Zack Attack

Zack Greinke has been amazing. You can't help but find people gushing about his start this year, and all of it is justified, so I'm not going to go there. Instead I want to just briefly talk about his 2005 year, the one where he completely broke down, caused him to quit baseball and find a cure to his chemical imbalance.

In 2004, as a 20 year old, Greinke was quite awesome. 3.97 ERA in 145 innings with a 1.61 bb/9. In 2005 he fell apart losing 18 games with a 5.80 ERA. His BABIP in 2004 was .275, his FIP 4.70. A 4.70 FIP is still awesome from a 20 year old in the major leagues with that kind of control. But wouldn't a 4.49 FIP be a little better? Because that's the FIP Greinke had in 2005, the year his ERA rose to 5.8, the year he lost 18 games, the year his BABIP was .343 and his LOB% was 65.2%. So it seems to me like Greinke didn't get much worse the next year, he just got unlucky. Sure his bb/9 rose, and his k/9 shrunk, but his 2004 success was partially due to some good luck, and his 2005 failures was largely due to some really piss poor luck.

Maybe Greinke's success in 2004 gave him some false confidence. Sure he was a great pitcher with immense talent, but he wasn't as good as the stats showed. And when his luck went the other way, he couldn't deal with it. I don't think Greinke is the first young star with talent to have that happen to him and I don't think he'll be the last.

I just find this whole situation pretty interesting. I don't know his exact situation and I won't pretend to, but it's interesting that his bad luck in 2005 caused him to be depressed and seek help, has almost been, well lucky. Let's play a stupid what if game. What if Greinke didn't get unlucky in 2005, what kind of pitcher would be be today? He was essentially the same pitcher both years and what he lost some areas (bb/9, k/9) he gained in others (better GB%). Greinke threw around 90 MPH with a 96 mph fastball in his pocket that he didn't use. He was an above average pitcher then, and he likely wouldn't be all that much bettre. Luckily that's not the case, he now uses that 95+ fastball, and in the 9th inning too.

I wonder what Tom Cruise would say about this, since he knows the history of psychology and all...