Hypothetical Harang Question

[M2]

I don't think "ace" is the same thing as "#1."

I agree Harang is not an ace, but I think he's a #1. There are only a handful of aces, but by definition IMHO, there are 30 #1 pitchers in MLB who are the 30 best pitchers. Some teams may have a couple guys in the Top 30 who are #1 pitchers (like the Astros with Clemens and Oswalt) and some may have none, but whichever pitchers are the 30 best are the #1's IMHO. That doesn't make all the #1's equal of course, as some are aces and some are Harang-like.

Given that definition, I think Harang is a lower tier #1.

I don't like the 30-pitcher tiers because, let's be honest, there aren't enough decent pitchers to go around. There were 30 guys last season who pitched 100+ innings as a starter with ERAs above 5.00. The Royals had two well-pitched games from Adam Bernero, but the other 15 guys they sent to the mound to start were just awful. It's arguable whether the Royals even had a #5 starter on the roster. What they really was a collection of guys who shouldn't have been pitching in the majors.

I'm an absolutist on these things. A #1 for me is an ace, a guy who can dominate year-in, year-out. A #2 guy is someone who can keep his ERA south of 3.50 most seasons and a #3 guy is one who'll fall in the 3.50-4.00 range most seasons. ERA+ might be a fairer way to group it, but I'd have to look into where the lines of demarcation should be drawn for that. Obviously no one stays precisely within those confines all the time, but what Harang is, most seasons, is a guy who can take the ball and chew up a ton of innings with a solid, but unspectacular ERA. I'm thrilled the Reds have him. In general, I love pitchers who can do that. Yet I don't want to see the team pay him like he's a superstud. He's not. Among other things, the Reds don't need to be inflating the market for the class of arms they need to be stockpiling. If you're going to start paying $10M or more for guys who can keep their ERA just below 4.00, then I'm not sure the Reds have any real alternatives to crossing their fingers and hoping that Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto and Travis Wood all turn out to be studs and arrive in the majors at roughly the same time.

[RedsManRick]

We also got two relievers with strikeout stuff but no control who likely will never amount to anything. That trade is the perfect example of selling high and buying low.

[M2]

Pam Shriver never did very well against Martina Navratilova and Chris Everett, but she was still a top-10 player.

And she never won a major singles title. She was a great doubles player though.

That's a pretty good analogy for Harang. He's probably never going to win the big one by himself, but if you put him in the right mix then he can chase a championship.

[blumj]

Among other things, the Reds don't need to be inflating the market for the class of arms they need to be stockpiling. If you're going to start paying $10M or more for guys who can keep their ERA just below 4.00, then I'm not sure the Reds have any real alternatives to crossing their fingers and hoping that Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto and Travis Wood all turn out to be studs and arrive in the majors at roughly the same time.

See, the part I don't see is how the Reds would be the ones who are inflating the market simply by paying him like other pitchers like him and worse are already being paid. The really elite pitchers get more, well over $10 million a year. Now, the case is there that the Reds can't afford to go along with it, and that is justified, but that just makes it very unlikely that they can keep Harang past his arb years. Because it would be tough to make a realistic case that it's in Harang's best interest to sign for $7 million AAV for more than 2 years at this time and in this market, unless he's afraid that he'll get injured or underperform, and athletes and their agents generally don't think that way.

[shredda2000]

8-9 mil/per year with incentives...

[M2]

See, the part I don't see is how the Reds would be the ones who are inflating the market simply by paying him like other pitchers like him and worse are already being paid. The really elite pitchers get more, well over $10 million a year. Now, the case is there that the Reds can't afford to go along with it, and that is justified, but that just makes it very unlikely that they can keep Harang past his arb years. Because it would be tough to make a realistic case that it's in Harang's best interest to sign for $7 million AAV for more than 2 years at this time and in this market, unless he's afraid that he'll get injured or underperform, and athletes and their agents generally don't think that way.

It's mostly a matter of how many teams are willing to pay through the nose for a guy like Harang. Obviously the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox are out there and they all need pitching, so if you're at the top of your free agent pitching class, money could be headed your way. Of course, busts like Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, Sidney Ponson, Eric Milton, etc. might have properly scared some teams off of throwing money at a guy because he's nominally the best on the free agent market.

