Archive for Rich Harden

Rich Harden is effective when healthy, but that caveat is more relevant for him than it is for most others. Over nine major-league seasons, he has never thrown 200 innings in a single year. Since logging 189.2 frames in 2004, he hasn’t even thrown for more than 148 innings in a season — and he’s working on his second consecutive year with fewer than 100 innings to his stats line.  He can’t seem to stay healthy long enough to have an impact commensurate with his talent.

Regardless, Harden’s possibilities are tough to ignore. He misses bats at an elite rate for a starter and induces feeble contact when batters connect. He has a career .274 batting average on balls in play, significantly lower than the league average. He also ranks third among starters with at least 200 total innings since 2008 with a 10.1 K/9: only Brandon Morrow and Tim Lincecum have a higher rate. Over the same span, batters have whiffed at 13 percent of Harden’s offerings, by far the highest rate for a starting pitcher. Cole Hamels ranks second at 11.7 percent. He’s a starter with elite reliever numbers.

It’s easy to see why teams are always interested in him despite the checkered injury history, and why that interest persists even with a small sample of starts this year.

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There is still one significant procedural hurdle between Rich Harden and his next contract – supposedly with the Athletics for a $1.5 million base salary with $1.5 million in incentives. Like all players, Harden still has to pass his physical, but unlike most, he may be on pins and needles as he waits for the results. Assuming he does pass the test, Harden is still a decent gamble at that price (especially with the option of moving to the pen already in place), but he’s more of a gamble every year.

He’s probably only failed to be worth $3 million in two years of his career, despite never once crossing the 200-inning threshold (or, since 2005, even the 150-inning threshold). As we have touched here in many different ways, value can be informed by a mix of excellence and durability, and though Harden had bushels of one, he lacked the other. By keeping his strikeout rate in the double digits and pitching around 140 innings per season, he seemed to have settled into a strange role – an excellent sixth starter that could not be relied upon for a full season. Just for fun, here’s his DL history per Corey Dawkin’s injury tool. It shows nine official trips to the DL (and six day-to-day stints, one of which lasted 38 days) in his seven-year career.

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Rich Harden’s major league career has come to be defined by short bursts of dominant pitching, followed by lengthy stints on the DL. The slightly-built right-hander has well over one punch out per inning during his major league tenure and his career xFIP sits at 3.89. But sadly, shoulder, oblique, back and elbow ailments have kept him from shutting down hitters for a sustained period of time.

This past off-season, the Chicago Cubs showed little interest in retaining Harden’s services after a 2009 season in which he posted rates of 10.91 K/9, 4.28 BB/9 and a 3.70 xFIP in 141 innings pitched. His campaign was, you guessed it, injury-plagued — Harden was sidelined with a back strain in May and was shut down in September with shoulder fatigue. Rather than risking a salary arbitration offer to the Type B free agent (and gaining a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds of the draft if he declined and signed elsewhere), the Cubs declined to offer arbitration, feeling Harden would accept and get a raise from his $7 million salary in ’09.

Harden inked a one-year, $7.5 million deal with the Texas Rangers, with an $11 million mutual option for the 2011 season. Harden’s pact includes performance bonuses: he gets half a million each for reaching 155, 165, 175, 185 and 195 frames. So far, Harden has tossed 54 innings for Texas. While he’s usually either unavailable or awesome, the 28-year-old has just plain been awful thus far.

With 8.17 K/9 (his lowest mark since 2004) and a career-worst 6.17 BB/9, Harden owns a 5.77 xFIP. That puts him in the same sordid company as Brian Burres and Oliver Perez. Harden has been as valuable as a readily available Triple-A talent, coming in at exactly replacement level.

The decline in Harden’s plate discipline stats is shocking. While one would expect him to post a somewhat higher contact rate and a lower whiff rate by virtue of moving from the Senior Circuit back to the DH league, Harden hasn’t been anywhere near as dominant. Over the 2008-2009 seasons, Harden had a sub-70 percent contact rate and a 15-plus percent swinging strike rate. With Texas, he’s allowing contact 83 percent and is garnering swinging strikes just 7.4 percent. For comparison, the average MLB contact rate is 80-81 percent and the average swinging strike rate is between 8-9 percent.

