Disproving The Myth Of Dan Haren

The following is my latest article for The Hardball Times, and another entry in a long series of posts about my man crush on fantasy ace Dan Haren.

All stats are current through June 14.

There are many popular memes about "partial-season" players in baseball. Adam LaRoche and Mark Teixeira can't hit in the first half. Kosuke Fukudome can only hit in April, while CC Sabathia can't pitch in April. And, of course, the one that inspired this writing, the notion, largely perpetuated by Matthew Berry and the folks at ESPN, that Dan Haren can't pitch after the All-Star break.

Some of these myths have some result-based credence to them (Teixeira, for instance, has a career slash line of .237/.348/.427 in April (.775 OPS), whereas his career OPS marks in May, June, July, August and September are all above .900), but do they, particularly the Haren one, have "predictive" substance behind them?

First, let's look at the pitcher Haren has been for his career. In short, he has been about as consistent and elite a pitcher as there is. Over the course of his eight-plus years in the major leagues (2011 is his ninth), Haren has proven to be very durable—pitching 216 or more innings each of the past six years, and on pace to do so again this year—and has compiled a 3.59 ERA and 1.18 WHIP along with 1338 strikeouts to only 339 walks over 1561 major league innings.

On the peripheral level, the surface checks out, as validated by a 3.60 FIP, a 3.55 xFIP, a 3.84 tERA (this tends to be a higher figure than FIP, though scaled to look like ERA), and a strong strikeout rate (20.7 percent K rate versus an 18.0 percent MLB average) that comes from the ability to induce a good number of swings-and-misses (career 9.7 percent swinging strike percentage, MLB average is 8.4 percent).

Even his batted-ball normalized numbers check out, as Haren's expected WHIP and eFIP check in at superior rates of 1.23 and 3.69, respectively.

Haren is also a relatively neutral batted ball-type pitcher (career 1.20 GB/FB ratio, 0.78 GB/AO ratio) who has played in relatively neutral home run-inflating parks (Angel Stadium, with a home run-per-outfield fly ball (HR/OFFB) park index of 102, is the most home run-inflating park of his career), though he has never experienced any type of home run luck (career 11.5 percent HR/OFFB percentage, 11.3 percent MLB average).

As a flyball-neutral pitcher with good strikeout rates and low walk rates, there are very few, if any, holes in Haren's game. More inspiring, however, is Haren's consistency. Since his breakout year in 2007, Haren's relative ERA indicies have been as follow: 138, 139, 142, 106*, 148.

*Though Haren's BABIP-inflated first half ERA+ was 93, his second-half ERA index was 139.

All in all, with Haren, what you see is what you get, and you tend to get what you paid for.

In Roto leagues, full-season expectations are everything, but in H2H leagues, or micromanaged Rotisserie leagues, splits are important. As any Alex Rios owners last year can tell you, as much value as a player puts for in the first half, irrespective of his end-of-season line, if his second half is nerve-wrecking, not only can he make you forget all the good he did for you, but a front-loaded player can cause you to nose-dive from the top of your league's standings.

Noting how great Haren's end-of-season statistics have been over the past half-decade of baseball, let's investigate whether or not he truly is one of these "front-loaded" players you need to deal rather than hold.

First, the results. Per Baseball Reference, Haren's second-half results have not been up to par with his first-half surface stats. Though Haren is the owner of a robust 3.21 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with 751 strikeouts to 181 walks (4.15 K/BB ratio) over 880 innings pitched in the first half for his career, his career second-half numbers clock in at a 4.07 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP with an equally good 7.8 K/9 ratio (587 strikeouts over 680.1 innings pitched), but more walks (158, for a 3.72 K/BB ratio).

Now, a 4.07 ERA and 3.72 K/BB is not horrible (keep in mind the league-average ERA and K/BB over this period were approximately 4.40 and 2.00, respectively) nor something to sneeze at, but in light of his career end-of-season numbers and stellar first-half numbers, you can understand why owners generally want to sell Haren by July.

But is this "sell, sell, sell" attitude particularly warranted, despite the results? Or does it breed a market inefficiency that you can exploit to your advantage? Because we at The Hardball Times are bigger fans of inner, rather than outer, beauty, let's dig a little deeper into Haren's first- and second-half splits; beyond the results, and into the process.

