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Needing the rest of the 2019 season, plus both of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, to be completed before his contract is up, Zack Greinke seems to be pretty locked in as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the foreseeable future. Having signed a monster six-year, $206.5 million deal in December of 2015, the hurler is currently in a solid stretch of this season.
The right-hander boasts an 8-3 record with a 3.08 ERA across 17 starts and 19 appearances, which puts him on pace for a typical season for Greinke, who has been a very solid starter for whichever team he has pitched for.
The Diamondbacks are the fifth team in Greinke’s career, having started his professional baseball career all the way back in 2002, having been drafted sixth overall by the small-market Kansas City Royals.
From there, Greinke was shipped to another small-market franchise, the Milwaukee Brewers, in a 2010 winter deal, which allowed him to enjoy some of his best baseball while pitching at Miller Park. The Brewers shipped him out in a non-contending year to the Los Angeles Angels soon after in a trade deadline deal in 2012, where he only finished out that season.
As a free agent, Greinke earned big-time money by signing with the cross-town Los Angeles Dodgers, where he pitched for three seasons before using his opt-out clause and leaving the Dodgers. From there, he signed the six-year pact with the Diamondbacks, where he currently resides.
For Greinke, his performances seem to always improve when in postseasons environments, which is something far from what Arizona will be experiencing this season. Currently sitting at .500, 14 games back of the first-place Dodgers, the Dbacks will not be having a stake in who makes the playoffs this year, unless it is due to which players they trade away to contenders.
A bigger piece is Greinke, who looks to be on some teams’ radars as the trade deadline quickly approaches, right around one month away. With only having one deadline this year instead of the customary two, teams will be looking for talent earlier on in July, potentially driving up prices and increasing prospect returns for teams who need them the most.
The Philadelphia Phillies, winners of 41 games but only three of their last ten, would be an excellent landing place for Greinke, being able to plug him right into their starting rotation for a few more seasons.
For the Dbacks, their interest in sending him to a fellow National League team would be a bit more difficult to justify, but having Greinke play in a different division for at least the next two-and-a-half seasons would be fine, provided the prospect package in return is juicy enough.
The Phillies farm system is a bit ravaged due to their busy offseason, which saw them go out and acquire J.T. Realmuto, Jean Segura, and Jay Bruce in trades while signing Bryce Harper, David Robertson and Andrew McCutchen from the free-agency market. Getting Realmuto created the biggest impact on the Phillies farm system, which resulted in top prospects Sixto Sanchez and Jorge Alfaro both being shipped to the Miami Marlins, which was expected but still created a large dent in the top half of their system.
Combined with the package sent to the Seattle Mariners for Jean Segura, which included shortstop J.P. Crawford and MLB first baseman Carlos Santana, and that has all the makings for a much lower farm ranking for 2019. However, the Phillies’ system is still well-off, as players like third baseman Alec Bohm, right-hander Adonis Medina, and outfielder Adam Haseley are the top three players currently in their system.
Both Bohm (38th overall) and Medina (77th overall) rank in the top 100 in all of the minor leagues, so there is still some firepower left in that system. However, in any deal that would bring Greinke to Philadelphia, both Bohm and Medina should be off limits.
Having two full seasons and $70 million left on his deal, any return for Greinke would not be super large, due to the fact that Philadelphia would be taking on a large sum of future cash and some worry that Greinke would not live up to it.
For Arizona, they would be happy to be able to move on from such a large hit to their payroll, and while his impact on their team has been really good, the money savings and halfway-decent prospect return would bring much more value than his actual stats and on-field performances for the Diamondbacks.
Adding Greinke to a pretty stacked Phillies roster would make the NL East a very two-sided race between the Phillies and the first-place Atlanta Braves, who currently hold a five-and-a-half game lead. Spicing things up and making it more interesting in the divisional race would only make the trade deadline and subsequent moves that more interesting for the two teams.