Harden has seen an across-the-board dip in whiff rate on his pitches. According to Trip Somers’ Pitch F/X Tool, opponents whiffed at Harden’s four-seam fastball 10.2 percent of the time in 2009 (six percent MLB average). This year, the four-seamer is getting whiffs 6.5 percent. Harden’s heat is also down in velocity (92.2 MPH in ’09, 91.1 MPH this season), though the radar gun readings are creeping up:

His slider made hitters come up empty 22.4 percent in ’09 (13.6 percent MLB average). In 2010, his the pitch (down from 84 MPH to 82 MPH) has an 8.1 percent whiff rate. Harden’s changeup induced a whiff 22.7 percent last season, crushing the 12.6 percent major league average. As a Ranger, Harden’s getting whiffs on 8.2 percent of his changeups (his velocity with the pitch is basically unchanged).

In addition to not missing near as much lumber, Harden’s control has suffered: his first pitch strike percentage is 52.8, compared to 55-56 percent in 2008-2009 and the 58 percent MLB average. According to Baseball-Reference, Harden has allowed the hitter to get ahead in the count in 39.8 percent of plate appearances, while the 2010 AL average is 36.2 percent.

Given his checkered injury history, it seems fair to wonder if Harden is healthy. Perhaps he will starting rolling soon, but he has experienced precipitous declines in his ability to fool batters and hit his spots. Right now, Harden isn’t near the same high-octane pitcher who laid waste to hitters as a member of the A’s and Cubs.

Injury info from the Baseball Injury Tool.

On Thursday we discussed the odd accomplishment from Rich Harden in his last start against the Rockies: Harden became the first pitcher since at least 1954 (as far back as my database goes) to pitch 3+ innings in a single game and not retire anyone via a traditional ball in play. Harden pitched three frames, requiring nine outs. He fanned eight hitters and recorded the other out when Chris Iannetta was thrown out attempting to take an extra base. No groundouts, no flyouts, no lineouts… not even any popups or foulouts.

The ELIAS Sports Bureau provided ESPN with an interesting stat similar yet different to the aforementioned bit of trivia. According to ELIAS, Harden faced 17 hitters, struck out eight, walked four, and gave up five hits. Add together the hits, walks, and punchouts and the sum equals the exact number of batters he faced. Apparently, over the last 80 or so years, nobody has had their PA = (H+BB+K) while facing as many hitters as Harden did against the Rockies.

I ran a query in Retrosheet to doublecheck this info and found that there have been 33,185 instances of PA=(H+BB+K+HBP) from 1954-2008. Of the 33,185, just 29 such games involved the pitcher facing 10+ hitters. That percentage is so low that my calculator actually provides the answer in scientific notation: 8.738 x 10^-4, or 0.0008738.

The highest tally of batters faced in this query belongs to former Cubs great Kevin Foster, who, on May 11, 1997, faced 14 hitters in two innings of work. Foster issued three free passes, hit a batter, struck out six, and surrendered four hits. He struck out the side in both of his innings and allowed four balls in play, all of which resulted in hits.

The next three pitchers accomplished the same feat while facing 12 hitters each: Chan Ho Park, Joe Coleman, and John Hudek.

Park faced 12 Giants hitters in two innings on April 17, 1996. One hit, five walks, and six punchouts later, his batters faced perfectly equaled the sum of these three parts. Joe Coleman of the Tigers faced 12 hitters in 1.1 innings on September 27, 1972, allowing three hits, walking five, and fanning four. Lastly, John Hudek of the Reds faced 12 hitters in two innings on September 13, 1998, walking two, striking out six, and allowing four hits.

Harden faced 17 hitters in three innings of work, but has anyone else been seen their batters faced equal the sum of hits, walks, and strikeouts in greater than two innings? Four pitchers met this criteria: Tom Niedenfuer on 5/18/85, Clint Sodowsky on 5/17/97, Tim Stoddard on 4/30/79, and Francisco Rodriguez on 9/27/02. All four went exactly 2.1 innings, making it abundantly clear that Harden’s outing last Wednesday was truly remarkable even if his overall performance was underwhelming.

