Peer into the future: Aaron Harang

by Slyde on Nov 24, 2008 12:44 PM EST in Peer into the Future Comment 15 comments

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We've done a lot of talking about 2009, but I want to look a little further out into the future. From time to time throughout the off-season, I will look at a few players currently on the Reds and make a guess about what I think the next 5 years will look like for them. My guess will only be slightly scientific, and any science used will most assuredly be improperly used. I make no stance that these projections are anything but a fun exercise.

After the way he performed last year, some may think that Aaron Harang is spent. And could you blame them? Since 2005, Harang has thrown more pitches than all but 4 pitchers in the league, and if he hadn't missed 5 starts due to injury this year, he'd more than likely have the extra 300 pitches needed to take over the lead. No one would be surprised if the big guy started to break down.

Comps?

When trying to find some comps for Harang, I did a search for pitchers who between the age of 26-30 pitched 1000 innings while striking between 7.2 and 8.2 batter per 9 IP and walking between 1.8 and 2.8 per 9 IP. I got 4 modern matches:

Pitcher          IP   K/9  BB/9
Aaron Harang   1023  7.70  2.30
Mike Mussina   1099  7.59  2.18
Ron Guidry     1067  7.55  2.65
Tom Seaver     1354  8.19  2.42
Roger Clemens  1191  7.92  2.58

Obviously Harang is not in a class with all of those pitchers - 3 of them are Hall of Famers, or should be - but it warms my cockles to see his name on that list.

I, for one, don't think it's happening though. I believe that the time he spent on the DL in 2008 was a direct effect of pitching 4 innings in relief 3 days after starting and then making a start 3 days after that back in May. If you look at his Pitch FX data, you'll see that his average fastball was a full mile and a half slower in his first start after his relief appearance than his typical start at home. It's no wonder that he got rocked by the Pirates that day. And it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that he ended up getting hurt right around the same time. Strict pitch counts may be overrated, but there is something to not letting your pitcher pitch when he is tired. Mechanics get sloppy and the injury risk goes up dramatically when a pitcher is more tired than normal.

But I digress.

Harang showed me enough during his last 8 starts to convince me not to worry about his health at this point. I'm still concerned that Dusty Baker could make another foolish move like he did last May, but I'm not concerned about Harang's long-term health because of that incident.

The most important thing about those last 8 starts was that Harang got his control back. When he was hurting, his BB/9 were up over 3, but in his last starts of the year, that number dropped back down to 2.0. I'm not excited that his strikeout rate also dropped, but I'm willing to accept that if it means that his location is there.

All this being said, I don't think we'll see the Harang of 2006-2007 anymore. I still expect to see a very good pitcher, with some streaks of greatness, but I don't think we'll see him pulling down any Cy Young votes again. This is mainly because of his age and his flyball tendencies in GABP. How good do I think he'll be?

My non-scientific projections for the next 5 years:

Year  Age    W   L     IP    H   ER  HR  BB   SO HBP IBB   ERA
2009   31   12  10  217.1  224  103  32  63  187   3   5  4.29
2010   32   14   6  212.0  220   95  32  55  168   2   3  4.02
2011   33   10  12  220.0  243  108  36  69  191   5   8  4.41
2012   34    9  14  230.0  235  117  32  51  184   6   3  4.59
2013   35    8  12  182.0  194  107  31  54  154   5   5  5.29

So, what do you think? Are these projections realistic? Will all of these seasons be with the Reds? If this is what Harang is due to put up over the next 5 years, would you trade him right now?

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Comments

One thing jumps out

Given his peripherals above, you must not think the Reds’ offense will be any better than it has been over the past 3 years (in other words, below league-average).

Last year, the Reds were 19th in baseball (31 points below average by unadjusted OPS) at C, 22nd in CF (52 points below average – and remember, that counts lots of time by Hairston and Bruce), and 21st in RF (33 points below average). Meanwhile, only in LF are the Reds likely to lose offense compared to last year.

If Harang puts up the numbers you guess at, I’m guessing he’ll win 2-3 more games per year than your projection.

