Zack Greinke is set to become a free agent for the second year in a row following the conclusion of the 2022 World Series. Greinke, now 39 years old, is a potential Hall of Famer, a Cy Young Award winner, a six-time All-Star and a two-time ERA league leader in his 19 seasons in the big leagues.

Here’s what you need to know about Greinke:

FAST FACTS
Birthdate: Oct. 21, 1983 (Age 39 in 2023)
Primary position: SP
Height/weight: 6-foot-2, 200 lbs.
Bats/throws: Right/right
Place of birth: Orlando, Fla.
School(s): Apopka (Fla.) HS
Drafted: 1st round (6th), 2002, by Royals
MLB debut: May 22, 2004
Qualifying offer: Ineligible

THE NUMBERS
2022: 4-9, 3.68 ERA (111 ERA+), 73 K, 2.5 WAR* in 137 IP
Career: 223-141, 3.42 ERA (123 ERA+), 2,882 K, 76.4 WAR in 3,247 IP
*Per Baseball-Reference

STAT TO KNOW
Greinke has been an above-average pitcher by ERA+ for 12 consecutive seasons, and in 15 of his 17 career seasons as a regular starter. Greinke has the most above-average seasons of any active starting pitcher -- one more than Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander (14 each) and two more than Max Scherzer (13).

QUESTION MARK
It's Greinke's age. He just turned 39, and as good as his track record is, how much longer can he pitch at a high level? Greinke's strikeout numbers in particular have dipped over the last two seasons -- his 73 K's in 2022 were a career low for a full season, and that followed a 120-strikeout 2021 that had been Greinke's lowest total for a full season as a starter since 2005.

He could be the next member of the 3,000-strikeout club
Greinke is the closest active pitcher to 3,000 strikeouts (who hasn't already reached it), with 2,882 entering the 2023 season. That gives him at least a chance to reach the milestone next year, which would make him the 20th member of the 3,000-strikeout club, with Max Scherzer the most recent to join in 2021. Greinke needs 118 strikeouts to get there, so he'd need his K numbers to bounce back to what they were in 2021 to reach the milestone this coming season.

He just had his 20-year reunion with the Royals
In 2022, Greinke went back to where it all began. He signed as a free agent with the Royals, the team that drafted him sixth overall all the way back in 2002, two full decades earlier. Greinke made his MLB debut with Kansas City in 2004 and pitched his first seven seasons there, winning the AL Cy Young Award with the Royals in 2009. His last season in Kansas City was 2010, so it was a reunion 12 years in the making. He was the Royals' Opening Day starter, and during the season he recorded his 1,000th strikeout as a Royal. Greinke was one of two future Hall of Fame candidates to reunite with their original franchise in 2022, as Albert Pujols did the same with the Cardinals.

He's one of baseball's most interesting characters
The Greinke anecdotes are endless. He's one of baseball's smartest players -- and most idiosyncratic -- and over a 19-year career, the legend of Greinke has grown and grown. Whether it's the time he gave Alex Gordon hitting lessons, or stopped getting guacamole because his favorite burrito place raised the price by 30 cents, or asked to stop his own big-league callup to go back to Single-A and become a shortstop, or wanted to trade his own catcher to make room for Brian McCann, or called his own shot on his first career home run, everyone has a story to tell about Zack Greinke.

No one has pitched more than him
Greinke is the leader among all active pitchers in career starts (514), career innings pitched (3,247) and career batters faced (13,284). And that's before you add on his 21 career postseason starts, 113 postseason innings and 469 postseason batters faced. Those bring his combined regular season and postseason totals to 535 starts, 3,360 innings pitched and 13,753 batters faced.

His slow curve is a beauty
Greinke throws one of the most fun pitches in baseball: an eephus-like slow curve that he'll drop in at 65 mph … or sometimes even in the 50s. It's not just a novelty either -- Greinke routinely fools hitters with the slow curve, throwing it for strikes and using it to get some of the slowest strikeouts of any pitcher.

Most K's on pitches under 70 mph, Statcast era (since 2015)

1. Zack Greinke: 88
2. A.J. Griffin: 63
3. James Shields: 39
4. Rich Hill: 38
5. Alex Claudio: 37

He's a better postseason hitter than Mike Trout and Ted Williams
Here's a fun fact: Greinke had a pinch-hit single for the Astros in Game 5 of the 2021 World Series, making him a career .269 hitter in the postseason (7-for-26). That's better than, oh, Mike Trout (.083) or Ted Williams (.200), for example. In the same number of postseason plate appearances, Greinke has two more hits than the Splendid Splinter, and two fewer strikeouts (three to Williams' five).