Are We Talking About Kenta Maeda Yet? We Should Be Talking About Kenta Maeda
The first week of December, the Arizona Diamondbacks shocked the baseball world when they inked Zack Greinke to a 6-year, $206.5 million deal.
At the time, it was surprising, but it wasn’t exactly catastrophic for the Dodgers. Not when you have arguably the best pitcher on the planet on your team. But beyond losing Greinke, the Dodgers also lost left-hander Brett Anderson, who gave them 180.1 innings last year, to a back injury that required surgery just before this season started. To this point, the 12-7, first place Dodgers have been able to absorb the blow of losing both of those arms because Clayton Kershaw is being Clayton Kershaw again (2-0, 1.50 ERA, 30 strikeouts in 30 innings), but also because of this man — Kenta Maeda.
In the first week of January, the Dodgers made headlines when they signed Maeda to an 8-year, $25 million deal, a good $181.5 million less than it would’ve cost them to retain Greinke’s services. Now, let’s not get crazy — it’s only four starts. But it’s a historical four starts, and they’ve been impressive as hell. Maeda has faced the Padres, Diamondbacks, Giants and Rockies. In those 25.1 innings, Maeda has allowed just one earned run, which came in his third start, against the Giants, on a solo home run by Joe Panik. Maeda has faced 96 batters this year, thrown 371 pitches, and only one of those pitches has been a costly mistake. One. The same number of earned runs he’s allowed.
Since 1893, only two other pitchers in baseball history have allowed just one earned run through their first four major league starts. Maeda’s 0.36 ERA is the lowest ERA in the majors among pitchers with at least 20 innings, and opponents are hitting just .189 with a .484 OPS against him, which is the fifth lowest mark in the National League. It’d be just a tad bit premature to call this signing a glowing success, being that there’s still more than seven and a half years to go, but he’s off to one hell of a start.