Oakland Reunion in Chi-Town

The Phillies and Cubs are set to square off tonight at Wrigley Field with quite the interesting pitching matchup: Joe Blanton vs. Rich Harden. For those who recently came into contact with that memory-zap gizmo from Men In Black, both pitchers were members of the Oakland Athletics for the last few years. Both were also sold to the highest bidder, so to speak, back in July.

Harden, acquired to combat the CC Sabathia acquisition (no matter what bologna the Cubs front office may feed us) found himself as the #1 or #1A on the Cubs. Blanton, on the other hand, was never expected to turn the Phillies season around, but rather provide a somewhat decent alternative to Adam Eaton. Eaton, for those interested, has stunk it up in the minor leagues.

While Harden has exceeded expectations in Chicago, Blanton has essentially met those pointed towards him in Philadelphia. Here is a breakdown of their performances in Oakland and in their new uniforms:

Rich Harden, Oak: 13 GS, 0.58 HR/9, 2.97 K/BB, 1.14 WHIP, 2.78 FIP
Rich Harden, CHC:  8 GS, 1.10 HR/9, 5.00 K/BB, 0.86 WHIP, 2.74 FIP

Joe Blanton, Oak: 20 GS, 0.85 HR/9, 1.77 K/BB, 1.42 WHIP, 4.18 FIP
Joe Blanton, Phi:  7 GS, 1.42 HR/9, 1.80 K/BB, 1.42 WHIP, 5.06 FIP

Harden has been even better in cubbie blue, really limiting his baserunners and vastly improving his strikeout to walk ratio. He is striking out batters at a tremendous rate and preventing free passes more often than not. The only reason his FIP hasn’t shot down is due to the almost doubled home runs per nine innings number, which was likely to be expected in moving from Oakland to Wrigley.

Keeping with the theme of limiting baserunners, what has happened so far when Rich does allow someone to reach base? Well, glad you asked… the answer is pretty much nothing. See, Harden has a 98.3% strand rate in his time with the Cubs, which, when coupled with a 0.86 WHIP, is downright startling. Next to nobody is getting on base and those that do have had to wait for a teammate to “pick them up” with their glove for the next inning in the field.

Blanton’s FIP has been almost a full point worse on the Phillies, thanks in large part to a HR/9 increase from 0.85 to 1.42. Again, this should have been expected or at least surmised given that he was going from Oakland to a bandbox in Philly. His K/BB has remained virtually identical, however he is striking out almost two more batters per nine innings, which in turn means his walks have also risen. He has been much better at stranding baserunners as well, jumping from 65.2% in Oakland to 81.9% in Philadelphia. Because of this, his ERA is much lower in red pinstripes.

As a member of the Athletics, Harden produced a 1.93 WPA/LI in 13 starts, or around 0.15 wins per start. As a Cub, he has a 1.43 WPA/LI in 8 starts, or around 0.18 wins per start. Blanton has also seen improvement here. As an Athletic, he had a 0.23 WPA/LI in 20 starts, for an average of .011 per start. With the Phillies, it is 0.10 in 7 starts, good for a .014. There is no doubt that Rich Harden was clearly the better acquisition, but Blanton hasn’t been terrible, and that’s really all the Phillies are asking of him.