Diamondbacks' longshot deal for Greinke came just in time
PHOENIX -- Like much of the baseball world, Zack Greinke liked the Diamondbacks from a talent standpoint but didn't see them as a possible destination.
Yet there was Greinke on Friday morning, deep in the bowels of Chase Field and wearing the D-backs new home alternate jersey, fresh off signing a record $206.5 million, six-year contract.
It was no secret the D-backs this offseason wanted to revamp the top of their starting rotation. Greinke was at the top of their wish list. It is doubtful anyone pegged the D-backs to finish atop Greinke's. It all came down to a couple minutes last week.
"Without getting too detailed, we were minutes away from going to a different team," Greinke said. "It was that close."
"Fortunately, we were blessed that we were a minute soon and not a minute late," General Manager Dave Stewart said.
The D-backs laid in the weeds for most of Greinke's courtship, as the NL West Division rival Dodgers and Giants vied for the game's premier free-agent pitcher. They even made an early pass at right-hander Johnny Cueto, which was rebuffed.
"We didn't make our interest known because the clubs he was negotiating with were who they were," Ken Kendrick, D-backs managing general partner, said. "We knew that there were only two clubs. There weren't seven or eight, so there was maybe the opportunity for the third guy to step in and make a legitimate offer to be seriously considered.
"We had some conversations with another top pitcher, weren't successful, and I felt like there might be an opportunity. I put together some numbers I felt might be worth presenting. We knew who was negotiating with him, and felt it was worth the effort."
Kendrick was glued to his phone from there last Friday afternoon. He purposely stayed out of direct negotiations with Greinke and his agent, Casey Close -- "I didn't want to get caught in the emotion of a dialogue" -- but was kept abreast of the talks and signed off on nearly every aspect of the final agreement.
"It was all done via text and phone conversations," Kendrick said.
A face-to-face meeting was unnecessary. The D-backs were comfortable with who Greinke is as a pitcher and person. Greinke, having pitched for the Dodgers the last three season, knew all he needed about the D-backs.
"I guess it started around the All-Star break, or a little before the All-Star break, last season and the Dodgers were playing Arizona and I just was watching all their position players run around making all these great catches, taking extra bases like crazy against us and then you look at the leaderboard and they had the best offense in the game, scored the most runs, so I was like, 'Dang, that's a pretty impressive group of guys they got over there,' and just realized it then," he said.
"And then you looked at the pitching staff and they all were talented but they weren't pitching very good. I was just thinking, like, 'Man, they have something going on there. Just need a couple things and could be as good as anybody.'"
Still, from a financial standpoint, Greinke appeared out of the D-backs' reach.
"A lot of teams were a possibility but then we were talking to just two teams," Greinke said. "When only two teams are talking to you, you don't think about other things. But as soon as Casey (Close) told me the Diamondbacks called, it got me excited and it just went from there.
"It happened very fast but it was a team I was very familiar with. I didn't need a lot of extra time to get to know people or the city, being in spring training here the last 12 years."
Greinke reportedly will receive an $18 million signing bonus, spread evenly across the deal's six year. He also will donate 1 percent of his salary annually to the Diamondbacks Foundation, reports stated.
When word of an agreement got back to Kendrick, he didn't celebrate, he said.
"The thing I immediately began to think on is the need to get him a running mate and how we would go about that. ... We've made a significant investment, we need to protect that investment," Kendrick said. "You can't really celebrate until you get to a real goal, and the real goal is to bring winning baseball back to Arizona."