Haren Perspective

by stlzoot on Sep 1, 2008 3:41 PM EDT Comment 30 comments

There has been alot of discussion about how the Haren/Mulder trade was a disaster. I agree with most of it, but I also don't believe that Danny Haren would have been half the pitcher he is today if he stayed with the Cardinals.

I am going to compare his stats to another Cardinal Prospect in the minors, and see if I can at least semi-justify my belief.

Haren's minor league stats:

Year Age W L G GS CG SV IP H R ER BB SO ERA WHIP

2001 20 3 3 12 8 0 1 52 47 22 18 8 57 3.12 1.06

2002 21 10 9 28 28 2 0 194 179 75 59 31 171 2.74 1.08

2003 22 8 1 16 16 0 0 101 86 33 30 14 84 2.67 0.99

2004 23 11 4 21 21 0 0 128 137 60 59 33 150 4.15 1.33

Total 32 17 77 73 2 1 475 449 190 166 86 462 3.15 1.13

Anthony Reyes Minor leagur stats:

2004 22 8 2 18 18 0 0 105 94 44 40 20 138 3.43 1.09

2005 23 7 6 23 23 2 0 128.2 105 55 52 34 136 3.64 1.08

2006 24 13 13 0 0 84 70 27 24 11 82 2.57 0.96

2007 25 1 1 6 6 0 0 38.2 27 12 12 11 33 2.79 0.98

2008 26 4 3 13 13 0 0 65.2 61 25 23 25 55 3.01 1.23

Total 20 12 73 73 2 0 525.6 357 163 151 101 444 3.22 1.09

Here are their first years as starters in the A.L.:

Year Ag W L G GS CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA WHIP

Haren:

2005 24 14 12 34 34 3 0 0 217.0 212 101 90 26 53 163 3.73 1.221

Reyes:

2008 26 2 1 5 5 0 0 0 31.3 30 7 7 2 11 14 2.01 1.309

Granted there is a big difference between Haren, and Reyes number of starts in their A.L. debut seasons. but as you can tell from their minor league stats (especially K's Hits, ER, ERA and WHIP) That they were pretty much the same pitcher.

I have heard all the comments from TLP and Duncan about how much Duncan wanted to keep Haren, but they didn't.

Now it looks like it is happening again with Reyes (albeit it is a very small sample size, and he could still implode, but that is for another discussion.)

This is my first Fanpost, so if this has been discussed before I appologize, but I believe I have shown with their minor league stats that Haren wouldn't have been the Ace he is today if he stayed with the Cardinals.

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Other way around

I think this could also be turned around the other way (and has very often on here before). Could Reyes have been a much better pitcher if told to go out there every 5 days and pitch the way he wants? Who knows? Every “what if” brings out a whole slew of other “what ifs,” I believe.

by stlfan on Sep 1, 2008 6:08 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah Likke

by nybirdfan on Sep 1, 2008 10:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Opps

“WHAT IF” Mulder stayed healthy and gave the Cards a record of 64-30, 200+ Innings, and era under 3.8…

by nybirdfan on Sep 1, 2008 10:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

actually

haren probably would have been just as good/better than he is in arizona since dave duncan loved him and would probably have been willing to work to his strengths to make him a better pitcher whereas it seemed he just wanted to change reyes into something totally different than what he has always been.

by lopey986 on Sep 1, 2008 10:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Well, let's see...

Haren is a fastball down, splitter way down w/ a breaking ball pitcher…In other words, pretty much what Duncan already wants (guys who attack the bottom half of the strikezone with their fastball).

Reyes is a fastball/changeup pitcher who likes to work his way up the zone. So pretty much the opposite of what Duncan wants. Therefore, right or wrong, Duncan fiddled with Reyes’s arsenal to get him to pitch down…and the rest is history.

Haren would have been just fine with Duncan. Do you think there is a reason why Duncan was so attached to Haren? Was it maybe because he pitched the way Duncan thought a guy should? That’s my guess anyway.