What smaller market teams need to do is lock up a guy like Harang for an extra year or two beyond his arbitration expiration date. Sure, he could see how much money he can make after 2008, but the Reds will surely ride him hard the next two seasons and if his arm goes pop then he goes from a guy who might be staring at a windfall to a guy who might be staring at rehabbing on his own dime. It wasn't that long ago that Harang was a C+ prospect struggling to gain a foothold in the majors. If somebody puts $30M on the table for the next four years I imagine he'd give it a long, hard look. He might even sign for less. Set for life with no worries isn't a trivial concern.

Anyway, a team like the Reds needs to use its leverage (like having a player under control for two more uncertain years) to exert downward pressure on the market. Most importantly, it need to avoid treating arb eligibles like free agents. You don't want to pay more for Aaron Harang, who has a lot of risk on his shoulders the next two years, than the Dodgers are paying for Derek Lowe, who came in as a free agent off a playoff star turn.

[terminator]

I'm an absolutist on these things. A #1 for me is an ace, a guy who can dominate year-in, year-out. A #2 guy is someone who can keep his ERA south of 3.50 most seasons and a #3 guy is one who'll fall in the 3.50-4.00 range most seasons. ERA+ might be a fairer way to group it, but I'd have to look into where the lines of demarcation should be drawn for that. Obviously no one stays precisely within those confines all the time . . .

Given the confines of your definition of #1 = Hall of Fame ace, I certainly wouldn't argue that there are a lot of #1's out there.

Just keep in mind though that based on your definition of #1, #2 and #3, that for 2006 (not an atypical year) there are only seven pitchers in the N.L. who qualify as a #1 or a #2 and another eight who qualify as a #3. So there aren't even enough #1, #2 and #3 pitchers for each team in the N.L. to get one, let alone fill three holes in their rotation. (More or less, I'm sure there were some more who were out for injuries or came up from the minors, etc.)

Rather than use the tags "#1 - #5 pitcher" maybe we should just note that there are 80 pitching spots to be filled in the N.L. and Harang is (clearly IMHO) one of the 32 best if not one of the 16 best. Based on last season, so is Arroyo.

[terminator]

If somebody puts $30M on the table for the next four years I imagine he'd give it a long, hard look. He might even sign for less. Set for life with no worries isn't a trivial concern.

I completely agree. I don't think it should take a $10MM+/yr average to sign him for four years at the current time given his arbitration status.

[Edd Roush]

What about maybe trying and get him to sign for a little bit less but front load the contract rather than back load it? IE:

2007 13 mil
2008 10 mil
2009 6.5 mil
2010 5.5 mil
2011 5 mil

thats 42 mil over 5 years but he sees that money SOONER rather than later and helps the reds with flexibility down the road.

While that may work in the perfect world, sports now exist in a world where players can "hold-out." Not to say Harang would ever pull a TO on the Reds, but imagine Harang wins a Cy Young in 2009. (Not saying he ever would, but perhaps he helps lead the Reds to their first World Series since 1990. ) Do you think a rational man, as I'm sure Harang is, would come back for 5.5 million in 2010? I'm sure that after the 2009 season, solid pitchers will be fetching 10 million a year. Do you think that an ace, which Harang already is to some and could develop into one for others, will pitch for 5.5 million a year?

This is why I believe contracts are backloaded. The team doesn't want to see a player enjoy the fruits of a contract and then decide to hold out. Again, not saying Harang would do such a thing, but it could happen.

[M2]

Given the confines of your definition of #1 = Hall of Fame ace, I certainly wouldn't argue that there are a lot of #1's out there.

Just keep in mind though that based on your definition of #1, #2 and #3, that for 2006 (not an atypical year) there are only seven pitchers in the N.L. who qualify as a #1 or a #2 and another eight who qualify as a #3. So there aren't even enough #1, #2 and #3 pitchers for each team in the N.L. to get one, let alone fill three holes in their rotation. (More or less, I'm sure there were some more who were out for injuries or came up from the minors, etc.)

Rather than use the tags "#1 - #5 pitcher" maybe we should just note that there are 80 pitching spots to be filled in the N.L. and Harang is (clearly IMHO) one of the 32 best if not one of the 16 best. Based on last season, so is Arroyo.

I think it all comes down to your point of reference. Is Harang one of the 30 best starters in MLB? In 2006 he was and in 2005 he was one of the top 60. Yet let's say that in a given MLB season there's only 12-15 teams that really matter. Is Harang going to be, in most seasons, as good as that top 12-15? No. There's a concentration of good arms on the better teams in MLB and in a normal season I feel fairly confident in saying that you'll be able to find 25-30 pitchers on those teams that really matter you'd rather start in a playoff than Aaron Harang. Maybe Harang during his prime can shave that down to 20, but he was 42nd overall among ERA qualifiers in OPS against in 2006 (though I recognize there's some GAB inflation in that number).