Based on the FIP formula, Haren's first- and second-half splits are a lot less extreme than they seem by ERA standards (0.86 points). Though Haren tends to walk a few more batters in the second half (4.4 percent uBB versus 3.9 percent), his second-half FIP (3.70) is only 0.40 points above his first-half FIP (3.30). This split is less than half as severe as his ERA split, and relative to his career FIP (3.60), it is not too far apart from what you are paying for.

Digging further, we also find that Haren's second-half batted ball profile indicates that he tends to give up fewer fly balls and more ground balls in the second half compared to the first half. Whereas Haren's career first-half flyball rate is 38.8 percent, his second half rate is 34.4 percent.

In fact, if we calculate Haren's "exFIP" (exFIP is xFIP calculated with HR/OFFB in place of HR/FB, done because a popup can never be a home run) we find the split even tinier, with a 3.35 first-half exFIP and 3.63 second-half exFIP. Haren's expected WHIP splits between his first and second half are even smaller.

So, while it is clear that Haren has been a better pitcher in the first half for his career, his peripherals say that the talent splits between the first and second half for Haren are relatively marginal. Pitchers tend to wear down over the course of a 162-game season, and the cold April weather warms up by July, so I was not be shocked to find that second-half league ERAs tend to be higher than first-half ERAs.

In 2009, for example, the first-half league ERA was 4.09, while the MLB average ERA was 4.57 in the second half. The same was true in 2008 (4.19 versus 4.52) and 2007 (4.36 versus 4.61). 2010 was a different story (4.16 versus 3.98), but the second half of last season marked the beginning of the "new era of the pitcher" everyone loves to write about. In 2010, in fact (and ironically), Haren's first-half ERA (4.60) was higher than his second-half mark (2.87).

So why the major ERA split for Haren?

For one thing, Haren has always been a bit lucky with balls in play during the first half, while the opposite can be said of his second halves. For his career, Haren's first-half BABIP is .274, while his second-half BABIP is .318. His cumulative career BABIP is .291.

In addition to BABIP, Haren has seen more of his fly balls leave the yard in the second half than in the first half. Whereas Haren has a HR/FB rate in the high-nines for his first-half career, that number is close to 11 percent in the second half (10.5 percent MLB average). That is not too surprising, as every 10 degree increase in temperature tends to boost flyball distance by a couple percent.

So what does this mean?

If you currently own Haren, it means do not panic. You own one of baseball's most elite pitchers, and there is no real reason to sell him, especially at a discount, to try to poach a pitcher who is not a "second half dud."

Haren currently owns a 2.54 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. His peripherals says that, as always, he's earned those numbers. Though Haren is no longer pitching in the NL and, as could be expected, striking out about a half-batter fewer per nine innings, he is currently inducing ground balls and popups at career-best or second-best rates.

He owns a 2.51 FIP, and a 2.99 xFIP that is 35 percent better than the rest of the league. Even xWHIP's more-inflated numbers love Haren, claiming his performance to date to be worth a 3.26 eFIP (4.00 MLB mean, compared to a 3.80 MLB mean for xFIP) and a 1.12 WHIP (top 15 among all major league pitchers, including relievers, with at least one game started).

Haren is not someone to trade away unless you get someone just as good in return, and that's not an easy standard to meet, even in the rekindled era of the pitcher.

If you do not currently own Haren, it means you should exploit the myth that Haren can't pitch in the second half. The myth does not mean you can get Haren for Zach Britton, but it does mean you might be able to trade away a "lesser" pitcher like Matt Garza, Josh Beckett, Mat Latos, or Anibal Sanchez as the substantial majority piece (if not a one-for-one deal) in a deal to get him.

You also might be able to swap out ceiling and risk for reliability, moving Josh Johnson as the All-Star break (and his alleged return from the disabled list) approaches. You might also be able to get Haren plus a useable fantasy piece for your team in what should otherwise be a one-for-one deal (e.g., trading Sabathia for Haren plus something).

Either way, you want Dan Haren on your team in the second half.

Dan Haren To Angels: A Look At His Prospective Value

Sunday, the Arizona Diamondbacks traded Dan Haren to the Angels for starting pitcher Joe Saunders and left-handed pitching prospects prospects Pat Corbin, Rafael Rodriguez and Tyler Skaggs.