"Your Holiness, I'm Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal."-Joe Medwick, to Pope Pius XII.

by redbirdnation8206 on Sep 2, 2008 1:07 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Exactly

Haren doesn’t walk people and keeps the ball down to get a lot of ground ball outs — which happens to be exactly the type of pitchers that DD covets. He would have been just fine in St. Louis.

What if we could have traded Reyes instead of Haren in that deal? Oh, how sweet that would have been, but think about Reyes’ fly-ball pitching in that cavernous park in Oakland? He might have been a great pitcher in that park, but we’ll probably never know.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Sep 2, 2008 10:08 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Walt wanted to trade Marquis

instead of Haren, Beane wouldn’t bite.

Still looking for 1985 Regular Season games on DVD/VHS

by Hardcore Legend on Sep 2, 2008 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Would you?

I really thought, at the time, that they should have traded Wainwright, who I’m sure Beane would have accepted as well. Not sure exactly how I feel about that now, although Haren probably wouldn’t have been in the pen in 2006, which makes for an interesting bullpen in the playoffs that season. I still think I’d rather have Haren’s 2004-2008 than Adam’s 2006-2008.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Sep 2, 2008 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Duncan

I know the reports of Duncan being attached to Haren after the trade, but when he was still with the Cardinals, I don’t remember hearing any praise of him.

If I am wrong, my appologies, and could anyone tell em if there was any quotes about him when he was with the Cardinals?

Just for reference, his stint with the Cardinals wasn’t too good either.

2003 22 STL NL 3 7 14 14 0 0 0 0 72.7 84 44 41 9 22 43 5 3 320 0 0 5.08 4.11 81 1.459

2004 23 STL NL 3 3 14 5 0 0 2 0 46.0 45 23 23 4 17 32 2 1 195 2 0 4.50 4.27 95 1.348

by stlzoot on Sep 2, 2008 11:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Considering

how well the ‘04 rotation did (how many spot starts had to be made that year? Two?) I don’t know why Duncan would have gone out of his way to praise him as a starter.

And I’d be willing to bet nary a p-d reporter pressed him on it.

hecanthithecanthithecanthithecanthit

by Alxfritz on Sep 2, 2008 11:45 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Quotes

On the other hand, Reyes was deemed untouchable by TLR Dunc and Walt before he even came up.

I never once heard Haren deemed untouchable.

by stlzoot on Sep 2, 2008 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

And I

never once heard Reyes as being untouchable.

Any sources to site? I really don’t think we are covering new ground here otherwise.

hecanthithecanthithecanthithecanthit

by Alxfritz on Sep 2, 2008 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think you are right. There are comments at MLB trade rumors going back to

2005 that he was on the trade block……Jocketty was probably snake bitten about letting him go after being burned on the Haren deal. Reyes was still making his ascent in 2005….

She isn't crazy, she's just not impressed.

by jillsinmo on Sep 2, 2008 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think it was a bit of revisionist history myself.

When Haren made the all star team last year when he was still with Oakland, FSN interviewed Dave Duncan, and he said oh, they liked Haren, but they needed a veteran……sure he may have liked him and rather they kept him, but I doubt he was all that upset at the time. I mean he was getting the king of all ground ball pitchers in Mulder.

She isn't crazy, she's just not impressed.

by jillsinmo on Sep 2, 2008 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't know...

…Maybe. I guess it’s all water under the bridge at this point. Haren’s gone, Mulder is done, Reyes is gone…I’m not sure why this is being kicked around for the thousandth time. Oh well…

"Your Holiness, I'm Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal."-Joe Medwick, to Pope Pius XII.

by redbirdnation8206 on Sep 3, 2008 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No site

It was just reported around the trade deadline when him and Wainwright were in AAA

by stlzoot on Sep 2, 2008 1:43 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Shifting landscapes

in 2004/2005, the Cardinals had a rotation of young/talented Jason Marquis, Cy Young caliber Chris Carpenter, old-reliable Jeff Suppan and once stud prospect Matt Morris. The rotation was set for a while, and with an aging roster, they needed another big gun in the rotation to get the World Series they let slip away.