Often wrong, never uncertain.

by sidnancy on Nov 24, 2008 2:18 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

The HRs will be key

After keeping his HR/fly percent around 10 in ‘06 and ’07, Harang saw it rise a few ticks last year to about 14%. It wasn’t all because of the relief stint either. His post-DL starts, while generally decent, still saw a lot of HRs allowed (15 in 10 GS). If you buy that HRs are essentially a product of FBs allowed and the home park (see THT’s definition of xFIP), a return to his normal HR/FB should mean that we get back the old Harang, or something close to it. Though I wouldn’t be unhappy with these ’09 and ’10 projections.

Similar deal with Bronson in that last year’s “slump” can be attributed to a higher than normal HR/FB. Think lucky.

by ken on Nov 24, 2008 2:21 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

well, you'll note that his xFIP for 2008 was 4.39

so I’d say that my 2009 projection is in line with that.

Why have I been blogging for so long? It's certainly not because of the paycheck. Because I could be making a lot more money as a doctor or a professional athlete.

by Slyde on Nov 24, 2008 3:04 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

maybe a bit optimistic

i think it really depends on how hurt he was this year and how much he’s recovered from it.

if you look at baseball prospectus’ PECOTA forecast (which doesn’t take last year into account), it saw harang taking a pretty similar path through the next 5 years, but sees his innings dropping off pretty dramatically after 2010.

and i suppose that’s the thing about a power pitcher – if he’s healthy, he can likely be quite effective into his mid 30s. if he’s not, he can be out of the league in 2 years.

so i guess my comments about the forecast above:

1) i think it’s dangerous to assume harang can keep racking up 200+ IP seasons at that rate.

2) if he’s healthy, hopefully it leads to him keeping the ball down and limiting the home park effec somewhat.

3) let’s hope to god the ERAs turn out to be better than you project, because it likely means that #2 above occurred and that the reds have managed to find players who can defensively handle 3b, ss, cf while hitting their own weight.

4) did i mention let’s hope that he is and stays healthy?

by rpa on Nov 24, 2008 2:24 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I'll admit that I estimated innings per season based off of the average for the 4 pitchers listed above in their age 31-35 seasons

though I did make an adjustment to lower Harang’s innings a little bit since he pitches fewer innings in general and because the sample included two pitchers from the 70s who threw a crapload of innings.

However, I don’t think there is anything unrealistic about a pitcher with Harang’s build throwing 200 innings a year. His mechanics are smooth and he’s very good at repeating them. Sure, you may see a drop-off sooner than I projected, but outside of the injury last season, there is nothing about Harang that makes me think he can’t continue to be an innings eater for several more years.

I also don’t consider Harang a power pitcher. Sure he can throw it hard, but according to Pitch FX, he only threw 33 pitches of 94 MPH or higher last season with almost 90% of his fastballs being between 87-92. I think of power pitchers as those that regularly hit 96 or higher like Zambrano or Sabathia. I’d put Harang in an in between group that lives off of fastball-slider, but is more dependent on location than speed. By no means is he a finesse pitcher, but I have a hard time calling him a power pitcher as well. It’s probably just semantics anyway.

Something I didn’t do, but probably could/should have was adjust for improvements elsewhere in the team. The big one here being defense, but also for the offense too when it comes to wins. First on the wins (in response to sidnancy), It is still possible to have an improved offense and a worse record just simply based on the distribution of runs. Even if the offense improves over 2008, they have a long way to go to get to 2007’s level (79 runs), especially when you factor in the loss of Dunn. So while I didn’t really factor in the offense, I think there is a lot to be done before we could consider it a worthy factor for any improvements from Harang.

As for the defense, I didn’t adjust his hit rates too much either way – they are fairly stable from year to year in my projections. Obviously that could change a decent amount if the Reds dramatically improve the defense. I did estimate his ERA independent of his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and there is some wiggle room there to factor in improved defense. Here are the FIPs for each year compared to my estimate for his ERA:

Year   FIP   ERA

2009  4.25  4.29

2010  4.34  4.02

2011  4.51  4.42

2012  4.09  4.59

2013  4.63  5.29

So, improve the defense a bit, and I think you’ll see his ERA drop, but not dramatically, except maybe in 2012 and 2013, which are currently much more out of line, especially with an improved defense.

Why have I been blogging for so long? It's certainly not because of the paycheck. Because I could be making a lot more money as a doctor or a professional athlete.

by Slyde on Nov 24, 2008 3:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Quick question (well, two actually)

First on the wins (in response to sidnancy), It is still possible to have an improved offense and a worse record just simply based on the distribution of runs.

