Harden on the Market
Is there a more frustrating starter in the game than Rich Harden?
Since he broke into the big leagues at age 21, Harden has compiled a 3.58 FIP, while punching out 9.35 batters per nine frames. The slim right-hander totes a searing four-seam fastball, a knee-weakening slider and a changeup making MLB hitters resemble beer league softball players in the second game of a double-header.
Unfortunately, any discussion of Harden’s immense talent includes the qualifier, “when healthy.” His DL history reads like a Tolstoy novel. Shoulder ailments have haunted Harden throughout his career. But you name it, and the soon-to-be 28 year-old has strained it. The latest entries into the file are a back injury that sidelined him in May, and shoulder fatigue that cut his September short.
Overall, Harden made 26 starts for the Cubs in 2009. His 4.09 ERA in 141 IP doesn’t look near as shiny as his Gibson-like 2.07 ERA in 148 innings between Oakland and Chicago in 2008. But there wasn’t near as much of a difference between those two campaigns as you might think.
Harden’s Expected Fielding Independent ERA (based on a pitcher’s K’s, walks and a normalized home run/fly ball rate) was 3.70 in 2009. In 2008? 3.70.
In 2008, Harden whiffed 11.01 hitters per nine innings. In 2009, he posted 10.91 K/9. He wasn’t as sharp painting the corners this past year, issuing 4.28 BB/9 compared to 3.71 BB/9 in 2008.
In ‘08, The 6-1 righty posted a very low .265 BABIP on the season. Granted, Rich is an extreme fly ball pitcher (his 49% FB rate in 2008 was highest among starters tossing 140+ IP). Fly balls have a lower BABIP than grounders, and Harden is adept at getting batters to pop the ball up. Over the past two seasons, he has the fourth-highest infield/fly ball rate among starters.
Those two factors combine to depress his BABIP more than that of most starters (his career BABIP is .284). But a mark in the mid-.260’s was bound to regress. In 2009, Harden’s BABIP climbed to .304.
Harden’s HR/FB rate also changed drastically between 2008 and 2009. In ‘08, Rich gave up a dinger on just 6.5% of his fly balls. That was fifth-lowest among starters, and well below the typical 11-12% average for pitchers. In ‘09, Harden’s HR/FB rate skyrocketed to 15.1% (third-highest among starters).
According to Greg Rybarczyk’s Hit Tracker Online, Harden gave up nine “Just Enough” home runs in 2009. “Just Enough” homers are defined as “balls that clear the fence by less than 10 vertical feet” or balls that “landed less than one fence height past the fence.” In other words, Rich surrendered plenty of wall-scrapers. Expect to see fewer taters hit against Harden in 2010.
Harden benefitted from an abnormally high rate of stranding runners on base in 2008 as well. His 84.4 LOB% was the highest among starters. In ‘09, Harden’s LOB% came back down to 74.3%, right around his career 74.9% mark.
Despite the massive gap in ERA, the difference between Rich Harden’s performance in 2008 and 2009 was largely superficial. He combined superb pitching with some fortuitous breaks in ‘08, but then saw Lady Luck turn a cold shoulder to him in 2009. His skill-based numbers were very similar.
Entering 2010, fantasy owners are in much the same position as MLB GMs when it comes to evaluating Harden. How much are you willing to bet on his transient brilliance?
Harden strikes me as the ideal middle-round target. Yes, there are three things that you can guarantee in life: death, taxes and a Rich Harden DL stint. But 125-150 excellent innings from the free agent hurler may well be more valuable than 175-200 frames from a more mundane starter. There’s risk, to be sure, but snatching up a top-shelf talent at a reduced price is worth the trouble.
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Excellent analysis Golebiewski. I picked Harden up last year after the All-Star Break, which proved highly fortuitous. During that span, I noticed that (despite his inflated FIP) his controllables were stellar, his luck — not so much.
I think it’s also worth noting that in ‘08 and ‘09 he put together back-to-back seasons with 140+ innings — something he’s never done. Because of his injury history, I think there’s a chance he could be a quasi-sleeper this year (both in fantasy and reality).
I entirely agree. Harden will probably cost about the same, if not less, than a guy like Jose Valverde, and yet you will prob. get 2x as many innings out of harden.
It’s a risk teams should be willing to take
Harden’s value could fluctuate quite a bit depending on what team he signs with. Playing in Seattle vs. playing in Cincinatti or something would have a very significant effect on his ERA, and as such his win totals, too.
Either way, he’ll probably be a good value. Even if he misses time the production he gives you is elite while he’s in your lineup, so it’s still probably a plus with a waiver wire guy filling in his missing innings.
It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on his health especially since he doesn’t throw the slider anymore, really. According to the graphs it went from about a 3 percent rate on his slider usage in 08 to none in 09. (up from a high of 17 percent in 04)
He just throws 2 pitches. His fastball are so radically different though
well i guess technically one of his “fastballs” is a “changeup” but I dont like to classify stuff in the mid upper 80s as a “change up”
One thing to note is that Harden has difficulty staying in the games that he starts. His IP per start in 2008 was only 5.9 and his IP per start in 2009 was only 5.4. Only 11 MLB pitchers had a worse IP per start than Harden in 2009 (minimum 100 IP).
IP per start is important for predicting wins because guys like Harden (and Scherzer and Kershaw) either:
Don’t qualify for the win by not completing 5 full innings
Rely on the bullpen to hold a lead over 3 or 4 innings
Are on the bench and are not the beneficiary of go-ahead runs scored in the 6th and 7th innings – so a random bullpen guy gets the win
Subjectively, when you follow Harden and Scherzer’s games, even when they give you 5 or 6 innings of 1 run ball, they often need 90 or more pitches and run into frequent jams. And as maximum velocity guys, there seems to be no correlation between the hitter and the outcome…they are seemingly just as likely to walk the #8 or #9 hitter as they are the cleanup hitter. When their control is on, they are unhittable, but when they struggle to find the plate, it’s nothing but walks and Ks for 5 IP.
The problem I have with the ‘just enough’ home run stat is that it doesnt include the ‘just barely not enough’ hits, which land on the warning track. Those could easily turn into more home runs if every hitter picks up on harden’s game just the tiniest bit. Kind of a misleading stat that could work in either direction, and doesn’t really support Harden’s case to be ‘better’.
But his crazy increase in HR/FB% does suggest he’ll likely give up fewer HR in the future.
Regarding his FA status, I wonder what kind of offers he’ll get. How many years? How much money per year?