As a recent historical touchstone, what level starter would you have rated Steve Parris as in 1999? Going by seasonal ERA, he'd have qualified as a #1 or #2. Yet was he? He sure looked like a #4 guy when he went up against Al Leiter (a #2 man who'd had a down season) in that one-game playoff.

[Johnny Footstool]

Rather than use the tags "#1 - #5 pitcher" maybe we should just note that there are 80 pitching spots to be filled in the N.L. and Harang is (clearly IMHO) one of the 32 best if not one of the 16 best. Based on last season, so is Arroyo.

Harang this season was a B+. Arroyo was an A-. Jake Peavey was an A-. Carlos Zambrano was an A-. Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano were A's.

[camisadelgolf]

What about maybe trying and get him to sign for a little bit less but front load the contract rather than back load it? IE:

2007 13 mil
2008 10 mil
2009 6.5 mil
2010 5.5 mil
2011 5 mil

thats 42 mil over 5 years but he sees that money SOONER rather than later and helps the reds with flexibility down the road.

That looks more like 40 mil than 42 mil to me.

[camisadelgolf]

Guys like Milton get 8-9M on the open market.

It's true that Milton gets that kind of money over three years, and over that span, you have to assume Harang would get more than that. However, for a five year contract, don't you think that money-per-year would go down due to the length of the contract?

[terminator]

Yet let's say that in a given MLB season there's only 12-15 teams that really matter. Is Harang going to be, in most seasons, as good as that top 12-15? No. There's a concentration of good arms on the better teams in MLB and in a normal season I feel fairly confident in saying that you'll be able to find 25-30 pitchers on those teams that really matter you'd rather start in a playoff than Aaron Harang.

I have to admit your approach is right though. To advance in the playoffs we need guys who can match up and win again the better pitchers in the league, not just guys who can routinely be better on paper than the starters for the Pirates and Cubs. Of course the problem is that those guys who are legitimate aces rarely come onto the market and when they do the Reds aren't at the top of the list.

As a recent historical touchstone, what level starter would you have rated Steve Parris as in 1999? Going by seasonal ERA, he'd have qualified as a #1 or #2. Yet was he? He sure looked like a #4 guy when he went up against Al Leiter (a #2 man who'd had a down season) in that one-game playoff.

Well, it's easy to say in hindsight, but Parris was pretty old when he "bloomed" and he also didn't throw many innings even in his good years. It looks like he only threw enough innings in one season during his career to qualify among league leaders. So, if I were evaluating him during his career, I like to think that I would have said I couldn't rank him because of insufficient sample size. Harang, at least, has three full seasons behind him.

BTW, I was at that game. What a miserable, depressing game that was watching that fantastic, suprising, exciting team come out flat and not get anything going against Leiter.

As to the original question, here are is a somewhat random list of approximately average annual salaries for some of the better and bigger signings in the last year or two, for what it's are worth:

Randy Johnson $16M
Pavano $10M
Vazquez $11M
Garcia $9M
Contreras $10M
Buehrle $9.5M
Radke $9M
Smoltz $8M
Oswalt $15M
Santana $10M
Lowe $9M
Pedro Martinez $13M
Schilling $13M
Beckett $10M

These guys have differing health, age, contract lengths, free agent markets, arbitration situations, etc., but it does provide more concrete data to argue for or against a certain value for Harang. Looking at them makes me think $7MM for four or five years would be a more than reasonable offer for Harang given that he still has two arbitration seasons remaining.

[M2]

Of course the problem is that those guys who are legitimate aces rarely come onto the market and when they do the Reds aren't at the top of the list.

It's certainly the Gordian knot the team needs to try to solve. The long term answer is establish sustained success and be like the Cardinals, transforming a small market into a cash cow.

Short term, I think the answer is to collect guys like Harang and Arroyo, classic #3 starters. Get three of them to carry the load, a young guy with big upside from the farm and a serviceable innings eater (someone able to toe the mound 30 times a year and keep his ERA below 5.00, possibly in the 4.50 area) and you've likely got the Reds' optimal rotation. Stick a the kind of bullpen behind them that Reds fans saw for pretty much 40 straight years prior to the arrival of Dan O'Brien.

Oh, and put a good defense behind them.