Harden the Ranger
On a free agent market lacking elite reliable arms, Rich Harden stood out as perhaps the most intriguing of the never-well collection. Today, the Texas Rangers signed the 28-year-old to a one-year deal worth $7.5M along with a $11.5M club option for next season according to Craig Calcaterra.
This isn’t the Rangers first run-in with an injured pitcher, as they were reportedly infatuated with Ben Sheets throughout last off-season and this season. Unlike Sheet, Harden actually pitched last season, and pitched moderately well. A FIP of 4.35 is worse than we’ve come to expect from 6’1” righty with an average fastball velocity just north of 92 MPH, but he still induced many an empty swing. Harden’s 67.3% contact rate ranked tops amongst all starting pitchers with at least 140 innings. In fact, over the last three seasons, Harden is the only starter below 70%.
Harden’s xFIP has ranged from 3.5 to 3.9 each of the past four seasons. He’s morphed into more of a fly ball pitcher lately – allowing 40% or more fly balls each of the past three seasons – which isn’t what you want from a guy heading into Arlington, but it is what it is. A move to the American League is going to hurt his numbers a bit as well. Still, Harden is pretty familiar with the American League West and its inhabitants, having pitched with Oakland for the majority of his career.
The money itself is similar to the deal Brad Penny just received from St. Louis. When healthy, Harden is the superior talent. The problem with Harden has never been talent though, but the nastiest six-letter word in the baseball dictionary when it comes to pitchers: health. There’s a good chance he throws something like 140 innings and produces 3+ WAR. There’s also a good chance he gets hurt in May and misses most of the year with an injury, as he has two of the past four seasons.
Risky indeed. However, if Harden can do the unthinkable and stay healthy, Texas just made the AL West race a lot more interesting.
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Does this mean that TEX will or will not sign Sheets?
I ask b/c the doctor overseeing Sheets surgery and recovery is TEX’s team doctor, and (at least IMO) the understanding was that Sheets as a Ranger was a ‘foregon conclusion’ .
Sheets is asking for $12 mil. The Rangers, even after trading away Millwood, only had around $9-10 million. Harden fit their budget.
I like Harden for $7.5M much better than Millwood for $9. Assuming the Orioles/Rangers trade (Millwood for Ray) goes through, that’s a nice reallocation of resources for Texas.
I guess 5 inning starts and horrible injury prone mechanics nets you 8 million these days…how does Harden still have value as a starter when he is doing everything a starter does wrong?
By striking out 10 per 9, getting a lot of IFFB’s, and posting an xFIP around 3.60 in the 140 innings he does pitch.
Please, tell me why you think he has horrible mechanics.
Yeah if only he would elevate his trunk and correct his Z-motion blah-blah-blah-this-is-all-bull-why-are-you-still-reading..
Harden gets injured a lot. That doesn’t mean Harden’s particular mechanics are the reason. His body doesn’t handle the strain of pitching very well would be a safer assumption to make.
Logically, except everyone who teaches proper mechanics and those who analyze them have panned Harden almost universally.
Be interesting to see what Piniero gets. I see him as a better fit, particularly if Texas plans on competing for the division title over the next 5 years.
When he’s healthy Harden is a great pitcher… but the flyball tendency in Texas is going to hurt him dearly. If he’s going to pitch in the AL West on a short contract to try to re-establish his reliability and improve his value, he would’ve been much better off at Safeco or back at McAfee. I have no idea if the A’s showed any interest (are they even at the Winter Meetings? Yes, I’m kidding, but I’ve seen nothing about them… is Beane planning a stealth swoop on someone?) but I wonder what Zduriencik’s offer was? Heck, Harden’s family back in Victoria BC can watch a lot of M’s games on TSN, that’s got to count for something.
yes he is a flyball pitcher, but he pops batters up a lot. So it really isn’t that bad.
Yes, he was second to Johan Santana in IFFB% … but did you look at the next column? Did you see what his HR/FB rate was with the Cubs? Did you notice that ranks him 3rd worst in all baseball last year among pitchers with at least 140 IP? Small sample size… or ominous trend?
Considering Arlington is considerably more hitter-friendly than Wrigley in every direction except LCF, and HRs hit off Harden seem to be well-distributed all over the outfield, I wouldn’t be quite so sanguine.
I really don’t understand this deal from Harden’s perspective. If you’re going to take a 1-year deal with an option, ideally to demonstrate your value to to the rest of the league, wouldn’t Arlington be one of the last places you’d want to be pitching in? Maybe the Rangers were the only ones offering him a salary that he’d be comfortable with, but you’d think that the home ballpark would be more of a factor.
The M’s were definitely talking to him (per comments by Zduriencik and others) so the Rangers offer must have been much better for him to take Arlington over Safeco. Maybe that second option year mattered, though there’s a good chance he won’t see it.
All Harden had to do was know who Jarrod Washburn was and anywhere but Seattle would be out of contention.
He must have wanted to work with Nolan Ryan and Mike Maddux — Texas is preaching the durability approach.
Now that Harden is a Ranger, can Doug Melvin take interest retroactively?