Reuters/Arizona


Zack Greinke, one of the top pitchers in Major League Baseball, has agreed to join the Arizona Diamondbacks on a six-year deal worth more than $200 million, ESPN and MLB.com reported on Friday.
The deal has yet to be confirmed by the Diamondbacks but the Los Angeles Dodgers, where Greinke has spent the past three years, announced he was leaving the team.
“We made a very strong offer to retain Zack but clearly he got a deal that fit better for him and his family,” the Dodgers’ President of Baseball operations Andrew Friedman said in a statement.
Greinke finished second in the voting for this year’s National League for the Cy Young award, given to the best pitcher in each league, after finishing with a 1.66 earned run average (ERA), the lowest in the majors in two decades.
He posted a 19-3 record and helped the Dodgers win the National League West Championship for the third season in a row, combining with Clayton Kershaw to give the franchise the best one-two pitching act in the majors.
In 12 major league seasons, Greinke has a 142-93 record with a 3.35 ERA but his decision to join the Diamondbacks was greeted by surprise.
Arizona finished third in the NL West this season with a 79-83 record and have not made the playoffs since 2011.
The 32-year-old right hander had an option to remain in Los Angeles for another three years but decided to become a free agent.
“It’s an amazing deal,” former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling said on ESPN.
Cancer-hit Mets GM Alderson to begin chemotherapy
Sandy Alderson, the general manager who assembled the talent that put the New York Mets into the World Series, has cancer and will undergo eight to 12 weeks of chemotherapy.
The Major League Baseball club announced Friday that Alderson, 68, would miss next week’s meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, due to his health problems.
The Mets also did not reveal what type of cancer Alderson is fighting, but Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon termed Alderson’s cancer as “very treatable”.
The Mets won the National League title this year for the first time since 2000 and had a chance to capture their first World Series crown since 1986 but lost the best-of-seven series to the Kansas City Royals in five games. “Sandy went in for a medical procedure three weeks ago,” Wilpon said.  
“Surgery was performed at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and as a result of that procedure, the doctors confirmed that Sandy has cancer. The doctors believe and have told Sandy that the cancer is very treatable and are optimistic about a full recovery.”
Concerns about Alderson’s health arose last month when he collapsed at a news conference to announce a contract extension for New York manager Terry Collins.