Harang: A Tale of 3 Metrics

He's no different than Cox in that regard. Remember the rumors of discord over Glavine and Smoltz between Bobby and Frank? I still say that hastened Bobby's retirement.

Funny. My recollection is Bobby was not that sentimental about letting non-performing players go. I remember that just about every May he ditched a couple relievers in favor of guys who were doing well in AAA.
 
Funny. My recollection is Bobby was not that sentimental about letting non-performing players go. I remember that just about every May he ditched a couple relievers in favor of guys who were doing well in AAA.

I think he still had a soft spot for Glav and Smoltzie
 
If the rift between Bobby and Frank was that bad neither would still working for the organization. Cox still represents us at winter meetings.
 
With the 7 no hit innings his ERA drops to 0.70. But due to the six walks, his FIP and xFIP rise to 2.76 and 4.45.

His BABIP stands at .143, strand rate at 90.5%. Ground ball percentage is at a career low of 25.4%. Fly ball percentage at an extremely high 54.2%. Yet zero home runs so far.

Folks it is all pixie dust.

His line drive rate is 20.3%. This does not represent any sort of improvement. It has been at 18.5%, 20.5%, and 19.7% in the past three years. It is not as if he is suddenly inducing more weak contact.

Walk rate is 4.2%, which is on the high end of where he has been in recent years.

If you look at line drive rate, walk rate, strikeout rate, you would see essentially the same mediocre pitcher. I'm really happy to have gotten these 4 starts from Harang. But let's be realistic about the huge amount of good luck involved here. And let's not turn a blind eye to the underlying indications that he is the same mediocre pitcher.

I also remember Maholm looked early on last year like he might have a career year. But in the end he had his worst season in years. That is the nature of small sample size, someone can have a great month but then follow that up with a terrible one, etc. MLB is a long season, I am grateful for Harang's great start but I agree with you about going to Floyd when the time comes. No way I remove Wood to keep Harang in the rotation either. Wood is our present and future, Harang and Floyd are just rentals. Plus Wood has pitched as great as anyone. He just hasn't gotten many breaks thus far.
 
I also remember Maholm looked early on last year like he might have a career year. But in the end he had his worst season in years. That is the nature of small sample size, someone can have a great month but then follow that up with a terrible one, etc. MLB is a long season, I am grateful for Harang's great start but I agree with you about going to Floyd when the time comes. No way I remove Wood to keep Harang in the rotation either. Wood is our present and future, Harang and Floyd are just rentals.

Maholm's 2013 was on par with most other years of his career. Only part of his stat line that was out of the ordinary was his HR/FB. His xFIP was 3.89 well better than his career 4.15 even ignoring that his FIP of 4.24 was right aroudn his career 4.20

Harang is smoke and mirrors so far. and he's not gonna even remotely continue what he's done. But the key thing to remember is we don't need him to. WE only need him to pitch well until Minor and Floyd are healthy and ready. He's free to implode after that.
 
Why wait for Harang to implode?

Why not trade him now to a team that needs SP, and try and at least salvage the deal by getting a bullpen arm? Doesn't have to be the level of Kimbrel obviously or even an established set up man. Just a serviceable middle innings guy that can help take the load off Avilan and Carpenter. We don't know what's going to come of Venters at all, so play it safe and acquire a bullpen arm for Harang while he has value.

I like Thomas, but he's a rookie and there's no certainty he's going to be a reliable arm once he's faced the league a few times.
 
Maholm's 2013 was on par with most other years of his career. Only part of his stat line that was out of the ordinary was his HR/FB. His xFIP was 3.89 well better than his career 4.15 even ignoring that his FIP of 4.24 was right aroudn his career 4.20

Harang is smoke and mirrors so far. and he's not gonna even remotely continue what he's done. But the key thing to remember is we don't need him to. WE only need him to pitch well until Minor and Floyd are healthy and ready. He's free to implode after that.

Maholm his previous two years was much more consistent than last year. But last year he went more back to what he had been prior years. He gave up more hits than innings pitched and was just not as consistent (though he was very good the first month as I said). Plus he missed time with injury too.

I agree on Harang, though I sure hope he doesn't implode before we trade him. :)
 
Why wait for Harang to implode?

Wren usually isn't one to sell high with starting pitchers that way. We usually wait till they come back down to earth if not longer. But hopefully we are able to get a good reliever for him at some point. We did with Hanson even after waiting till he wasn't pitching well anymore. But Hanson also had a track record previously much better than Harang's too.
 
Heard the term "innings eater" last night on MLB Network. Last Brave to get that honor was Derrick Lowe.
Harang is Lowe
 
Why wait for Harang to implode?

Why not trade him now to a team that needs SP, and try and at least salvage the deal by getting a bullpen arm? Doesn't have to be the level of Kimbrel obviously or even an established set up man. Just a serviceable middle innings guy that can help take the load off Avilan and Carpenter. We don't know what's going to come of Venters at all, so play it safe and acquire a bullpen arm for Harang while he has value.

I like Thomas, but he's a rookie and there's no certainty he's going to be a reliable arm once he's faced the league a few times.

I like your scenario. Starting pitching is hard to find at this point of the season. The Yankees just put Ivan Nova on a DL with a partial tear of his UCL.
 
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