In his first start of the season on April 10, Rich Harden tossed six tremendous innings, issuing one free pass while racking up 10 punchouts at the expense of the Brewers. Yesterday, Harden performed less effectively against the Rockies in what amounted to a 5-2 loss. He only spent three innings on the mound due to an escalating pitch count that reached 92 thanks to four walks and four earned runs surrendered. Even so, Harden managed to rack up eight more strikeouts.

There are only nine outs to get in three innings of work meaning that Harden recorded strikeouts for all but one of the required outs. The other came on a hit by opposing pitcher Jason Marquis, when Chris Iannetta was thrown out while running to third base. Three innings… nine outs… eight strikeouts + one baserunning out. Combine these factors and it becomes clear that Harden did not retire anyone via a ball in play, which reeks of rarity.

I turned to my Retrosheet database to determine just how rare this event was, and not shockingly at all, it is incredibly rare. The number of similar games really depends on what constitutes a ball in play. If we look at groundouts, flyouts and lineouts only, there have been six games from 1954-2008 in which a pitcher logged at least three innings and recorded no BIP outs.

If we change the definition of balls in play to include foulouts as well as the aforementioned three, our sample of six games is halved to just three. Either replace foulouts with popouts or include both foulouts and popouts in conjunction with the groundouts, flyouts, and lineouts, and no games from 1954-2008 surface. That is, there has never been a game in this 50+ year span in which a pitcher tossed three or more innings and recorded no outs by any of these five forms of balls in play.

Rich Harden certainly didn’t record any lineouts, groundouts or flyouts yesterday but popouts and foulouts were also absent. Essentially, Harden’s game yesterday is the only such occurrence of the above feat since at least 1954, the start of my database.

While researching Rich Harden’s numbers with the Cubs so far, I came to the startling conclusion that I had no idea what he had done since the trade. I mean, I knew he was doing well, that he had not gotten hurt, and that he was helping the Cubs continue their dominance, but I couldn’t quote any of his numbers off the top of my head.

What bothered me a bit was that I knew all about CC Sabathia and his numbers in the senior circuit… and honestly, while Sabathia has performed better in his new league, it’s not like Harden is chopped liver, but he has gotten very little publicity.

One of the major reasons for this, as far as this writer can tell, is the W-L record. Sabathia has gone 8-0 in his ten Milwaukee starts and is averaging just a shade under 8 IP/GM while Harden is just 4-1, thanks to some solid performances without decisions. Remember, I am fully supporting Sabathia as performing better since the trade, but just find it odd that Harden, with his great numbers, is barely being mentioned. Here is a comparison:

CC Sabathia: 10 GS, 1.59 ERA, 2.51 FIP, 7.9 IP/GS, 4.93 K/BB
Rich Harden:  8 GS, 1.47 ERA, 2.74 FIP, 6.1 IP/GS, 5.00 K/BB

CC Sabathia: 85.6% LOB, 0.46 HR/9, 2.23 WPA/LI
Rich Harden: 98.3% LOB, 1.10 HR/9, 1.43 WPA/LI

Harden isn’t likely to sustain a strand rate that ridiculous, and I’m sure many Cubs fans hold their breath after each pitch, hoping he remains healthy, but he has been everything Piniella’s bunch has asked him to be and more. In a playoff series, who do you like better, Sabathia and Sheets or Zambrano and Harden?

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.

The Chicago Cubs managed to acquire one of the top pitchers in the game (when healthy) in Rich Harden and also received sleeper Chad Gaudin in this week’s trade with the Oakland Athletics. Impressively, the Cubs organization did not part with any of its “top” prospects, including third baseman Josh Vitters and pitcher Jose Ceda.

Vitters began the season in April in Low A-ball but struggled and ended up on the disabled list. He resurfaced in June in the short-season Northwest League and has played exceptionally well, although most 2007 first round prep players are currently in full-season ball. He is currently hitting .329/.385/.512 in 82 at-bats with with two homers and 14 RBI. Vitters was drafted third overall in the 2007 draft out of high school.