Haren went to Arizona from the A's only two and a half seasons ago for a haul of prospects that included Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Carter and Brett Anderson. Considering how good Haren is (career 3.61 xFIP, 3.38 xFIP this season) and how much the Diamondbacks paid for him, it is surprising to see how little they wanted in return, even if they were trying to dump salary. It is hard to imagine that this was all that the Diamondbacks could get in return when the Yankees (Jesus Montero), Twins (Wilson Ramos) and Mets (Wilmer Flores, Jennry Mejia, Fernando Martinez) were all on the market for a quality arm.

Readers of my Game of Inches blog should all know how much I love Haren. I have detailed just how good he is many times, defended his honor on ESPN podcasts, and despite his early season struggles and career second half struggles, Haren remains a top 10 rest of season starting pitcher in my estimation

On average, pitchers generally surrender home runs on 11 percent of flyballs (note: using OF_FB% instead of FB% has no statistically significant impact on xFIP). Per The Hardball Times' top secret four-year park factor data, Arizona inflates HR/FB% for pitchers. However, Haren has not played all his game at home: he's pitched 66.2 of his 141 innings on the road (52.7 percent of his innings have come at home). Hence, the true park factor index of Chase Field on Haren's starts is only 1.058. This pushes Haren's adjusted park factor HR/FB rate to 11.64 percent. His current rate is well above that, at 13.9 percent.

To translate Haren's ERA, we cannot simply take his xFIP and run with it. As Derek Carty has previously pointed out, a change in leagues has a noticeable effect on a pitcher's K/9, BB/9 and HR/FB percentage thanks to that designated hitter guy (versus the pitcher). Thus, we need to first translate the peripherals and get a zFIP (alternative expected FIP).

As Haren has 607 batters faced, most of his peripheral rates are statistically significant. Hence we can use his current strikeout and walk rates as a baseline. At the moment, Haren has a 9.00 K/9 and 1.85 BB/9 (4.86 K/BB). As noted above, his expected HR/FB% this season is ~11.64 percent. To account for Haren's change in leagues, we need to (1) subtract 0.57 from his current K/9) add 0.05 to his current groundball rate, and 3) 0.21 percent to his adjusted HR/FB rate. Over the course of 141 IP and 165 flyballs surrendered, these numbers extrapolate into 132 strikeouts, 30 walks and 19.5 home runs.

Keeping Haren's HBP/IBB totals constant and using The Hardball Times adjusted FIP formula of 3.2+((HR*13+(BB+HBP-IBB)*3-K*2))/IP), we get a zFIP of 3.74 for AL Dan Haren. Using this 3.74 mark as the baseline for our ERA projection, we need to get an expected innings total and account for park factors and defense.

The Angels only have 62 games remaining. Assuming that Haren slides right into his rightful role as team ace, this puts him at around 12 more starts on the regular season. Haren is averaging six and two-thirds innings per start, which would put his innings load max around 80. For the sake of getting a nice number, let's pretend the Angels, who are seven games out of first place, make a playoff run this season (though I think Haren is more of a 2011/12 acquisition) and allow Haren to reach this max load. At a league-adjusted K/9 of 8.43 and zFIP of 3.74, this would give Haren 75 strikeouts and 33.25 runs allowed.

Now that we have an innings projection, we need to accord for park factors and team defense. Per Baseball-Reference, Angel Stadium inflates run scoring by 2 percent. Since a player generally plays just half his games at home, we should use a 1 percent park factor. Multiplying Haren's runs total by a 1.01 park index, we get a new RA total of 33.58.

Though park factors will likely not have much of an impact on Haren's expected RA total, the Angels' defense, which includes Bobby Abreu, might. In 883.2 innings of defense, the Angels have allowed 26.2 more runs to score than the league average defense. (The Angels have the fourth lowest UZR/150 in baseball). This gives the Angels a UZR/inning of -0.02966. Over 80 innings pitched, that means that the Angels defense will allow 2.37 more runs to score than would the league average defense. Adding this to Haren's park factor adjusted RA total, we get a final RA total of 35.95.

Over 80 IP, the above indicates that Haren has an expected ERA of 3.82. That is well below the Angels' current team ERA/xFIP of 4.40/4.37.

But what about Haren's WHIP? Thanks to Tom Tango's research and a day of macro programming, I created an xWHIP calculator a few weeks ago to answer that very question. Plugging in the relevant numbers, we see that Haren's current WHIP of 1.35 translates into a xWHIP of 1.07 with a hits per nine rate of 8.2 (yet another sign of Haren's awful luck in 2010).

