The shiniest pitcher on the shelf at the free agent store was purchased, wrapped up and delivered to the highest bidder and its fans on Friday. While it wasn’t surprising that Zack Greinke signed in advance of the Winter Meetings next week, what was surprising was the team that took him home, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The rumor mill had been grinding relentlessly in regards to Greinke, basically since the season ended, even before he opted out of his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Will any team be able to match the Dodgers’ offer?”

Grind.

“Who will offer Greinke all the millions?”

Grind. Grind, grind, grind.

With Price and Zimmermann off the table to the Red Sox and Tigers respectively, it seemed that the only teams left arguing over Greinke were the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. The rumor mill was a-grinding, and all it was spitting out was “Giants vs. Dodgers!!!” 

The rumor mill cannot be trusted. While everyone was jabbering away about the Dodgers and Giants, the Diamondbacks made Johnny Cueto a six-year, $120 million offer. Cueto rejected it, but, hey, wait it looks like maybe the Diamondbacks were in the big ticket free agent store the whole time and nobody noticed them until they walked up to the counter and dropped $206 million on a six-year contract for Greinke.

Greinke just finished up a season for the record books, leading all of baseball with a 1.66 ERA, and just narrowly missed out picking up his second Cy Young Award thanks to Jake Arrieta and his second-half dominance. Oh, and he won another Gold Glove, struck out 200 batters (for the fifth time, no less), walked 1.6 per 9 and struck out 8.1 per 9. Pretty good year there, pretty good. 

Of course, the team that took home Greinke after a season like that was going to pay, and pay the Diamondbacks did. The $206 million over six years puts Greinke’s AAV north of $34 million and is the highest AAV ever in baseball. Earlier this year, the Diamondbacks signed a new, 20-year TV deal worth over $1.5 billion. It looked like the Diamondbacks had money to spend if they wanted to get better and they got right after it, making Cueto an offer and then, when that failed to happen, signing the best player available player this offseason. 

Good lord, though, that player is going to be 38 when this deal is over. The likelihood of a player being worth this kind of money at that age is, well, not particularly high. But, then again, that’s the inherent risk when you sign free agent pitchers to long term contracts, which is what Greinke was going to get. Fortunately, for the Diamondbacks, Greinke doesn’t carry the injury risk Cueto does.

Also, some folks are are projecting that he could age like a fine wine as his velocity declines, more Maddux than not, thanks to his stellar command, offspeed arsenal, and chess-like approach to pitch sequencing. Greinke has a reputation as one of the smarter players in baseball, so the Diamondbacks just have to hope that he’s able to outsmart Father time and make the necessary adjustments to continue to produce value throughout the duration of the deal.

The next big question is whether the Diamondbacks can build around Greinke and what they already had in place before the signed him. While they haven’t made the playoffs since 2007, this is a team that has one of the best hitters in the game in Paul Goldschmidt and an All Star center fielder in A.J Pollock. They have one of the better defenses in baseball (which won’t hurt Greinke either, it should be mentioned). Arizona’s biggest problem has been pitching, and team executives have indicated that they aren’t done on that front and are still shopping, expressing interest in signing Mike Leake as well.  

Grade for Greinke: A+

Let’s see, Greinke just signed a deal for $206 million, with the highest AAV in the history of baseball, that will take him to ripe old age of 38. Oh, and by signing with Arizona instead of one of those California teams the rumor mill just would not shut up about, he’s going to be taking home more money due to more favorable tax breaks. Honestly, the only question here for Greinke is whether the Diamondbacks will be able to build enough of a team around him to contend with so much of money allocated towards him. Then again, if the Diamondbacks don’t make the postseason, that just means an extra month for Greinke to swim around in his money, Scrooge McDuck style. There’s no way this is anything but an A+ for Greinke. 

Grade for the Diamondbacks: B+

The Diamondbacks’ pitching just got better, quite a lot better. There’s obviously a lot of risk involved here. After all, signing shiny free agent pitchers is pretty much like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber and is going to end very messily more often than not. That being, said the Diamondbacks have money to play with and, if you’re going to sign someone to pitch for you until he’s 38, Greinke is as good a bet as anyone. The next question is what they do with the rest of that new money they fell into and whether they can get the rest of the pieces to get past the Dodgers and Giants, but in the NL West arms race, at least they kept Greinke out of the hands of their opponents.