Ceda was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2004. The 21-year-old is currently pitching in Double-A after beginning the year in High-A ball. He was recently moved to the bullpen and has allowed nine hits and three walks (2.25 BB/9) in 12 innings. Ceda has struck out 18 (13.50 K/9). His fastball can tease triple digits and his slider is a strikeout pitch.

The club also did not part with a couple of fringe Top 10 organizational prospects in Jeff Samardzija and Tyler Colvin. Both players were highly drafted and handed handsome sums of money to sign with the Cubs, but neither player has put up eye-catching numbers in the minor league system. The organization still touts the players amongst its best, but the truth is that few other organizations feel the same way.

Samardzija was given a five-year, $10 million contract in 2006 as a fifth round pick to lure him away from playing pro football. The results on the mound have been mixed. His numbers have never matched his mid-90s fastball and, although he was recently promoted to Triple-A, his Double-A numbers were troubling. In 76 innings at the lower level, Samardzija allowed just 71 hits but he walked 42 (4.97 BB/9) and struck out just 44 (5.21 K/9). His rates have been slightly better in Triple-A but with only four starts it is a small sample size. Samardzija would probably be best suited to a bullpen role.

Colvin was the shock of the 2006 draft’s first round when the Cubs selected him 13th overall. The athletic outfielder has been hurt in his pro career by a base-on-balls phobia. He is currently playing in Double-A and hitting .241/.306/.384 in 352 at-bats. Colvin has seven homers and 46 RBI. He has walked more this season in the past with 32 (8.4 percent), to go along with 71 strikeouts (20.5 percent). Last season he managed to walk only about three percent of the time. Right now he projects as a fourth outfielder at best.

So while the Cubs managed to hold on to many of the organization’s top prospects, the future “stars” of the organization still have a lot of question that need answering before they can become the next Geovany Soto.

The recent trade between the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago Cubs was interesting to say the least. Firstly, it came out of nowhere. Secondly, the haul for Major League pitchers Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin was far less than I would have expected the Athletics to receive, given the value of pitching in today’s game.

I won’t dwell on new A’s starter Sean Gallagher too much, since David wrote a nice piece on him yesterday. But I will say that he is definitely the key piece of the trade and should fit into the rotation immediately.

Eric Patterson is the brother of Cincinnati Reds outfield Corey Patterson. Eric is not a very good defensive player and he has already moved from second base to the outfield. His poor arm strength pretty much limits him to left field, first base or some second base, which hurts his value as a utility player. In nine left field games this season for Chicago, Eric made three errors. He was originally drafted in the eighth round of the 2004 draft after playing college ball at Georgia Tech.

Matt Murton has proven that he is a major league hitter but he has been buried at Triple-A in the Cubs organization despite a .294/.362/.448 line in 308 games over four seasons. He does not have a ton of power so he is best suited to a fourth outfielder or platoon role. Murton is a corner outfielder with average abilities in the field. He was the first round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 2003 and, like Eric Patterson, played at Georgia Tech.

Catcher Josh Donaldson has spent the season struggling at A-ball in the Midwest League. He is currently hitting .223/.282/.358 in 229 at-bats. It’s unfortunate because Donaldson, who was moved behind the plate at Auburn University, was supposed to have a much better bat than glove. He did hit .335/.460/.590 in 173 at-bats during his debut in Short Season ball in 2007. Defensively, he has made seven errors this season in 51 games behind the dish and has six passed balls. He has thrown out 27 of 71 (38 percent) runners attempting to steal a base. He was drafted 48th overall in the supplemental first round of the 2007 draft.

In all, the Athletics received a promising starting pitcher, two bench players and a catcher who may stick behind the plate and may hit enough to play in the majors… for two proven Major League pitchers who can both work out of the starting rotation. Patterson and Murton probably take the roster spots from Wes Bankston and Rajai Davis, offering modest upgrades. Donaldson addresses an organizational weakness at the catching position. Most of the pressure remains on Gallagher… especially if Harden stays healthy for any significant amount of time.

Also, keep an eye on Gaudin if he gets the opportunity to start in the National League. He could thrive there.