They went and got Mark Mulder, and if Mulder had even been the pitcher he was in 2005 for the 2006-2008 seasons, we wouldn’t be complaining about the Haren deal.

Fastforward to 2006. Chris Carpenter is still in the rotation. Jason Marquis is showing scary signs of not being what they thought he was and is a Free Agent. Jeff Suppan is a Free Agent. Mark Mulder has gone down with injury by June. There is no 5th starter. Reyes and Wainwright are deemed extremely important to the franchise as starters because they only ‘sure’ thing they have for 2007. They need cheap, young, talented starters to fill gaps.

That’s why Reyes and Wainwright were deemed ‘untouchable’.

Still looking for 1985 Regular Season games on DVD/VHS

by Hardcore Legend on Sep 2, 2008 2:12 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Could not have summed it up better..... Good job Hardcore Legend.

by ICbirdfan on Sep 2, 2008 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

With all that being said...

There were a ton of signs in 2004 that Mulder wasn’t the same pitcher that he’d been in 2001-2003. As I remember it, there were a lot of teams at that time that were scared to make a trade for him because of the loss of velocity and mechanics breakdowns that had occurred with him during the 2004 season.

There was also a ton of questions about Tim Hudson that offseason as well. This was the first time that dealing with Beane was bandied about as to whether you were getting your money’s worth.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Sep 2, 2008 4:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Whats worse is pitching isn't what we needed.

We didn’t lose the WS because of the pitching. We lost because we didn’t score any runs. So we tried to fix the wrong problem. That mistake has cost us for years.

by DriverZn on Sep 3, 2008 7:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

We all know Haren shouldn't have been traded...but

NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED mulder’s career would be over after 1 season. It’s been pointed out MANY MANY times that we wouldn’t be complaining at all if Mulder had been a consistant 15 game winner for the last 4 seasons and chances are, he would’ve been had he not gotten hurt. Trading Haren didn’t hurt us, Mulder’s chronic injuries hurt us. And enough of the bullshit about him being damaged goods when we got him. He had a pretty damn good season in 2005 and he started out ’06 pretty well also. Why would one assume that the injury was just stagnant for roughly 17 months before it started affecting him? he was banged up in ’04, had a strong ’05, and got hurt AGAIN in ’06 – and has been hurt since.

Also, how did it hurt us “for years”??? We traded Haren after the ‘04 season and we won the series in ’06! It didn’t hurt us at all! We won the goddamn w.s. WITHOUT Haren! In fact it was because of Mulder’s injury that we picked up Jeff Weaver. Best thing mulder ever did for us was get hurt.

Nick Stavinoah = John Gall

by The Ghost of Todd Burns on Sep 4, 2008 3:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The 2008 Cardinals

are going to win more games than the 2006 Cardinals that won the World Series. Not that we weren’t a good club that year, but we played in a shitty division and caught lightning in a bottle in the playoffs.

No one could have predicted Mulder’s injury? I remember quite a few people in the MSM looking sideways at that trade because of how banged up he’d been in the latter half of 2004, how many innings he’d thrown in the previous three years, and how Beane was willing to trade a potential Cy Young candidate to St. Louis for a mid-level prospect, a mediocre bullpen arm, and a young starter with no major league starting experience. I remember talking it over with my uncle that offseason about how we traded away a guy who could fill in the rotation in 2005 and about how we got the wrong guy from Oakland — we should have been going after Hudson, who went to the Braves. I can think of plenty of people on this board who would be concerned with picking up CC Sabathia at the end of this season, considering how much milage has been put on him the last two years. You could make a bigger case for not acquiring Mulder in 2004.

As Driver pointed out, we didn’t lose the series because of pitching, we lost it because we couldn’t score any runs on the Red Sox pitching. There were a couple of other ways to improve that ballclub through free agency or trade without giving up Haren for Mulder. His point is valid. You could have gone to war with Carpenter, Suppan, Morris, Marquis, and Haren in the rotation — there wasn’t any reason to make that trade, which I why I think that so many people get upset when thinking about it.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Sep 4, 2008 9:54 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

More regular season games, you mean.

