16) in pitcher Wins, company that only moves him closer to Cooperstown.
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If the Astros are able to tap into the fountain of youth for Zack Greinke, as they have for his flame-throwing teammate Justin Verlander, then the barriers will only continue to crumble, and there’s simply no telling how far he can go.