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Transaction Oracle
— A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen
— A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Cubs - Acquired Harden
Chicago Cubs - Acquired P Richmond Virginia Harden and P Chad Gaudin from the Oakland A's for P Sean Gallagher, OF Matt Murton, 2B/OF Eric Patterson and C Josh Donaldson.First thing I did when I saw this signing flash by? I checked to see if this Josh Donaldson was hitting like 400/500/1.200. He's not, he's like the Brad Ausmus of the Midwest League.
Then what did I do? I checked the wire reports to see if maybe the Cubs were throwing in 3 players to be named later and, Veal, Pie, and, Samardzija. Nope.
So now I'm just confused. Yes, Harden has a bad injury history, but he's been healthy for the longest period in years and the Cubs aren't really giving up much else. If you consider Gaudin and Gallagher even and I'm not sure that's even the case, the Cubs are giving up for a brilliant but risky pitcher Murton, Patterson and Donaldson. I like Matt Murton, but the Cubs have never really been interested in him and don't value him at all, Patterson's like 11th on their 2B depth chart, and Donaldson's an organizational player if he's lucky. From the point of view of the Cubs, they essentially picked up Rich Harden for free.
The A's had no business throwing in Gaudin in a trade I think they lose without including him. Murton's a nice player, but the A's need a serious bat - with Thomas hurting lately and Cust having one of his patented cold streaks, Tanner Boyle could beat the crap out of the hitters. Murton's better than Emil Brown, but Billy Beane has no excuse for not being able to find lots and lots of players who are better than Emil Brown.
The Cubs? Nothing to complain about here. They get Harden when he's healthy and give up nothing they care about.
2008 ZiPS Projection - Rich Harden
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Year-to-Date 5 1 13 13 77 57 20 5 31 92 2.34
Rest-of-Yr? 4 1 8 8 51 34 12 3 19 68 2.12
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Total 9 2 21 21 128 91 32 8 50 160 2.25
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2009? 5 2 14 14 77 57 22 6 30 92 2.57
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Top Comps: Max Lanier, Herb Score
2008 ZiPS Projection - Sean Gallagher
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Year-to-Date* 6 5 17 15 87 82 38 8 30 72 3.95
Rest-of-Yr? 4 4 14 12 67 70 34 6 31 44 4.57
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2009? 9 8 31 25 143 148 66 17 62 108 4.15
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* - Includes Minor League Translation
Top Comps: Mike Witt, Greg Maddux
2008 ZiPS Projection - Chad Gaudin
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W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
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Year-to-Date 5 3 26 6 63 63 25 6 17 44 3.59
Rest-of-Yr? 5 4 15 11 77 72 32 8 27 67 3.74
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Total 10 7 41 17 140 135 57 14 44 111 3.67
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2009? 10 8 44 20 151 139 67 17 64 138 3.99
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Top Comps: Kelvim Escobar, Rosy Ryan
2008 ZiPS Projection - Eric Patterson ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Period AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Year-to-Date* 244 30 65 14 1 6 29 13 54 12 .266 .306 .406 Rest-of-Yr? 241 28 61 11 2 5 26 17 40 12 .253 .305 .378 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009? 447 61 110 19 2 9 50 33 82 20 .246 .300 .358 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * - Includes Minor League Translation Top Comps: Luis Rivas, Pokey Reese
2008 ZiPS Projection - Matt Murton ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Period AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB BA OBP SLG ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Year-to-Date* 238 22 60 11 0 1 18 21 24 3 .252 .321 .311 Rest-of-Yr? 210 25 56 10 0 5 23 22 23 2 .267 .342 .386 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009? 388 48 102 17 1 8 47 38 48 4 .263 .334 .374 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * - Includes Minor League Translation Top Comps: Morrie Arnovich, Reed Johnson
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I think between that, and the fact that they have a club option on Harden, to keep him for 7 million, or let him go if he's injured, means that they raped the A's here.
The A's got some useful parts to add depth to their roster.
(That said, I have concerns about him (his problems this season aside) - his bat is supposed to be his best tool and even there there were concerns as to how he'd hold up at higher levels where they've got better breaking stuff.)
While this certainly looks like a pretty bad deal for Oakland - I don't know Harden's true health status + I think it's likely that the A's are selling high/buying low on most of these players ...