I don’t know that the 2008 version can pull off the 94 wins needed to beat out that team entirely.

by stlfan on Sep 4, 2008 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Of course -- Who combines wins in the playoffs outside of the 1972 Dolphins?

Although if this team was playing in the 2006 division, it would probably win around 95-100 games in the regular season, surpassing the 2006 team’s overall mark in the regular season alone.

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Sep 4, 2008 2:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree and disagree

We didn’t lose the WS because of pitching, but because of offense. You’re right about that.

But we had Pujols, Edmonds and Rolen all playing like superstars. The offense wasn’t lacking, it merely ran into superior pitching and went cold against that pitching.

Meanwhile, we had a series of guys who were basically #3 starters. Now, obviously 2005 was the coming of age of Carpenter, but who could have imagined Carpenter would have been the pitcher he became?

I suppose it’s a reasonable argument we could have upgraded the offense, but where? We had a young up-and-coming catcher, so that’s not a place to upgrade. We signed above-average players (considering position) for the middle infield in Eckstein and Grudz, and we had Walker and Sanders as our corner outfielders, who posted OPS+’s of 127 and 130 (admittedly, they combined for less than 200 games played).

I guess maybe there was something that could have been done, but the only thing I can see that would have been a noticeable upgrade at the time would be holding on to Renteria or signing Orlando Cabrera. I don’t see any situation other than that where a move we could have made before the 2005 season would have improved our offense from what it ended up being in 2005.

by mtalken on Sep 7, 2008 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sorry if this is beating a dead horse, I just thought it would generate some discussion on an aspect I have never seen talked about before.

by stlzoot on Sep 3, 2008 8:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hey, I won't complain.

Not bad for a first fan post. Folks that freak out over the fan posts are off base anyway…..you simply don’t click the ones that don’ t interest you.

She isn't crazy, she's just not impressed.

by jillsinmo on Sep 3, 2008 10:02 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I didn’t want this to become another bash of the trade, I was just trying to point out that I don’t think Haren would be as good as he is if he stayed with the Cardinals, and get other people’s opinions on that assumption.

by stlzoot on Sep 4, 2008 1:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Not getting it

There’s a leap of logic that I’m missing here. How do minor league stats and similar projected numbers for Reyes (over 5 games) translate into Haren not being “as good” if he stayed with the Cards? I think those stats might be used to argue that Reyes could go out and pitch as well as Haren has over the next 3 years, but that remains to be seen. It doesn’t really work the way you propose- Haren has already gone out and put up 14-15 wins per year with a team that was not as good offensively as the Cards. Since we all love our stats here, here goes:

Oakland A’s
2005- AVG .262 OPS .737 RUNS 772
2006- AVG .260 OPS .752 RUNS 771
2007- AVG .256 OPS .745 RUNS 741

St. Louis Cardinals
2005- AVG .280 OPS .784 RUNS 676
2006- AVG .269 OPS .769 RUNS 781
2007- AVG .274 OPS .743 RUNS 725

Fairly close, but when you account for the DH in the AL, Haren gets better support over that period from the Cards offense. I would argue he gets as many or more wins over that stretch. Again, accounting for the DH, his personal stats (K’s, ERA, etc…) probably improve or are no worse if he stays. He (possibly) gets a World Series win in 2006 because with his 15-17 wins we probably don’t need Sir Sidney or Weavs. So no matter how you define “as good” I would say Haren is as good or better with the Cardinals as he was with the A’s.

What does a mama bear on the pill have in common with the World Series? No cubs. ~Harry Caray

by Tupelo on Sep 4, 2008 10:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

INJURY RISK

What hasn’t been mentioned is Reyes’ injury risk compared to Haren’s great mechanics.

I’m not a coolaid drinker, but O’Leary seems to be on to something with the inverted W and timing issues with Reyes. Haren has great timing. If O’Leary is correct, Haren will still be pitching when Reyes is selling life insurance.

by jpmorgan5150 on Sep 8, 2008 4:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs