There Will Never Be Another Zack Greinke

baseballs had a chair of characters very weird characters Ru wadle was one of the most dominant pitchers in the history of the game but often would go missing for days at a time to fish wrestle alligators or lead parades he even disappeared during the 1905 World Series and to this day no one knows what really happened when he left Wade bogs ate chicken before every single game Mark the bird fidr would talk to the baseball W on the mound Bill Spaceman Lee ran for president in 1988 as a member of the rhinoceros party Mo Berg was a good glove no hit catcher who was also a legit spy Manny Ramirez would leave five-digit paychecks in the glove compartment of his car for weeks at a time but when it comes to the weirdest in all of baseball history one name really sticks out pitcher Zach grany whose Oddities have become the stuff of Legend the league over grank possesses cognitive abilities and quirks that you just don't see on a big league ball field as Yogi Bara said baseball's 90% mental the other half is physical to someone like Zach that quote would probably make perfect makes sense very few players have possessed either grank Skyhigh baseball IQ or has break the mold physical talents at the same time few elite players have suffered through bouts of mental disturbance akin to what grinkie experienced early in his career often in his situation it must have seemed like baseball was 100% mental and the physical was just an excuse to toy around with the gifts he was blessed with his career numbers speak volumes to his productivity over 220 wins an excellent ra of 349 a 120 ra plus nearly 3,000k but even these numbers don't truly capture the totality of gr's greatness for 15 straight Seasons between 2007 and 2022 gry's ra plus stayed above 100 and twice it Rose above 200 during that span he averaged 30 and a half starts per season in an age where hard throwers tear ucl's with frightening regularity that's how he became one of only five pitchers in MLB history to strike out a thousand different batters joining the elite company of Greg Maddox Randy Johnson Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan and he did it his way Frankie truly does March to the tune of his own drummer the truth is when someone likes mowing lawns for a living as much as pitching in the majors you're never sure how to interpret the grany legends that still live on in club houses all over the league but we're going to do our best today to capture the Enigma of Zach as we attempt to document the weirdest player in baseball history but before we get more into that I want to tell you a little bit about today's sponsor Henson shaving and their extremely high quality al13 razor now I've been using the al13 for a couple of weeks now the number one thing that I like about it is how close of a shave it gets probably because it was literally made to Aerospace standards as they've made Parts in the past for both the ISS space station and the Mars rover on top of that it just feels like such a higher quality 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Florida man Florida man is a Trope that speaks to the onslaught of crazy that seems to inhabit The Souls of men born and raised in the Sunshine State they do things that normal people just don't Zack ranky is a total Florida man he was born and raised in apka Florida a city of 55,000 located 20 mi north of Orlando it's mostly a football Town having produced over a dozen NFL players but grany didn't join the other boys in the ultra competitive youth football leagues that dominate entire communities in Florida not because the young Zach wasn't competitive he was very much so but his sport was tennis not football and by the time grinkie was eight he was one of the best players his age in the country before matches he would cry because he was afraid to lose over time the other players started getting better as well only fueling rank's anxiety an emotional pit he'd sink into throughout his early life he started to hate tennis so much that he walked away completely quitting the sport to focus on golf basketball and baseball it's important to understand that both of gr's parents were teachers and they allowed Zach to pick the sports he'd play or wouldn't play without much mistake in it he felt as though he had the power to make his own choices which would become one of the great sources of strength in his life in 1999 grinkie LED his team to the Senior League World Series title where he played shortstop and hit around 700 for the tournament when he entered a popka high school shortstop was his primary position and during his high school career he slugged 31 home runs until he was a senior he'd only pitched in relief but in that final season season he started and went 9-2 showcasing a fast ball that touched the mid90s scouts already rated him highly up the middle but as his perfect game Scouting Report said he has one of the best arms in the country and it seemed to be a shame to waste that in the infield the Royals nabbed him with the sixth overall pick of the 2002 draft signing him for $2.5 million he got sent to rookie Ball but ended up pitching at high a Wilmington in that first year which is unheard of these days for an 18-year-old the next season he went 15 and four between ha and da a in 2004 after six AAA starts gry was promoted to Kansas City but before he Departed the minor leagues he picked up something that would become a huge part of the grany legend an ephus pitch thrown around 50 to 65 mph how he learned the pitch reveals much about Gran's weirdness in 2004 right before getting called up he told his AAA pitching coach Dave L Ro that he didn't need to do any Bullpen sessions he preferred Fielding grounders at Short Ro made him a deal if grank would throw some fast ball then L Ro would teach him how to throw the lob a very slow epas curve that Dave used with the Yankees back in the 1980s this came with one request that gry would never throw it in a game deal well kind of gry was transfixed by the pitch and over the years he's employed it in all kinds of different ways once he threw it 12 times in one game against the Pirates and in his rookie year fresh from promising lar Roi wouldn't use it any game gry threw it to infielder Omar and fonte and got a called strike in the process but even with his literal call up comes one of those Zack ranky moments that show why he is the weirdest player in baseball history getting that first promotion of the show is something that can move a lot of grown men to tears it's the culmination of years of struggle of Doubt of cutthroat competition it also involves a hefty life-changing pay raise it's usually a momentous event the manager of Kansas City's AAA affiliate in Omaha was Mike gley who had the very pleasant task of telling the 20-year-old grany that he was going to the majors but Zach didn't take the news like almost every other player in the history of the the game would there were no tears of joy instead there was a long pause then grinkie proceeded to wonder out loud If instead of bringing him up as a pitcher the Royals would consider sending him back down to Loa so he could become a shortstop I really do think I could become a pretty good shortstop said grany JY found himself reiterating what a huge honor it was to be summoned to the majors that it was supposed to be a dream come true gry responded with oh okay then he walked out jley didn't know if grinkie was being serious or not but considering what happened in the next few years the smart money would bet that grank was probably being as honest as you can be he actually wanted to be sent down not up grank went 8 and 11 for the Royals and finished fourth in Al Rookie of the Year voting his a plus was 120 as he logged 145 innings for a bad Royals team but he was just two years out of high school not that far removed from being the shortstop that had clubbed 31 dingers he still missed it in his opinion hitting just wasn't very hard he told his manager Buddy Bell that very thing while offering a detailed explan explanation of why the hardest thing to do in sports wasn't really hard at all but as an Al pitcher he'd have limited chances to prove himself it wasn't until August in Arizona that grank got his first big leue at bat and he hit a home run a few years later when teammate Alex Gordon was struggling grank approached him and asked him to come down and watch some film Gordon was excited thinking this very intelligent insightful baseball Guru was going to break down his swing from a pitcher's perspective instead Binky showed Gordon a clip of that homework he'd hit against the Dbacks he showed it a few times and then said do more of that the meeting ended the hitting lesson was over that Homer though was perhaps the highlight of Gran's early career with the Royals after his rookie season disaster struck in 2005 grank suffered through a horrendous five in 17 campaign with a 580 ra while giving up 11 and a half hits per nine innings in all fairness his fit was 449 and the Royals lost 106 games he was still one of the youngest players in the big leagues the Royals had set him up to live in the spare bedroom of former star George Brett's house but he was far removed from the lives of most of his teammates who often times were older and married one example of how grany interacted with his team came in 2005 when pitcher Jeremy affeld came fuming into the Dugout after surrendering a homer that was a pretty good pitch he claimed but grinkie had another opinion it was a terrible pitch he told affel right to his face there was more as evidence grank said he'd gone down the video room to see the replay and concluded that the pitch was L high and right down the middle a terrible offering even one grank claimed that he could have hit out ouch no wonder grank mostly played video games with Brett's children and went fishing alone he'd call his parents and wonder if he shouldn't go to college and start over he missed his high school sweetheart he missed surfing he hated talking to strangers he threw himself into intense workouts but the anger and anxiety remained basically it seemed as if his tennis career was repeating itself the sport he had dominated and then walked away from now he was getting paid millions and he thought he be happier mowing lawns making 30k a year he wouldn't consider quitting would he all it took was one Bullpen session in spring training in 2006 new pitching coach Bob McClure was blunt when grany said he wouldn't consider throwing a two seamer or change up McClure countered with you better change your ways unless you want to keep on sucking McClure didn't know what was swirling inside grany he wasn't going to change anything just to play baseball he walked away and at the time he thought it was for good this wasn't a Hiatus he was quitting he had no plans of coming back but as fate would have it he started seeing a psychologist back in Florida who officially diagnosed him with social anxiety and depression and as a treatment suggested grany start taking Zoloft it yielded benefits after a few weeks when grany told the Royals he wanted to come back to the miners they sent him down to dable a where grank was around players his own age he was having fun again but still returned to pitch out of the PIN for three games with the Royals later that year a very consequential three games it would turn out it was it was during that short stint in 2006 that grany learned something very important he needed to throw Harder by the third game he was hitting 100 mph in his fast ball he even promised to ditch the ephus for the time being he truly was a changed pitcher by 2008 he was back in the Royals rotation and even posting a winning record of 13 and 10 with an erra of 3.47 given his battle with mental health gry's return was a huge success then came 2009 when gry established himself as a truly dominant starter showcasing his first Flash of Hall of Fame Talent on an MLB field he won the alsi young