Greinke: D-backs pitching has to be better in 2017

Zack Greinke doesn't believe the Arizona Diamondbacks – who finished last in the NL West for the third time in the last four seasons – are lacking ability, but he does believe they underperformed as a pitching staff.

“Mainly what it is, I don’t think anyone on the team overachieved what the expectations were,” he said to Jack Magruder of Today's Knuckleball.

“Neither the starters or relievers. If that does the same thing next year, we are not going to be very good. That’s the biggest thing, the pitching staff has to be better.”

Greinke thinks there's light at the end of the tunnel, but that injuries worked against them in the 2016 season. The 32-year-old suffered an oblique injury that kept him sidelined for over a month, and though he plans to adjust in the offseason to get himself on a different track for next season, he believes the D-backs' full potential has yet to be seen. They simply have to be better.

“I still think our team is very talented,” Greinke said Saturday.

“Say 90 percent of us are healthy or a lot of our team is healthy, I think our team is as good as just about any team in baseball. It's just, this year, did not work that way. Just a couple injuries earlier and then not getting off on a good foot. We just didn’t do as planned. I thought we're going to do a lot better than we did.”

Greinke doesn't leave himself out of the critique either. With the Los Angeles Dodgers, he posted a 19-3 record with a 1.66 ERA in 2015, but believed his transition to Chase Field took some getting used to. Last season's Cy Young runner-up signed a six-year, $206-million deal with Arizona and was 5-5 with a 4.81 ERA at his new home.

“I like a lot of the parts,” Greinke said. “Everyone just has to do what they can do, and then I think our results are going to be a lot better. (It was) just a lot of guys not doing quite as good as they would expect to do.”