Harden Projection Discussion

This is an attempt to condense each pitcher’s career into a single season’s worth of stats. With batters this is easy. Just take their career games played and divide by 162 and then divide their career totals by that factor. For pitchers, this is more difficult. What I have done is treat a pitcher season as having Games Pitched + Games Started = 68 as a single-season. So I normalize everything, so a pitcher has Games + Games Started = 68. So an average season is 34 starts or 68 relief appearances.

I think he could have pitched more last season if the Cubs didn’t handle him very carefully. Now that might be the best way to keep him healthy, but if we’re in the playoff hunt, I don’t think the Rangers are going to risk being extra cautious with Harden for a potential playoff start without guaranteeing that they make the playoffs first.

I think his normal output would be 140ish, but since the organization seemingly doesn’t pay as attention to pitch counts anymore, I think he’ll have several starts where at a point he would normally come out, he’ll be in for one extra out or better and those will add up to 10 extra innings.

I’m probably completely wrong, though.

I don’t see Harden coming back as strong as everyone else. He will only be the 5th or 6th best starter on the team.

doesn’t really represent a player’s true impact on team perception.

I would’ve liked projecting K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 better, myself…

He went way past that the last two seasons. I don’t expect him to do any better than he has the last two seasons but I see no reason to believe he won’t be able to scratch out 100.

Do you think something’s wrong with his arm now or something? Just being contrarian?

not Sheets.

. . . he’s only fallen short of 100 twice since his rookie year, and cleared it comfortably the last two years.

So, tell us why we should project under 100.