As noted above, a change in leagues generally results in a +0.05 increase in a pitcher's BB/9 and Angel Stadium has a 0.99 walk rate index compared to Chase Field. This yields an xBB total for Haren the Angel of 16.7 per 80 IP.

Similarly, Angel Stadium has a 0.99 hits rate index compared to Chase Field of .90. This yields an xHits total of 65.6 for Haren on his new team, at least before defense is considered. However, as noted above, the Angels have a UZR/INN of -0.02966. Tom Tango has previously broken down runs-expectancy based on types of hits and has found that the average single is worth approximately 0.49 runs. Assuming that all additional hits allowed by the Angels' defense would be singles, the Angels' defense would yield an additional 4.8 hits. Adding this to his expected hits total, we find that Dan Haren as an Angel has an xHit total of 70.4 per 80 IP.

The above analysis yields an xWHIP of 1.09 for Dan Haren in Anaheim. Through today, the Angels have a team WHIP of 1.40. Hence Haren is a noticeable improvement for the Angels in the baserunner prevention department (which is somewhat important given the state of the Angels' defense).

Fantasy spin: All in all, my analysis shows that Haren has the following expected pitching line as an Angel: 80 IP, 3.82 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 75 K, 4.5 K/BB. Those numbers are not quite as ERA/WHIP pretty as Cliff Lee's projected numbers (though much of it has to do with the Angels' poor defense), but his plus-quality ERA/WHIP and high strikeout ability make Haren a tantalizing must-own AL option for the rest of the season. If you have FAAB, empty it accordingly.

Real life spin: One can easily see how Haren can improve the Angels' current 4.40 team ERA/1.40 team WHIP. What one cannot see, however, is how the Diamondbacks benefit from this trade. Bryan Smith of Fangraphs analyzed what the Diamondbacks netted in return for Haren and somewhat rationalized the deal. However, given Haren's talent, the market for a quality arm (of which Haren was the best and cheapest available option), and what the Diamondbacks paid for Haren in the first place, this trade makes very little sense to me.

Do Not Give Up On Dan Haren

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows how much I love Dan Haren. I've owned him each of the past four seasons and defended the man's second half struggles on ESPN's Fantasy Focus podcast to the bitter end. There are few active players who blend Maddux's control with John Smoltz's strikeout numbers and if it weren't for the fact that Chase Field is a tiny park that the Diamondback's hitters can't score runs in, Haren wouldn't survive the second round of fantasy draft annually. Nonetheless, a question has been raised by many which I feel a burning desire to scream the answer (which is no) to: should fantasy owners be concerned about Dan Haren?

True, Dan Haren posted a less-than-Dan-Haren-like 4.62 ERA and 1.26 WHIP after the All-Star break (Haren, Adam LaRoche and Mark Teixeira have collectively patented the "one-half struggler" complex) and true, Haren has posted a very un-Haren-like 4.83 ERA and 1.37 WHIP through his first 59.2 IP this season. Nonetheless, one should not be concerned. Haren's ERA and WHIP are merely cosmetic reflections of incredibly poor luck and sabermetrics, unlike beauty, is not only skin deep.

A look at Dan Haren's advanced statistics reveals that Haren has continued a trend of increasing his K/9 that extends back to his rookie season; it currently sits at a career high 9.39 mark. True, Haren's walk rate per nine is up over 50% this year, but it still sits at a very quality 2.26, which is top 35 amongst all major league pitchers who have logged 30+ innings and well below the major league average of 3.56. Haren's combination of stuff and control of said stuff gives him a strong K/BB rate of 4.13, which is more than double that of the league average, top 10 in baseball and top 5 in the NL. Even with the unlucky 13.1% HR/FB rate and 1.21 HR/9 rate, Haren has a superior 3.56 FIP.

Dan Haren's peripherals scream bad luck and impending progression. His 2010 66.9% LOB% is well below his career mark of 73.1%, his .357 BABIP is 18.2% higher than his .302 career mark, and the Diamondbacks team defense, as rated by UZR/150, is the third best in the major leagues at the moment (ahead of the super defensive Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays).

This is not the profile of a pitcher you give up on. Especially when you consider that Dan Haren' s 47.7% groundball rate is at a career high after dipping to a post-rookie season career low 42.9% mark last season. Haren's xFIP is a spectacular 3.22 -- the seventh lowest mark in the major leagues. Considering that the Diamondbacks infielders (both starters and non-starters) collectively have a +31.0 UZR/150 this season, it's hard to imagine Dan Haren's struggles continue much longer.

