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July 9, 2008

Prospectus Today

Free Lottery Tickets?

by Joe Sheehan

Tuesdays are known around my apartment as "radio day." I talk regularly to Brad and Craig in Houston, Brad and Greg in Indianapolis, Bernie and Randy in St. Louis, and I usually have one or two non-regular hits that day, such as yesterday’s with Jeff Erickson on XM. The topics vary a bit, although there’s always a heavy NL Central flavor to the day. Yesterday, there was an amusing uniformity—every single host asked me if the Cubs needed to make a big move to counter the Brewers’ acquisition of CC Sabathia. And every single host got pretty much the same answer:

The Cubs are the best team in the NL, and the last thing they need to do is make a reactive move. With their depth—including a good rotation—and the quality players they have at just about every spot, they’re a hard team to improve. They certainly don’t need another starting pitcher the way the Brewers did.

I got the e-mail about the Rich Harden deal with about 90 seconds to go in the last spot of the day. That was fun.

The thing is, I stand by everything I said yesterday…and this trade still makes sense for the Cubs. They didn’t need to make it, they do have the best team and a difficult roster to improve upon, and the last thing any team needs is to make a move because someone else made a move. Yet with all that, well, this is basically a free Rich Harden. If you’re the Cubs, the risk involved in making this trade is so low as to make it a no-brainer. The package of players they gave up will not be missed. Sure, Sean Gallagher might have become a mid-rotation starter in the Jason Marquis mold, and Josh Donaldson could find his way out of the woods and eventually have a career. It doesn’t really matter; the Cubs didn’t trade anything with enough value to make them regret this deal. There’s no Matt LaPorta in here, no Carlos Gomez, no top-50 prospect or high-upside player who could rack up 2000 hits or 200 wins and torment them for 15 years.

That invites the question: What were the A’s thinking? If they didn’t get back anything of significant value for Harden, why did they trade him? Why did they move him with three weeks to go until the trade deadline, just as the Indians dealt Sabathia? Why didn’t they target one very good player instead of getting four guys, none of whom are great prospects?

The only reasonable answer is that this is selling high. That's because while the Cubs look at Rich Harden and see a 2.34 ERA with 92 strikeouts in 77 innings and just five homers allowed, the A’s no doubt see 2005 and 2006, in which Harden threw 72 1/3 innings. Total. They see a pitcher who has never thrown 200 innings in a season, and who hasn’t made it through a season healthy since 2004. They see a pitcher who is owed $7 million next year. They see a pitcher who just made 13 straight starts for the first time in nearly four years. They see three years of waiting and disappointment