The Mets Should Stay Away from Aaron Harang

Flushing Baseball Daily

Apr 13, 2010

Nobody really knew what to expect from Aroldis Chapman this year, but so far we’ve seen him hitting triple-digets on the radar gun and he’s showed that he probably doesn’t need the minor leagues. Now the Cincinnati Reds just have to find a place for him in their rotation.

That brings us to Aaron Harang, a 31-year-old veteran righty who the Reds would love to unload because he is earning $12.5 million this year and as far as back for your buck goes, the Reds aren’t getting it from him. His numbers aren’t awful, but his stuff is decent.

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It seems like every year since he signed a four-year $36.5 million back-loaded contract with the Reds after the 2006 season that his name has constantly come up in trade rumors. The reason is because nobody wants to pay him the $12.5 million he’s owed this year and even worse he comes with a $2 million buy-out if his 2011 option is not picked up, so in reality he’s making $14.5 million this year.

Now let’s look at the possibility of the Mets trading for him. Even though they could afford his $14.5 million contract, if they were to shell out that kind of money for Harang they’d be crazy. So the only way, the only way, the Mets should even consider making a trade here is if the Reds ate most or all of his salary. Even then, is he better than what they currently have?

Well he’s certainly not better than Johan Santana, he might be comparable to Oliver Perez, but with two years, including 2010, still on his contract Perez is not leaving the Mets rotation, Mike Pelfrey has too much potential to remove from the rotation. John Maine because of his low salary could potentially be removed from the rotation and if Jon Niese could potentially be removed if he becomes overmatched.

So let’s compare Harang to Maine and Niese.

First let’s look at Maine. After the 2007 season it would be crazy to even consider this, but since then he has dealt with injuries and inconsistency. Still, he’s young and even when he struggled last year his FIP still finished at 4.57. That’s actually better than the FIP Harang put up in 2008 and somewhat comparable to the 4.14 FIP Harang put up last year. So there is no reason to remove Maine from the rotation for Harang no matter how cheap they get him.

As for Niese, he is young and he could still get beat up a little bit in the majors so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that at some point Harang could become a better option. However, so far he has looked very promising. His combined FIP in 45.2 innings pitched in the majors has been 3.79. So his potential is clearly better than the reality of Harang. So unless the league catches up to Niese, and I’m not talking a couple of bad starts, then the Mets would be crazy to replace him with Harang.

The bottom line is, just because Harang becomes available doesn’t mean the Mets should be interested. Short of an implosion from Niese or an injury to the staff, always a possibility, the Mets should stay away from Harang no matter what the price.

The one situation where this could be a smart move for the Mets is if they could convince the Reds to trade Harang’s contract for Perez’s, but that isn’t going to happen since they would be trading Harang to open a rotation spot for Chapman.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of Harang coming to Flushing?