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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Wednesday, reports surfaced that Los Angeles Dodgers ace Zack Greinke\u200A\u2014\u200Aon the heels of a meteoric season in which the crafty righty registered a 19\u20133 record with a 1.66 ERA and 0.86 WHIP \u2014 will opt out of the final three years and $71 million left on his current contract and become a free agent.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The decision, while potentially landscape-shifting, came as no surprise. The Dodgers, after all, had agreed to the opt-out clause after signing the 32-year-old to a six-year, $147 million contract during the 2013 offseason.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As Bill Shaikin of the &lt;em&gt;Los Angeles Times&lt;/em&gt; pointed out, Greinke\u2019s free agency was foreshadowed as early as the 2014 All-Star Game, when the Dodgers hurler hinted he was waiting to see how Max Scherzer and Jon Lester fared in their free-agency bids.&amp;nbsp;Needless to say, those two wound up doing pretty well for themselves.&amp;nbsp;Now it\u2019s Greinke\u2019s turn to dive headfirst into the free-agent market in an attempt to enter the $200 Million Pitcher Club with his own long-term deal.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Will the Dodgers be strong bidders for Greinke? More crucially, does Greinke\u2019s body of work support what will undoubtedly be a hefty investment?\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the field, Greinke has been everything L.A. could\u2019ve hoped for over the last three seasons, a stretch that has seen the Dodgers win three straight NL West crowns. Pairing him alongside Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles boasted arguably the best one-two combination in the Majors.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Greinke\u2019s performance and consistency have been unquestioned. And as he continues to enjoy career prime, any team that signs him is bound to reap immediate benefits. Rather, what the Dodgers need to spend a long time analyzing \u2014 ditto any other team who gets involved in the bidding \u2014 \u200Ais how the resulting deal might affect the club as the contract begins to wind down.&amp;nbsp;That means looking at&amp;nbsp;Greinke\u2019s&amp;nbsp;body of work and comparing it with other, similarly successful pitchers recently signed to lucrative long-term deals.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Greinke established a 51\u201315 record in his three seasons with the Dodgers, compiling a 2.30 ERA (2.97 FIP) with 8.3 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9 ratios in just over 600 innings (per FanGraphs). Moreover, Greinke\u2019s combined 13.7 fWAR ranks eighth among all qualified Major League starting pitchers over the last three seasons.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Among starting pitchers with fWAR measures better than Greinke\u2019s during the span, four of them have recently signed lucrative contracts: Felix Hernandez (seven years, $175 million in 2013), Kershaw (seven years, $215 million in 2014), Jon Lester (six years, $155 million in 2015), and Max Scherzer (seven years, $210 million in 2015).\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the exception of Kershaw, the ages of the above-mentioned players are all similar; it's the number of innings on those arms that differ wildly.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not only is Greinke the oldest among the group (a full two months and change older than Lester); he\u2019s also logged the second-most innings. While Greinke is not an especially &lt;em&gt;hard&lt;/em&gt; thrower, durability might become an issue as he ages\u200A\u2014\u200Aas it does for any starting pitcher. And&amp;nbsp;While Greinke\u2019s combined fWAR since 2013 is the lowest in the group, he\u2019s also seen that number rise in each season since his inaugural Dodgers campaign, ranking third among the five pitchers this season (5.9).\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Greinke will no doubt press for a contract near the $200 million mark\u200A\u2014or at least one which pays him close to $30 million annually\u200A. But is he worth that kind of coin? Beyond comparing the stats, Greinke\u2019s suitors must try and determine how his past performance will measure up to his expected-performance value.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Baseball clubs have been known to make some ambitious assumptions on long-term contracts, and Greinke\u2019s will likely be no different. A player in his early 30s (check), coming off an impressive season (check), boasting a track record of above-average production (check)\u200A\u2014\u200Athese tend to make for big contracts, where teams talk themselves into eating the risk at the back end of the deal for what they feel is a safe bet up front.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;FanGraphs calculates a handy performance value for each player based on the WAR formula. Basically, it tells us what the player was worth for the season &lt;em&gt;had he been&lt;/em&gt; a free agent. Below we see Greinke\u2019s performance value as compared with his salary over the last three seasons with the Dodgers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In short, Greinke\u2019s value to the Dodgers far outweighed the actual salary paid him. As such, we can use the values above to approximate Greinke\u2019s future performance value per 1.0 fWAR at $7.67 million.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When we average out Greinke\u2019s fWAR from those same seasons, we get a number of 4.56. In order to make the numbers simpler to follow, we\u2019ll round down to 4.5.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After assuming Greinke will be able to pitch at the same level in his age-33 and age-34 seasons (at 4.5 fWAR), we can likely expect his performance to tail off over the balance of his contract. For this demonstration, I\u2019m using decreases of 0.5 fWAR\u200A\u2014\u200Aa reasonable assumption, all things considered.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Based on a) Greinke\u2019s current age, and b) the contracts that preceded his, it's hard to believe anyone will offer him a contract longer than six years. Using the above evaluation, Greinke would yield a performance value of $30.86 million per season, on average. As such, a deal of six-years, $184 million is right about where I'd expect Greinke\u2019s agent to begin negotiations.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bear in mind, of course, that his suitors\u200A\u2014\u200Athe Dodgers included\u200A\u2014\u200Awill want to maximize the difference between Greinke\u2019s &lt;em&gt;actual&lt;/em&gt; salary and what they perceive to be his future performance value. Because of this, teams might seek to build in a $3\u20134 million cushion for each season in order to offset potential production issues (or worse, significant injury).&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Remember, baseball is, above all, a business; teams will always look to net extra worth over the course of the deal. That could put Greinke\u2019s best offers somewhere in the six-year, $160\u2013166 million mark, or $26.67-$27.87 million annually.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That lower end, it should be noted, is very much in line with what Lester and the Chicago Cubs settled on last offseason. Based on these values, Greinke could very well be in line for a modest annual raise. More importantly, he\u2019d net three more years of guaranteed salary as he enters his twilight years.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;When all is said and done, the Dodgers offer (considering the team's deep, deep pockets) is likely to end up atop the bidding heap. For L.A., having Greinke and Kershaw (who has an opt-out in his contract after the 2018 season) at the front of the rotation for the next several seasons not only keeps the Hollywood fans happy and engaged; it gives the club a very real advantage\u200A\u2014\u200Astatistical as well as psychological\u200A\u2014\u200Aover most teams.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The familiarity with the Dodgers may also play a part in Greinke\u2019s decision-making process (he suffered from anxiety disorder earlier in his career), as will the franchise\u2019s continued commitment to field a competitive team.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, Greinke is poised to cash in big\u200A\u2014\u200Aand likely without having to hire movers.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Contributed to The Cauldron by Chris Carelli.)&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200B\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/thecauldron/2015/11/04/los-angeles-dodgers-ace-zack-greinke-becomes-free-agent>