March 27, 2009

Project-a-tron: Rich Harden

Rich Harden has the most pitching talent on this team, and, arguably, in the National league. His projected ERA is nearly a run better than any other starter on the Cubs staff. ZiPS has him projected at an obscene 2.37 ERA for next season (albeit over 17 starts), and for all of the hand-wringing that goes on over Rich Harden, he actually pitched a lot more than I thought last season. Between the Cubs and Oakland, he made 25 starts and pitched 148 innings, which seems to be about what most people are expecting out of him this year as well. I would bump him up another 30 innings this year again, but he still does have that shoulder strain from last year hanging around. With the quality of their team and the weakness of the rest of the NL central, the Cubs have no reason to work him very hard, so I'm going to stick with 150 innings (~25 starts) for Harden once again this year. Hopefully he will be healthy heading into October this year.

Projection:

PlayerIPKK/BBWHIPERAWAR
Harden1501813.021.153.024.4


Those are some sick numbers.

0 comments: