Zack Greinke (pitching, in background) said it could take months for the Dodgers to jell with their new teammates.
Greinke holds the key to the Dodgers’ 2015 off-season plans. He can opt out of his contract at the end of this season and, if he does, the club will be forced to re-sign him to a pricey contract or try to replace his (200-or-so) innings another way. I wrote about this Saturday.
Greinke also had some typically nuanced reflections on the Dodgers’ off-season changes. Rattling off the departed players one-by-one — Matt Kemp, Hanley Ramirez, Dan Haren, Dee Gordon — Greinke said trading Gordon was the only decision that he couldn’t foresee.
“I guess when you have a new front office involved,” Greinke concluded, “you never know what’s going to happen.”
On the whole, Greinke said he understood the direction the new executives were going with the roster changes. But not everything made perfect sense.
“I don’t think we got rid of anyone that was an issue in our clubhouse,” he said. “Anyone who says anything along those lines I don’t agree with them. I wouldn’t say everyone got along with everyone that was gone, but there were definitely more positives than negatives with everyone we got rid of.”
In terms of offense, Greinke said, “you can’t really replace Hanley two years ago, how good he was. Kemp, the second half of last year, that’s just unbelievable production. I guess the goal is to have a deeper lineup and not replace as a team but make up the difference defensively. You maybe come up with a better team that way.”
Greinke didn’t sound totally sold on the idea of “making up the difference defensively,” either.
“Like how much better is Kershaw going to be with a different shortstop? He had a one-point-seven ERA,” Greinke said, rounding down from the 1.77 ERA Kershaw posted in 2014. “Obviously it couldn’t hurt too much. If you’re pitching good and doing your job, you’re still going to get outs. Yeah, it helps to have good defense behind you but the most important person in defense is the pitcher still.”
Asked if he understood the executives’ thought process, he said: “The Rays overachieved, and Oakland did too, but I know the Rays overachieved with a number-one goal as a defensive goal. No matter how much you argue if that made sense or not, it worked for them. Maybe it is more valuable than we realize.”
Greinke’s tepid faith sounds similar to that of many fans. Of course, fans only get to know a player from a distance. Up close, Greinke said, “a lot of times when you change a team sometimes it takes a year or a couple months to jell. It doesn’t matter if you bring the greatest guys in the world, it takes a little bit to get used to them.”
