Q.  So what's the saber assessment of him?

A.  What's to saber?   When the guy's on the field, he's awesome.  He and six or eight other guys, Halladay, Felix, Greinke, they overmatch their opponents.

Some years one's a shade the better, some years a shade the worse.  They're all Cy Young starters.  We're not using instruments fine enough to discern which one's better.  It doesn't matter much.

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Q.  So Harden's as good as anybody. What's the best-case scenario on his 2010 results?

A.  That the Mariners sign him, pitch him 5 innings about once every ten days, and then ride him white-knuckle in the playoffs as he wins two games a series.

Obviously if Harden gets on a roll, the games are going to be as much fun as Kingdome 1997.  The man dominates like nobody else in baseball, including Lincecum and Felix.

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Q.  Is that worth a try?

A.  If you're totally clear about seeking 100 or so innings from him. 

Harden, despite his brilliance and despite throwing well late in 2009, will be worth about $18 roto.

.................

There are certain pitchers -- David Cone in the 90's -- who could limp along saving their bullets, and then dominate in the playoffs.

Harden's injuries are chronic.  No, what's beyond "chronic"?   Catastrophic.

Again and again, just about every year, Ron Shandler points out some example or other, "Chronically-injured players don't suddenly get healthy."

We're not talking about an Erik Bedard, who's been healthy 2-3 years, in dry dock two years, healthy 2-3 years, in dry dock 2 years.  Rich Harden has never had a healthy season.

Chris Carpenter, Kelvim Escobar, all these fragile aces string together a couple of clean years here or there.    It's one thing to have two major injuries -- Bedard's TJ in the minors, and now his Carpenter shoulder -- and it's another thing to have a Chris Snelling body.

All the roto champs stay wayyyyyy clear of injury cases like this.  Granted, they'll take a flier on Harden at $9 roto, like the M's would at $7m or whatever.

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Q.  It's worth a flier, though.

A.  Sure, depending on the $$.  It's awfully tempting.

As we all know, 125 innings of Harden plus 75 innings of (say) Doug Fister are preferable to 200 innings of a Jarrod Washburn type.   In 125 innings, Harden is going to be -30, -40 runs better than RLP.

There's going to be a disconnect between Dr. D and all the non-roto types here.  Rotodweebs just get sick of watching Rich Harden types get hurt.

Rotodweebs keep track of which investments pay off, and the Harden ones usually don't.   Shandler on Harden specifically:  "Chronically-injured players don't suddenly get healthy.  Beware."

That ain't what anybody wants to hear, I know.  :- )

.................

Yer gotta admit, fellers.  It's a little ironic, the gushing over Harden when -- given an optimistic assessment by the doctors -- Erik Bedard is probably the same idea, but better. 

Nobody is assessing the Bedard scenario in terms of its best-case outcomes.  Enthusiasm for one variation, over the other, warps judgment...

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Part III