Didn’t I read somewhere that the distribution of runs scored doesn’t stray too far outside of a bell curve, so that an improvement in runs scored should almost always translate into an increase in wins (everything else being equal)?

Or are you talking about Harang in particular? Over the past 4 years, BPro thinks he should have 4.5 more wins and 1.8 fewer losses, given how he’s pitched (if I’m using E(w) corrrectly). Given that he won 3.9 fewer games than “expected” last year, I’d say he’s due for some luck.

Often wrong, never uncertain.

by sidnancy on Nov 24, 2008 3:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not sure on your first question

but I think that is referring to the team as a whole. Distribution of runs scored over one pitcher’s 30-35 starts is often out of line with the distribution for the team in general. My point was (1) that the Reds have to make a lot of improvement to get back to 2007 offensive levels and (2) even if they do get back to those levels, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Harang will be a major benefactor of that. Sure it would improve his personal chances of winning 15 games instead of 12, but not necessarily.

On your second point, for 2009, I predicted an ERA that was more or less in line with his xFIP for 2008 and gave him 6 more wins than he had in 2008. I think I’ve adjusted his “luck” back into line.

I hadn’t done this before my projections, but I just checked and over the last 5 years, 99 pitchers have thrown at least 162 innings in a season and posted an ERA between 4.00 and 4.50. The average number of wins for that group is 12.29. The median is 12 wins. The standard deviation is 2.6. So, basically we’re both right.

Why have I been blogging for so long? It's certainly not because of the paycheck. Because I could be making a lot more money as a doctor or a professional athlete.

by Slyde on Nov 24, 2008 4:22 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think you can make a more optimistic case for Harang.

Starting with Marcel/ Bill James project Aaron at around 4.10 ERA. But this projection incorporates performance that clearly was negative because of a Dusty induced injury.
Before Dusty’s Blunder(BDB). Harang was @ 3.32 ERA- 66 IPs/ 8 HRS/ 66k.
Its somewhat arbitrary( not completely because had 2 solid starts at the end of AUG) his Sept ERA was 3.07 with similar K/BB and HR rates has is career average.
Aaron has been the model of constitency before BDB- and if healthy I dont see why he would not return to 3.75 ERA close to 4-1 K/BB, HR rate around 1 for 8 innings. And if the Reds finally improve the left side defense- I could easily see Harang have is ERA fall below 3.5.
Also, when projecting the Dempster deal, Dave Armstrong said he didnt include much of negative progression for 30 year old pitchers(which surprised me); and Dave was very bullish on the Cubs signing Dempster for 4 years 52 million- with projections of ERA around 3.75.
So I am in the camp that the surprise is more likely to be an upside surprise for Harang’s performance if he can stay healthy while being “managed” by Dusty.

by davidmac84 on Nov 24, 2008 4:32 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Harang should be traded NEXT winter

Arroyo definitely this winter. Get value for these guys before their arms are gone. Arroyo’s struggles getting his arm warmed up last season suggest his shoulder tissue is fraying and it may snap at anytime.

by Johnnypronto on Nov 25, 2008 7:57 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Sounds like a 3 letter solution

MRI

Why have I been blogging for so long? It's certainly not because of the paycheck. Because I could be making a lot more money as a doctor or a professional athlete.

by Slyde on Nov 25, 2008 8:25 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

that's how i pronounce the word mystery

Think of me what you will...I gotta little space to fill

by chandrathan on Nov 25, 2008 9:56 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It clearly says Merry

as in Merry Cristmas. N00b.

"Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est."

by jch24 on Nov 25, 2008 2:00 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I would not rade Harang

He’s a bull, he’ll pitch a long time and become a highly skilled ‘pitcher’ over the next 5 years.

BTW – I would not trade Bronson either. He’s not an Adam Harang but in this present climate of no affordable pitchers being available and some good young Red’s ones on the way up, Bronson’s a good fit.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Sir Winston Churchill

by Madville on Nov 25, 2008 4:33 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I agree with you

he is a smart pitcher, he will make adjustments as he loses velocity. He may not be an ace, but he can be an upper midlevel rotation pitcher for years to come.

"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word."-Andy Jack

by justin007000 on Nov 25, 2008 10:30 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs