zack greinke is in my hall of famer collection

with clayton kershaw returning to the mound earlier in the week to resume his pursuit of 3,000 strikeouts, i am thinking now is a good time to let everyone know that i've added the other active pitcher currently in pursuit of that milestone to my hall of famer collection. that would be zack greinke, whose membership is represented by this card:

which is a 2004 topps team topps blue chips autograph card. here's the back:

greinke currently sits at 20th all-time in career strikeouts with 2,955. no pitcher has ever recorded that many strikeouts without eventually reaching the 3,000 mark. unfortunately, he is currently on the injured list and experiencing the worst year of his career with an era of 5.53 and a k/9 ratio of just under 6. at that pace, he would need to pitch another 68 or so innings to reach 3k, and that would mean 14 or so more starts, as he has not been pitching deep in to games. i just don't know if he wants to stick it out to try, even if the royals are willing to bring him back in 2024.

the only time i saw greinke pitch in person, he got rocked by the twins (you can read about that game in this post). still, i was excited to see the 2009 american league cy young award winner in person. of course, greinke eventually joined the dodgers and had some of his best seasons while wearing the dodger uniform. i personally think he should have won the 2015 national league cy young award, but perhaps my dodger bias is in the way. 

even if greinke's career is over, his career war puts him ahead of comparables like don drysdale, jim palmer, and juan marichal who were dominant but fell short of the big counting stats, so i do think he has a chance to make the hall of fame. so, i think that greinke's cooperstown ticket is already punched. but if it's not, he's still a hall of famer to me. 

you can see greinke and the other members of my hall of famer collection here!