Free-agent pitcher Zack Greinke agreed to a deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks Friday night.
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Pitcher Zack Greinke is leaving Dodgers to sign with division rival Diamondbacks.
The major league ERA leader and runner-up for the N.L. Cy Young Award boosted the Dodgers to their third straight division title this season.
The sources spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because there hadn’t been an official announcement.
So here comes the curveball of the offseason, and it’s worth asking as the weekend begins what will be left for the winter meetings, which begin Monday in Nashville? Let’s just hope Greinke saw the team’s new uniforms before signing the papers. This deal gives the right-hander an average salary of $34.4 million, making him the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball history when he takes the mound in 2016.
Instead, the Diamondbacks wound up with an even bigger prize. The D-Backs signed a new and very lucrative television contract not too long ago, which surely helped land Greinke.
Greinke’s other numbers – he also led the NL in WHIP (0.84), WAR (9.3) and quality starts (30) – should have been enough to win the Cy Young, but Chicago Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta picked up enough steam in the second half of the season to beat him out.
Greinke opted out of his six-year, $147 million contract with the Dodgers in November.
The All-Star right hander is off to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who snuck in a side door and stole the Dodgers co-ace Friday for a whopping $206 million over six years. “We are now hard at work on our alternatives”. They finished 79-83 last season, 13 games behind the West champion Dodgers and also trailing the Giants, who have won three of the last six World Series.
This much is clear: the Giants would be close to tapped out if Greinke had agreed to join them. Greinke was among the Dodger players who were particularly upset that the Dodgers’ front office appeared to punt the trading deadline by picking up fringe players like Mat Latos and Alex Wood to replace the injured Hyun Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy, while other contenders added Johnny Cueto, David Price, Cole Hamels. If this doesn’t end up being the most stunning upset of the offseason, then we can’t wait to see what is. That he signed with the D-backs may have shocked everyone but chief baseball officer Tony La Russa, general manager Dave Stewart and president/CEO Derrick Hall. Fine and good. John Lackey to the Cubs, as reported Friday night: Yep, makes sense. Since that move, Greinke has gone 76-24, with a 2.75 ERA in five seasons in the NL. Greinke had a scoreless streak of 45 2/3 innings this summer and was was durable, pitching 222 2/3 innings. He went 19-3 and pitched six or more innings in all 32 of his starts.
What move the Dodgers counter with next will be interesting.
Despite winning it all in 2013 – their third World Series championship in 10 years – the Red Sox have finished last in the AL East in three of the past four seasons. The Dodgers also gained a compensatory selection between the first and second rounds of the draft next year.
Now the Dodgers are tasked with acquiring a starting pitcher to slot behind rotation ace Clayton Kershaw.
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The team’s No. 2 pitcher is now the injury-prone Brett Anderson, who made a career-high 31 starts last season.
