Rich Harden: Why Red Sox Would Be Stupid to Add Injury Prone Hurler

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Two hours ago, ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted that the Boston Red Sox had contacted the Oakland Athletics about acquiring pitcher Rich Harden and outfielder Josh Willingham.  Harden spent the first half of this season rehabbing an injury and only recently made his return.  In five starts, he has gone 2-1 with a 4.30 ERA and 1.16 WHIP.

Since making his debut in 2003, Harden has developed a reputation as a reliable strikeout pitcher.  However, there is a catch.  Since 2004, Harden has never thrown more than 148 innings in a season due to a number of injuries that have basically put the kibosh on his once-promising career.

Once thought to be a top prospect, Harden has spent the past two seasons playing on one-year deals and has been on the disabled list for each of those seasons.  Thus, the fact that the Red Sox want to acquire him to bolster their rotation is just ridiculous thinking on GM Theo Epstein's part.

With the Yankees nipping at their heels, the Red Sox have once again gone into desperation mode.  Instead of looking at the market closely and be willing to trade prospects for a reliable arm, Epstein is instead looking to buy cheap and take a risk on a player whose stuff will get knocked all over the place in the AL East.  Seriously, I'm starting to think that he would sign a chimpanzee if it could throw a ball across the plate.

More importantly, say that Harden gets hurt again once he comes to Boston.  He has a history of taking a while to recover from even the most insignificant of injuries and with the Red Sox looking to get back to the playoffs, him going down could sink the team.

As a Yankees fan, I kind of hope this trade happens.  Yet, I am also a competitor and if the Yankees are to go toe-to-toe with the Red Sox over the season's final two months, the division shouldn't be handed to them on a silver platter.  Thus, Boston trading for Harden is just plain dumb.

- Josh Benjamin

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