Dan Haren Traded To The Los Angeles Angels

Written by: Graham MacAree on 25th July 2010

Dan Haren Traded To The Los Angeles Angels | read this item

The rumor mill has been rumbling for weeks. Dan Haren was going to New York, to St. Louis, going here, there, and everywhere. It was only natural for Haren to be on so many teams’ wish lists – he’s a genuine ace, and despite his down year his peripheral skills are mostly intact (more on this later) and he’s under a hefty but below-market contract through 2013. In other words, Dan Haren is an exceptionally valuable property, and probably the best non-Lee pitcher on the market this season.

Today the Arizona Diamondbacks traded him for a package of Joe Saunders, Patrick Corbin, Rafael Rodriguez, and a player to be named later, potentially 2009 first round draft pick Tyler Skaggs (but certainly not top prospect Michael Trout). On the face of it, it seems like this might have been a reasonable swap, but things may not be as they seem.

First up: Joe Saunders, LHP. The last time Saunders was a real asset to the Angels was during 2008, where he had a 17-7 win-loss record fueled by giving up just 82 runs in 198 innings. 2009 saw everything come tumbling down – except, somehow, for the wins. A 16-7 record masked some real flaws in his game: He walked more batters, performed worse with men on base, and the home run bug started to bite. Never a strikeout pitcher, Saunders needed everything else to go right in order to maintain his status as a mid-rotation guy, and 2009’s poor results saw his ERA jump all the way up to 4.60. He has not come anywhere close to repeating his 2008 numbers this year, either. If anything, he’s gotten even worse; although the home runs are down (probably luck) he’s striking out even fewer while walking more this year, and his record is finally starting to show his slide into back of the rotation material. While one can excuse a poor record or a poor ERA based on what a pitcher is doing right, Saunders is an example of a guy people made excuses for despite the warning signs. He’s also due to make somewhere in the area of $7,000,000 in arbitration this winter, so if this was a salary dumb by Arizona, they’ve only recouped about half of Haren’s salary for next year.

The prospect package is nothing to get excited about either. Like Saunders, Patrick Corbin is a left-handed starter, but he’s currently playing for Rancho Cucamonga in the California League (A+). While he’s doing reasonably well there (striking out 25% of opposing batters while running a 3.88 ERA), scouts still aren’t particularly impressed with the young pitcher’s command or ceiling, projecting him as a mid-rotation arm at best. As a right-handed reliever, Rafael Rodriguez doesn’t even have Corbin’s value. Moved to the bullpen because of arm problems, Rodriguez is having an adequate season with the Salt Lake Bees. The problem, of course, is that a reliever has to be something pretty special to make any real impact to an MLB team. Skaggs is projected as a likely candidate for the PTBNL as he signed with the Angels last August, making him ineligible to be named in a trade until then. He’s another mid-rotation lefty with good but not great stuff, although his fastball is a tick better than Corbin’s and several better than Saunders’s. Like Corbin, however, Skaggs is a ways off – if he ends up being the fourth piece in the return for Haren then Arizona fans will not see him for several years.

It’s instructive to compare the trade Arizona made today to the one they made for Haren at the end of 2007. On December 14^th, 2007, Haren was acquired (along with Connor Robertson) for Carlos Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, Chris Carter, Aaron Cunningham, Dana Eveland, and Greg Smith. The first three names on that list are each worth more than the entire package that Los Angeles just sent to Arizona, and of the remaining trio, Cunningham looked like a potential star that the time of the trade and Eveland was a serviceable back-of-the-rotation left-handed pitcher, like Joe Saunders but without costing significant amounts of money. Gonzalez is now one of the game’s premier young outfielders with Colorado, Brett Anderson, when healthy, is one of the top young pitchers in the majors, and Carter is an extremely promising power bat with AAA Sacramento. All in all, the Diamondbacks gave up their #1, 3, 7, 8, and 13 prospects in the trade, along with an inexpensive version of Saunders. Two and a half years later, they received a deal featuring the Angels #12 and #22 prospects (Skaggs ranked at #8 in the Baseball America 2010 Handbook, if they land him), and the version of Saunders that costs quite a lot of money.

Finally, let’s check out the common thread in both trades: Dan Haren himself. The 29-year old starter is commanding big money these days, and with a career ERA of 3.71 it’s easy to see why. He’s been playing in a bandbox in Arizona, which hurts his stats more than one might think (Bank One Ballpark has inflated scoring by about 7% over the past three years), and he’s AL-tested and approved by virtue of his time as head of the Oakland Athletics rotation. Going against him is the aforementioned contract, which is going to cost the Angels some $41 million over the next three years and the popular opinion that this year’s sub-par ERA is the result of some massive decline in his pitching ability. We’ll look at the latter point before we address the former.

Haren’s 2010 ERA currently stands at 4.60, identical to Saunders’s mark with the Angels. However, when we compare some other numbers, we get some very different results. Haren strikes out 23% of opposing batters. Saunders? A paltry 12%. Haren issues free passes 4% of the time. Saunders has a mark double that. Saunders does get more ground balls, helpful in avoiding home runs, but Arizona’s infield defense isn’t spectacular and Haren’s gopherball tendencies should be mitigated by Angel Stadium, which has significantly suppressed long balls over the years. Haren clearly has the makeup to be an ace: He assumed that mantle five years ago and half a season of mixed results isn’t enough to declare him no longer mentally capable of being the head of a rotation, so questions about toughness are clearly off the mark. In short, Haren’s ERA is deceptive, and Saunders’s isn’t.

It’s a frankly bizarre deal by the Diamondbacks, who’ve been claiming that it would take an A+ package to seal a deal for Haren. From where I stand, this isn’t even a C package. The Mariners managed to land a consensus top 10 prospect from the Rangers in the Cliff Lee trade, and Arizona should have been able to leverage Haren into something at least comparable: Smoak alone is far, far more valuable than the collection of warm bodies the Angels shipped off to them. As for the Angels, they now have an ace locked up for the near future, and their rotation now profiles as one of the best in baseball for years to come – the trade was a no-brainer (although there’s some worry about how their weak outfield defense will play with Haren’s flyball tendencies). There’s one question left to deal with, though. Why on earth was an interim general manager allowed to trade the organization’s best player?

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Topics: Ace, Arizona Diamondbacks, Batters, Corbin, Dan Haren, Era, Face, Game, Home Runs, Joe Saunders, Last Time, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angels, Michael Trout, Rafael Rodriguez, Rumor Mill, Skaggs, Strikeout, Trout, Warning Signs