posting a record of 16 and8 with an RA of 2.16 with three shutouts and a home run rate of just 0.4 meaning that every 18 Innings he pitched he gave up less than one Homer his ra plus that year over doubly as good as an average pitcher at a league leading 205 nevertheless the weirdness remained at his first All-Star Game in Chicago he got to meet President Obama who was a huge white socks fan granie however wasn't all too pleased with their interaction apparently he was disappointed that Obama didn't call him out because quote none of the white socks liked him in fact he wanted Obama to call him a punk 2009 was also big for grank because he married his high school sweetheart Emily cuchar who was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader in his next year with the Royals Gran's numbers sank a bit to 10 and 14 with an RA of 417 though with a FIP of 334 in the following off season KC decided to part ways their Ace and in return got back four solid Major Leaguers in elus Escobar Lorenzo Kane Jeremy jeffris and Jake o Rizzy some of who they eventually flipped for James Shields and Wade Davis and in the process Wonder World Series rang in 2015 Milwaukee to LA to Arizona to Houston back to the Royals grank has moved around a lot since his Kansas days along the way Zach had one of the best seasons by a pitcher in the history of baseball when in 2015 he went 19 and3 for the Dodgers with a minuscule ra of 1.66 and a whip of 0.84 only Greg Maddox has had a a better ratio of winning percentage to whip in a single season that's to say nothing of his insane 222 ra plus the best of his career but while his numbers have odd at times what really stands out is the way grank saw the game of baseball in his own odd way he took it very seriously to the point that he could have detailed conversations with Dodgers manager Don maddingley about all of the prospects in the upcoming draft as though Zach had been pouring over scouting reports then there was how he approached pitching to Joey Vado of the Reds himself something of an outof the Box thinker when he was with the Dbacks gry and catcher Jeff matthysse were coming up with a plan of attack against Cincinnati which meant having to deal with VTO who during his own impressive career has led the NL and walks five times and crushed 350 career homers with a 410 OBP not an easy guy to pitch to gr's solution was baffling and yet brilliant in its Simplicity because vad could pick up spin as well as anyone in the game grank said he was going to start him off with a hanging slider a pitch that just spun in the heart of the plate V would recognize the spin and expect a break but a hang doesn't break Mattis couldn't believe his ears a hanging slider as a decoy hanging sliders get crushed in the big leagues but grank was fearless and he did exactly what he said he'd do strike one grank figured why not another vad took that hanger too and got down 02 grank then buried him with his regular repertoire he did something similar in 2022 when he was with the Royals and facing the white socks his plan this time was to throw a two seamer the same pitch he told Bob McClure back in 2006 that he'd never ever throw in fact wasn't a pitch that grany threw at all previously which is why in his mind it made sense to attack the socks with it they wouldn't be looking for it gry then experimented with the pitch in a pregame Bullpen and that was all the practice he needed he yielded two runs in five and twoth thirs innings and then didn't use the two seamer again for a few weeks in a row a great athlete grank has prided himself on his Fielding with six career glow gloves to show for he's worked hard at the Art and Science of feeling from the pitching mound showcasing that IQ in some interesting ways for example if it was an obvious bunt situation Franky might throw a slow curve and then Sprint to cover the third Baseline where a slow pitch was sure to be placed he also would cut off throws in the middle of the infield when most times pitchers are supposed to back up bases but grank knew exactly when to do it as if he had a sick sense about this Dynamic of the game with the Dbacks grank won three of his six gold gloves mostly they sat in the office of the PR department Gathering dust gry's insane and impressive career is nearing its end and in my opinion fans should be clamoring for Netflix to start the work on biopic the stories would be incredible the time grany was hitting and asked for an appeal of his own check swing the Pu guess bat flips when he's with the Dodgers the brawl he started when he plunked Carlos Quinton and broke his collar bone during the fight hitting teammates intentionally with pitches getting a samurai sword as a signing bonus there's really no shortage of content it's hard to imagine the sport of baseball without Zack grank but that's almost what happened the whole of baseball should be grateful that the Florida man came back because the game truly has benefited immensely from his creativity productivity and oddball character who else but grank could berate their teammates for not washing their hands after going number two during a postseason meeting who else but grany could sign the biggest contract in MLB history at the time and then roast Chipotle publicly for raising its price on guac from a buck 50 to a buck 80 no one grank truly is one in a million and hands down in our opinion at MTC the weirdest player in baseball history in the absolute best way possible now thank you for watching like And subscribe if you enjoyed and click this playlist for more say content just like this have a great day

Channel: Made The Cut

Views: 125,034

Keywords: MLB, baseball, 2022, mlb baseball, baseball videos, braves, sf giants, mlbscores, stlouis cardinals, houstonastros, espn mlb, shohei ohtani, mlb schedule, babe ruth, ohtani, cubs schedule, red sox schedule, phillies schedule, yankees schedule, mlb rumors, dodgers, dodgers schedule

Id: EP417tYQml0

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023