Free Agent Outlook: Aaron Harang

            There are few things more frustrating to a general manager than seeing a pitcher you had written off for lost have a decent season.  Making it worse is the fact that you have another shot at him this year and the one thing holding you back are your belief that he had a fluky season…oh and he’s 36 years old.  Aaron Harang put many gm’s in this spot last year when he started out the gate doing very well having an ERA under 2.50 for the first 2 months of the season and even ended the season with some solid numbers.  Now that the dust has settled and he’s back on the market what do teams do about him?  At 36 Harang’s skills are in decline but at the same time he’s been a pretty steady 5^th starter for the last few years.  The main question is going to the contract he would demand since if Harang asks for a multi-year deal is he worth it?  How about the price tag that he could demand given the season he is coming off of?

	W	L	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BAA	WHIP	BABIP	ERA	ERA-	FIP	FIP-	WAR
Harang	12	12	7.09	3.13	0.66	.267	1.40	.318	3.57	98	3.57	97	2.5
League Ave.	16	16	7.73	2.89	0.86	.247	1.28	.295	3.74	99	3.74	99	14.3

            Right off the bat we can see Harang is just pedestrian statistically but at the same time that’s way better than anyone would have expected.  In fact if you look at his numbers you’d say that his numbers are actually below average in all areas but ERA and FIP.  His BAA is very high and having a BABIP of .318 makes his fairly low FIP very interesting and confusing at the same time.

            Lets take a closer look at the BAA since there’s more to the story and it is something we have to consider.  The quality of hits is unsettling for Harang since the line drive rate is up from last year and is higher than his career numbers.  Granted 1% above career numbers may not mean much but the 3% from last year is a raise that is worrisome.  Even more unsettling is Harang’s xFIP, a stat very similar to FIP but gives more weight to factors like homeruns and stadiums, is at 4.03.  That’s 50 points higher than his career and 9% worse than league average xFIP.  I could sit here and spout out all the reasons to worry about Harang here’s the bottom line, he got really lucky last year.

Pros:

            Harang has a history of being very injury prone but the last 4 years only 1 of those seasons he didn’t reach 170 innings.  He can help a team eat some innings for a young staff or a staff that just needs that arm to take the weight off the bullpen every once in a while.  He is a veteran arm having pitched for 12 years and for a young staff he could have a tip or two for the younger arms.  As lucky as Harang was last season he has been fairly consistent over the last few years, the numbers aren’t anything special but he is nothing more than a number 5 starter anyways.

Cons:

            Harang is 36 and his skill sets are declining.  Nothing Harang can do will change the fact that his talent is going to degrade every year and with his age every game could show regression.  Speaking of regression his numbers from last year show us that that ERA and FIP can’t be repeated and these numbers would raise and they would raise in a big way.  He pitched 70 points better than his career ERA and FIP but all the rest of the numbers, imagine when those numbers start to average out and he returns to normal levels.  Its not going to be a pretty sight for anyone involved and for the team that signs him they have to be very aware of the potential danger of Harang’s regression.  While the BAA is high it’s the walks that are higher than normal and this kind of regression is going to be the normal for a guy turning 37 near the beginning of the season.

Contract/Team:

            This is going to hard since I know what I’d pay him…nothing, no seriously.  If I were a general manager I wouldn’t even consider Harang unless I was desperate enough to pick a player that has this many warning signs.  Harang though has one thing going for him that other player’s in his range don’t have, he’s coming off a successful season.  One thing I tried to do is look at Harang’s WAR and find players with similar age, skill set, and potential to try and see what kind of contract could Harang reasonably get.  Luckily for more that was that hard since there were a few names that fit this criteria almost exactly: Bartolo Colon, R.A. Dickey and Kyle Loshe all have WAR’s that range from 2.5-2.0.  To be fair I wouldn’t put Harang in these pitchers category but agents will say otherwise.

            Dickey and Loshe both have multi-year deals that are $25-$33 million respectively while Colon has a 1-year deal with 2 options worth $3 million a piece but has more incentives.  So which contract will Harang try to aim for?  Well it’s not rocket science to figure ouch which he will choose to aim for but no one would offer him a contract that large at his age.  More likely a team will shoot for the middle ground and I think it’s plausible that he could get a 6-10 million for maybe 1-year with a team option for a second.  That would mean a 3-5 million contract a year and some protection from regression.  Most likely he would get some incentive’s to add to that bonus, something like innings pitched, number of wins, etc.

            When it comes to teams that could use Harang I’m torn.  Either there is going to be many teams looking for a 5th starter or there will be few teams that want a 36-year-old pitcher.

New York Yankees: This does seem like a stretch but the team is desperate for pitchers and with Harang’s success last season they may take a chance.  This would be a bad choice in my opinion since New York isn’t kind to pitchers that give up hits.  Harang at least is a ground ball pitcher so that is a bonus for him.

Oakland Athletics: Again kind of a stretch but the A’s do have a great stadium for pitchers and they seem to love a rebuilding project, see Scott Kazmir.  While the team is getting a few good young arms back for the next season the team doesn’t seem to need Harang but at the same time they would want a back up plan.  Harang could serve as a good backup plan just in case Jarred Parker has a set back.

Texas Rangers: The pitching of this team is just so bad they could use anyone.  They have Darvish and Holland at the top of the staff but the bottom of the rotation is in such disarray that the team needs something.  While Harang doesn’t profile as a very smart idea the team may be willing to take a shot just to see if it works.

Atlanta Braves: The obvious choice and the team have to consider it.  With many of their pitchers injured last season and the possibilities of injuries to the pitchers who came back from injuries Harang would likely fit right in.  Braves don’t have a large cap though and the team is on the cusp of becoming a “next year” team so he could be a bad option if that’s the case.