Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2013-14 free-agent market.
Note that, this year, in addition to asking readers to estimate the years/dollars each free agent is likely to receive, FanGraphs is also requesting that readers make note of how much they’d pay each free agent were they, themselves, actual GMs.
In this edition: Dan Haren.
Some relevant information regarding Haren:
- Has averaged 195.0 IP and 3.2 WAR over last three seasons.
- Has averaged 2.9 WAR per 180 IP over last three seasons.
- Recorded a 1.5 WAR in 169.2 IP in 2013.
- Is entering his age-33 season.
- Made $13.0M in 2013, as part of deal signed in offseason.
Using the form below, estimate the years and average annual dollar values both likely and ought to be received by Haren this offseason.
Other Players: Bronson Arroyo / Carlos Beltran / A.J. Burnett / Marlon Byrd / Robinson Cano / Shin-Soo Choo / Bartolo Colon / Nelson Cruz / David DeJesus / Stephen Drew / Mark Ellis / Jacoby Ellsbury / Scott Feldman / Gavin Floyd / Matt Garza / Curtis Granderson / Roy Halladay / Jason Hammel / Omar Infante / Adam Lind / James Loney / Brian McCann / Nate McLouth / Kendrys Morales / David Murphy / Mike Napoli / A.J. Pierzynski / Carlos Ruiz / Jarrod Saltalamacchia / Juan Uribe / Chris Young.
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Career Ground Ball rate: 42.6%
Rate Last Year: 36.0% (Lowest in Career)
tERA: 4.57 (High since 14 start Rookie Year)
It is cherry picking stats, but his stuff has declined, and may decline further.
As a Pirates fan I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past six month studying pitchers GB rates. I’d also noticed that Haren’s GB% the past two years was well below his career average, in addition to be being below his 2010 and 2011 percentages.
Additionally I observed that he threw a far lower percentage of two seam fastballs in 2012 and 2013 than he had in his two previous more successful campaigns. This may in part explain his lower ground ball rates? Were he able to throw the two seamer with success and thus generate more ground balls I wonder if he wouldn’t post superior results?
Lastly, it’s pretty clear that other big issue plaguing him these past two years has been home runs. Perhaps signing with a team that played in park that was more likely to suppress home runs might mitigate that, at least slightly?
Haren’s also had his fair share of health issues in recent years but it strikes me he’s a potential bounce back candidate in 2014, depending on who he might sign with.
I would feel ok going 1 year at 8million with incentives if he pitches well. If he underperforms could probably still try him at the deadline and get back a decent prospect.
He is probably a 1-2 win player at this point so he will probably get about 1 year, 7 million.
I think there will be teams that are enticed by his second half stats and good peripherals. I’d bet that he gets a two year deal in the $10-$15 million per year range.
He seems to have some mechanical problems that haven’t been fixed due to injury as his release points are funky compared to career norms.
Also he abandon his curveball which was a great GB pitch as well has his change and gotten splitter happy.
His skill set ages well though. Elite control is hard to come by and he could be a Kuroda type.
I say 1y/$10m.
he should get $8M to $10M. He finished the yr pretty strongly iirc.
He also had a cakewalk to finish the season. In his last 15 starts he faced: Philadelphia (2), Miami (3), Pittsburgh, NY Mets (3), Milwaukee, San Francisco, Chicago Cubs, Kansas City, Atlanta and Arizona.
The Braves were the best offense he faced (12th best in MLB according to wOBA). In fact, 13 of his 15 starts were against the bottom-half offensive teams (including 6 of them against the worst two offenses- the Marlins and Mets).
I don’t think it was a strong finish as much as it was a weak finish by weak opposition.
Agreed that the Nats had one of the easiest schedules in MLB over the last 6 weeks.
But wOBA includes pitchers, right? If so, not valid to compare AL to NL.