A Log for the Hot Stove: The Enigma That Is Rich Harden

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A good portion of this piece will call back to point two of my Off-Season Plan , please refer back if you missed it!

With the Twins limping along behind the Tigers and the White Sox hot on their heels, with the Sept. 1 deadline for playoff rosters bearing down on them, news came that the Twins had claimed Rich Harden on waivers from the Cubs and were going to make a serious attempt to acquire him in hopes that he would bolster the rotation for a title run. Blogs fired up, the Twitter stream was all abuzz, and we waited with bated breath to hear if he of the glass arm would be heading to the Twin Cities.

In fact, Harden may never have been claimed by the Twins, many reports said an NL team had claimed him, meaning that his name never would have reached Bill Smith. True or not, the point was moot in the end, the Twins got fantastic production from Brian Duensing, a good turn or two from Jeff Manship, and better-than-expected work from Carl Pavano. Harden might have given the Twins a different look, but he wouldn't have been the difference between a playoff run and a long offseason; they did just fine without him.

I was fairly ambivalent about the trade when it was proposed, feeling that Harden wasn't the key missing piece and that the Twins could be tricked into giving up too much for him if they believed he was the difference between a deep run and October golf.

Now that Harden is a free agent, worries about exaggerated value can be allayed to a large extent; all that's at stake for the Twins now is money. This is not to say that throwing a bag o' cash at Harden is a risk-free proposition, but the Twins were likely to try to resign Harden had they acquired him earlier, meaning that those costs are pretty much fixed and the variable is who they would have had to give up to get Harden before season's end.

The book on Harden has been pretty well written despite the fact that he's just 28 years old. When he's healthy, he's electric. He's got three good pitches: A fastball that averages 92 MPH, a changeup around 84, and a splitter that mimics his change. He threw a slider during his days in Oakland, but the Cubs had him stop throwing it, as well as his wicked split, in an effort to reduce the strain on his elbow.

That's the rub with Harden you know, he's made of glass. He's never thrown 200 innings, heck, he's thrown 150 or more just once. Forget 20-game winner, whoever signs Harden will be hoping he makes 20 starts per season for them. The Cubs managed to hold onto him for 1.5 years, getting 38 starts out of him during that time. He went on the DL just once this season with a back strain, though a mechanical flaw necessitated an early end to his season, though with the Cubs well out of the race by September, it's hard to gauge how serious that injury was. 

He's never had surgery, though he's had injuries to his back, oblique, UCL, and shoulder, the last of which kept him out of the WBC, but did not cause him to miss any time. So he's had a grab bag of injuries, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, it means a harder task for the training staff in terms of keeping everything from top to bottom in playing shape, but on the other, it means there isn't one nagging injury that's kept him out for all this time. That's always good news, but especially for pitchers. That Harden hasn't spent weeks and months on the DL with consistent elbow or shoulder trouble gives me hope that he can remain healthy over a longer period of time.

Additionally, any injury for Harden is going to be magnified because of his history. His 51 starts over the last two seasons is more than any Twins starter except for Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker, so it isn't as though he's been missing tons of time recently, it's more a case of the time he has missed being exaggerated due to his years of nine and four starts in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

This may seem like damning with faint praise ("he isn't THAT injury prone"), but if so, it's only because the upside is so obvious.

This video , taken against the Phillies in 2008, shows what Harden is capable of. Need I remind you, this is the same Phillies team that would go on to win the World Series, and Harden makes them look bad. Worse than bad. The Twins, as I have said before, need a guy who can miss bats and get hitters out on his own—Harden can do just that.

Even after the Cubs took away his out pitch, a decision the Twins can make for themselves, Harden struck out nearly 11 hitters per nine, though his walk rate did reach 4.28 per nine. Nevertheless, as he came to rely on the strikeout less and less, Harden lowered his LD

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