So he doesn't suck that much.
I wish I could take credit for it, but Greg Pope in the long thread summed it up best.
I'd assume that's based on his having missed so much time in recent years. Or are you commenting on the K rates? That does sound a little high, doesn't it? That's Marmol-esque.
What ticked me off was reading Neyer's column, where he goes sycophantic at Billy Beane, trying to put lipstick on a pig.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=neyer_rob&univLogin02=stateChanged
Which means it's 50/50 that they actually did.
BTW - My understanding is that Donaldson's D leaves much to be desired. I think the questions weren't so much about his hitting as about whether he could stay behind the plate. The Midwest league is generally where Cub catching prospects go to over-inflate their prospectdom -- not where it generally gets pinched off. Still.... ya never know with catchers.
42/33 and 108/83 K/BB for Gallagher?
120k/80ip for Harden in 2009- with a 2.11 ERA????
Murton is a career .294/.362/.448 hitter
and he'll be 27 next year.
Well it certainly looks like it falls on the Hudson side of the Hudson/Mulder Beane trading spectrum...
... but I also assume that Harden will never qualify for an ERA title ever...
As for Murton, I'm sure that's correct - he's moving to a much harder park in a harder league and has been pretty bad this year.
Well, now that Harden is playing for the Cubs, him getting injured is a near certainty. Something must happen to keep the 99-year streak alive.
Pretty much. The regular ZiPS projection is a good bit more rigorous than the in-seasonal one. You'll also see some weird things in partial seasons sometimes due to rounding.
Even this season, with him being "healthy" and all that, there have been concerns and scares: the recently reported "dead arm", the strained subscapularis not too long ago.
His problem was control.
In interviews Beane specifically stated that Hendry wouldn't do the deal until the A's included Gaudin.
It's almost as if BB was desperate to get Rich off the roster and Jim was the only one answering Beane's phone calls.......
Well, my in-season spreadsheet is public, so anyone who has a bright idea how to harvest the stats into the spreadsheet and automatically run a macro generating the rest-of-season projection for each player, they're welcome to go ahead!
:-)
14 starts sounded high if anything, but I was talking about the K rate. Dan seems to have fixed it now though.
i don't THINK so
- and by the way, has anyone figured out how this trade could possibly be good for the A's?
i mean, unless gallagher suddenly turns into randy johnson 2001?
He throws mid-90s consistently, his secondary pitches need work, he has trouble with location, and my guess is that he ends up in the pen.
-- MWE
-- MWE
A; Harden continues to average 50 ip per year
B: Gaudin never becomes more than a 95-100 ERA+ guy (yes I copied Vaux)
C: Gallagher develops into a 105-115 ERA+ guy (imho he already is at least a 95-100 guy, and further development is possible- he might even become Danny Haren- not likely but possible)
D: Murton becomes a reasonably productive regular OF, and once newly re-minted as an everyday OF gets pawned off on a contender desperate for corner OF help
E: Patterson is an adequate 2B allowing the A's to get value for Ellis from a cnmtender desperate for middle IF help...
F: Donaldson starts hitting again
Oof.
I think once the A's got good value for Haren Beane sort of wrote off 2008. He was happy when things were going well despite the offseason trades, but with injuries occurring it was time to dump Harden when his value was higher than it had been for years.
And yes, Street is available - if the A's think they can get good enough value. There are two years left until free agency, so there is no rush - but Beane has never shown a fear of trading closers. He knows that nearly all of them are fairly easy to replace.
Gallagher has a 4.45 ERA, which is a 100 ERA+ for Chicago. A 100 ERA+ for Oakland this year would be a 3.82 ERA.
Let's say Harden would have put up a 2.50 ERA in 90 innings for the rest of this season--which is an optimistic figure. The difference between a 2.50 ERA and a 3.82 ERA over 90 innings is 13 runs. If the A's replace Brown with Murton and Davis with Patterson, I think they'd make up most of those 13 runs.
There's a drop-off in the bullpen from Gaudin to Braden, but the drop-off would likely have very little effect on win-loss records given the low leverage situations Gaudin was pitching in. There's also the difference in league quality, so I guess Gallagher's ERA+ would be a bit lower in the AL.
I'm perfectly fine with them trading Street. The sooner the better.
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