ZiPS projects Dan Haren to post a 3.19 ERA and 1.10 WHIP with 12 Wins and a 8.63 K/9 to boot for the reason of the season. There is absolutely no reason, barring God's continued hatred of Dan Haren, that Haren will not at least post those numbers here out. If anyone in your league is dumb enough to be shopping him [at a discount], you buy.

Dan Haren's consistency is disturbing

My love of Dan Haren is well documented across various mediums (I've raved about him on our blog in addition to both our podcasts and ESPN's Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast). Simply put, Dan Haren is as good as he is because he throws an effective four pitch mix: a fastball, cutter, curveball and splitfinger fastball. Each of Haren's pitches are above average (three of them are at least a full win above average in value) and he mixes his pitches well (no pitch is thrown less than 13.3% or more than 45.9% of the time), keeping hitters entirely off balance. He also has scary good control, as evident by the1.39 BB/9 and major-league leading 6.35 K/BB. However self-evident these numbers may be in eliciting how good Haren's control is, nothing is as telling as a picture (which of course is worth a thousand words). Below is a locational chart of every pitch Dan Haren has thrown in 2009, courtesy of The Hardball Times:



Notice the consistency in location/movement among his four offerings? That's just nasty.

Oh, and for the record, Matthew Berry, Dan Haren has been absolutely stellar over his last four outings. Take out the 5 or 6 bad starts that "ballooned" his ERA from 2.3 to 2.7 in late July/early August and Haren has been absolutely consistent all season.

Matthew Berry Doesnt Care Much For Your Emails

ESPN.COM fantasy experts each made a list of the top 250 fantasy players for the second half and the rankings were averaged out for the 6 analysts. The experts were shockingly consistent with each other on most rankings, except for one certain player. You guessed it, Dan Haren. Berry ranked his as the 59th best fantasy contributor for the second half, while the other 5 experts ranked him 11, 12, 16, 17, 19. Berry is either an evil genius, or has an irrational hatred of Dan Haren. Haren is from Cali and Berry has lived in LA. Maybe they had an encounter and Haren stole Berry's gf while Berry was piss drunk one night. Personally, I cant wait to see the second half numbers Haren puts up in the second half.

Dan Haren's success

According to an interview with the Arizona Republic, Dan Haren largely attributes his success this season to the development of his cut fastball.

"When I got traded over here before last year, I was really working on that pitch," Haren said. "It became a pretty good pitch for me last year, but it's something that I really have leaned on this year. I don't throw 93-94 (mph) anymore. It's more 90-92."

Is Haren right? Are his successes to be attributed to the cut fastball? Let's take a look.

Since Haren was traded, his Cutter usage has increased from 1.6% at 88.4 MPH to 6.6% at 87.8 MPH to 17.5% at 86.5 MPH. Haren has gone from rarely going the cut fastball to utilizing it almost 20% of the time. Over this period, Haren has clearly refined the quality of the pitch, as it has almost quadrupled in runs/100 pitch value from 1.7 to 6.5 in just 3 years. In plain english, this means that Dan Haren's cutter, per ever 100 times it is thrown, has prevented approx. 6.5 runs or garnered the Diamondbacks about two-thirds of a win in value.

Alas, despite the increasing usage/quality of his Cutter, it still is not Dan Haren's best pitch. That pitch still remains, and increasingly is, his fastball. Dan Haren has a sick fastball that, on average, breaks 10.5 inches down and 6.5 inches in on hitters. Such disgusting movement, as one would expect, has led to the best fastball in the majors by a quarter of a win margin (Haren's 18.5 runs/100 pitch value on his fastball is the best in the majors; second is Zack Greinke at 16.3).

So what is to attribute to Haren's successes this season? Let's create a checklist.
1) Sick control. Dan Haren's 7.43 K/BB leads the majors
2) Sick command. Dan Haren's 1.17 BB/9 also leads the majors
3) Improving pitches. This season, Haren's fastball quality has almost doubled in value, while his cutter has continued to improve and his split finger fastball is back to form (from -1.4 runs/100 pitchs to +4.5)
4) A four plus-pitch mix. Each of Dan Haren's four pitches (fastball, cutter, curveball, splitfinger fastball) have positive runs/100 pitch values and good mixture (none is thrown less than 13.8% or more than 48% of the time)
5) A very lucky 84.5 LOB% and .239 BABIP, although the Diamondbacks do have the 8th best defense in baseball right now

Does God hate Dan Haren?

