SubscribeThe Price Guide’s composite projections said Zack Greinke would be worth $9 in 2009. That’s what you would pay for a 4.15 ERA and 1.32 WHIP pitcher — one with a middling strikeout rate on a bad team for wins.
Zack Greinke currently sits at $52 of value in a standard mixed league — tops for any hitter or pitcher. He’s turned himself into a dominant strikeout pitcher (9.7 K/9) who is giving up so few runs per start that he gets wins even as a Royal.
The composite projections put Raul Ibanez down as a $14 player. That’s a 20 HR, 80 RBI, outfielder who is about to turn 37 years old.
With 17 homeruns already this season, Ibanez looks like he could match his full-season homerun projection (22) by the end of May. He’s flipped that $14 projection into a $41 value so far this year — leading all hitters.
Does that mean anything going forward?
At this point, I’m much more sold on Greinke’s breakout than on Ibanez’s. I could envision Greinke as a top 10 pitcher next year much easier than I can see Ibanez as a top-tier hitter.
Most of that confidence is due to their respective ages: Greinke is 24 and Ibanez, 36. It’s much more likely for a 24 year old pitcher to take his game to the next level than for a hitter in his “decline” years.
Wild guess for end-of-year values: Ibanez $26, Greinke $37.
Even wilder guess at 2010 projections: Ibanez $17, Greinke $34.
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Greinke being predicted fro an ERA of 4+ and a whip of 1.30+ was stupid, I’m not sure how they do their math projections but It was plain to see that Greinke was an ace LAST year, ESPECIALLY his last couple of starts (no ER) and the fact that he has always had amazing stuff was a top ranked prospect. Hell even by just looking at stats he had a good year last year in fact he had a better year than Peavy.
@MV: Yeah, I’m not sure what happened with the Greinke projections… It’s not even like there’s one crazy projection weighing down the average, either — everyone had him pretty close to the composite.
In their defense, the projections don’t know anything about his prospect status, so he doesn’t get any help there. And I don’t know how much the systems considered it, but his 2005 season was pretty bad.
It still looks pretty crazy in hindsight.