Shane Greene is off to a fantastic start for the Tigers with 0.39 ERA and 0.74 WHIP in 23 innings en route to a perfect 3-0 record. Of course, you know fantasy players so even though a guy is wildly exceeding expectations early on, they're still not satisfied so we're hearing a chorus of "where are the strikeouts?" questions related to Greene. Joking aside, it's s a fair question. He has a 14% strikeout rate so it is kinda hard to get really geeked about the start with such a low strikeout rate. After all, we're questioning Nick Martinez's 0.45 ERA through three starts because he has a paltry 11% strikeout rate.
Where Greene differs for me is that we're seeing him clearly opt for efficiency in lieu of the strikeouts, but he is still missing bats throughout the game. He needed just 85 and 81 pitches to go eight innings in each of his first two starts. He was up at 102 for seven innings in the third as four walks inflated his count, but he is still the AL's most efficient and the league's fifth-most efficient pitcher from a pitches per plate appearance (Pit/PA) standpoint. Wily Peralta leads the league at 3.12 followed by Henderson Alvarez (3.28), Jon Niese (3.33), Bartolo Colon (3.34), and then Greene (3.35).
Despite nearly a 10 percentage point drop in strikeout rate from 23.5% to 13.8%, Greene hasn't seen nearly the same drop in swinging strike rate (SwStr%). After operating at a 9.9% rate in 2014 en route to better than a strikeout-per-inning (9.3 K/9), he's still at 9% so far this year despite the alarming five-strikeout-per-nine drop to 4.3 K/9 through three starts. He's getting the misses, he's getting the first-pitch strikes (up from 59% to 70%), and he's getting overall strikes (raw strikeout percentage up from 63% to 69%), but he's getting ahead early (70% first-pitch strike rate) and inducing a ton of weak contact (52% GB, 18% infield fly rate).
It will get tougher on Greene, even the most optimistic on him don't see anything close to a 0.39 ERA. At the very best, that ERA is set to raise 2.50 runs, and that's if he has some transcendent breakthrough season. I think a reasonable expectation tacks about three runs on that current figure. So yes, it will get tougher, but as that happens, he will lean on the strikeout more and even if we don't see it rise all the way to 2014 levels, he should be around the 19-20% mark which is more than acceptable when you're getting quality ratios and strong wins potential on as part of a contending team.