When the A’s decided yesterday to trade Rich Harden to the Cubs for a package of players that lacks a guy that you could point to as a potential star, they knew they were giving up one of the most talented arms in baseball. When Harden’s been healthy, he’s been lights out, blowing opposing hitters away and reminding the world that he’s still a force to occasionally be reckoned with.

Most of the reactions that I’ve seen so far are along the lines of “that’s it?”, expressing disappointment that the A’s dealt Harden away for what most see as a group of guys with limited upside. However, I think this deal makes a lot of sense for an A’s team that wants to continue to win in the near future while also solidifying their long term ability to compete. To show what I mean, let’s take a look at projections for Harden and Sean Gallagher going forward.

Based on his performance when healthy, and his numerous issues that have led to extended time on the DL, most of the preseason projection systems had Harden tabbed for between 50 to 100 innings pitched and a FIP of between 3.15 and 3.99. He’s already been able to throw 77 innings with a 2.70 FIP this year (even though a good part of that is an unsustainably low HR/FB rate), so if we add this new information to what we knew heading into 2008, we’d probably project Harden going forward as something like a guy who will throw 100 IP per season with a 3.25 FIP. That makes him one of the league’s best pitchers for about half a season, which sounds about right.

We knew a bit less about Gallagher, since the projections had to be built with the help of minor league data and a small sample of major league performance, but ZIPS and CHONE pegged him for a FIP between 4.9 and 5.1 over 120-140 innings while being unsure which role the Cubs would use him in. In 12 appearances this year (10 starts), he’s thrown 58 innings and posted a 3.98 FIP, so again, adding that new information and adjusting for the switch from the AL to the NL, we’d probably project Gallagher in Oakland for something like 180 innings a year with a FIP around 5.00.

Harden is obviously the better pitcher, but we have to account for the difference in durability as well, so let’s add Harden’s theoretical replacement into the equation. The A’s are one of the best organizations in baseball at finding spare parts to put up solid performances in their rotation (their defense and home park don’t hurt), so let’s assume that Amalgamation Of Harden Replacements will make up the 80 inning difference by posting a 5.50 FIP, a tick or two above league wide replacement level.

That brings the combined totals for Harden + Harden Replacements to 180 innings with a 4.25 FIP, compared to the 180 innings we were projecting from Gallagher at a 5.00 FIP. That’s a difference of three-fourths of a run per nine innings, which while significant, adds up to a grand total of about 15 runs over the course of an entire season.

Fifteen runs, or roughly 1.5 wins – that’s the entirety of downgrading from Rich Harden to Sean Gallagher, based on the assumptions I made above. If you don’t like the numbers I used, feel free to plug in your own, but unless you’re very bullish on Harden’s health, you’re going to come to the conclusion that the swap will cost the A’s at most two or three wins between now and the end of 2009, when Harden’s contract expires.

For giving up those two to three wins in the next year and a half, the A’s receive club control over Gallagher from 2010 to 2013 (his ’08-’09 years are already counted above), control over Murton from 2008 to 2011, control over Patterson from 2008 to 2014, a potentially useful prospect in Josh Donaldson, and they save approximately $8 million in salary.

The A’s sold two to three wins for four years of a guy who projects out as a league average pitcher, three years of a useful platoon outfielder, six years of a potentially useful utility player, a young catching prospect, and $8 million in cash. And they’re getting killed for it?

If Beane spends the $8 million he saved on a free agent this winter, he’ll be able to buy back at least one of the wins he surrendered in this deal, and probably closer to two, erasing almost the entire difference between Harden and Gallagher just with the financial savings. Even if Murton, Patterson, and Donaldson are all busts, the A’s are still just about as good in 2009 as they were with Harden, meaning they picked up Gallagher’s age 24 to 27 seasons for free.

I’m not a huge Sean Gallagher fan, as my rather conservative projection above shows, and after running through all this, but if I was the A’s, I still might have considered swapping Harden for Gallagher straight up. The fact that they got Murton, Patterson, and Donaldson as sweetner is just a bonus.

This deal is a win for the A’s, even if it doesn’t necessarily seem like it. They don’t take much away from their 2009 team while making the 2010 to 2013 squads potentially a lot better.