Following today's set of games, Dan Haren (108 IP on the season) remains the only pitcher with a WHIP at or below 1.000 (his currently sits a robust .81). To put Dan Haren's control and dominance in perspective, his WHIP currently matches that of Greg Maddux's during his electric 1995 cy young campaign (1.63 ERA, .81 WHIP in 209.2 IP). Not even the almighty Pedro has logged a season with a WHIP below 0.92 in which he tossed 10 or more innings.

Yet, in a perfect manner that illustrates the uselessness that is the Wins-Loss record, Dan Haren is now 6-5 on the season. Today's loss comes with a 7.0 IP, 8 K, 1 BB, 4 H, 2 ER line. Only the Diamondbacks' offense could consistently fail to win behind a pitcher who has surrendered a mere 2.25 runs per nine through 108 IP.

Despite a few "scary" signs of impending regression (86.0 LOB%, .239 BABIP), the super majority of Dan Haren's successes this season have been entirely earned and not the by-product of luck. The 8.67 K/9, 1.16 BB/9 (second best in baseball), 7.43 K/BB (best in baseball) and 69.8% first pitch strikes (tied for best in baseball, the league average is 58%) have earned Haren a 2.25 ERA against a still stellar 2.98 FIP (seventh best in baseball). Even Haren's xFIP, which normalizes home runs rates to neutralize luck (on average, about 11% of all FBs are HRs), stands at a remarkable 3.05.

Some, such as fangraphs, may claim the LOB% and BABIP call for some moderate regression (from outstanding pitcher to very good pitcher), but it should be noted that guys who have great control rates strand more runners and post lower BABIPs than the league average (.292 this year)*. I'm not saying that Haren will continue to rock the world with a 2.25 ERA the rest of the season, but a 3.00 ERA from here forward is quite reasonable, if not almost entirely achievable. Dan Haren's control and command this season have only been bested by a handful of players in the history of the game - Curt Schilling's 2002 season, Greg Maddux's 1995 season and Pedro Martinez's 1999 and 2000 seasons all come to mind (all of them, minus Schilling, who was second in voting behind teammate Randy Johnson in 2002, won the Cy Young those seasons). If Haren keeps these numbers up, even with a slight regression towards the 3.00 ERA line, there is no one in the world -- not even Matthew Berry -- who could deny that Dan Haren is the NL's (if not baseball's) best pitcher -- and yes, I do realize Tim Lincecum pitches in the NL.

*-In the world of baseball, there are two general schools of thought regarding a pitcher's impact on BABIP. The first, in line with Voros McCracken's original assertion, is that pitchers have absolutely no control over BABIP. The second school of thought, which is in line with Voros' later, evolved and softer stance on the issue, states that pitchers have very little control over BABIP (especially compared to K and BB rates), but that pitchers with higher K rates, better control (K/BB) and good defenses behind them tend to post lower BABIPs than the league average.

DME is back

Hey hey!

So after a week of tanning/sizzling in sunny Florida, I'm back, full force, to continue to troll the baseball world for interesting information. Lots of cool stuff happened while I was gone, but by far the coolest (in my mind) was getting my email read on the ESPN Fantasy Focus podcast.

I sent in an email a few weeks ago regarding Dan Haren and his peripherals as a rebuttal to Berry's irrational hatred of him and constant bashing. While he (Berry) entirely missed my point and selectively misused the extensive information I sent in (or as Berry put it, "the numbers state me"), Nate did do a pretty good job defending my general thesis. I was entirely shocked to find out that Matthew and Nate did not know what FIP was (perhaps because they know FIP under the alternative acronym DIPS) and although I know both The Bright One and Sexy Rexy sent in emails explaining FIP and providing pages 2 of my email (which contained UZR data and the likes), I still wrote a follow up email anyways. I do not know how they did not know (or could not guess) where I was from, even without page two (in which I signed my email as Jeff of Chicago) because I wrote "Go Cubbies" on the first line of the email. So where they came up with "go Hilltops", I'll never know.

Below are both my original email to Fantasy Focus and my follow up email, in case you are interested and find my argument interesting (though you can read 90% of it here, between the post and my comments about the post):

THE ORIGINAL EMAIL:

Hey Matt and Nate (go Cubbies!)

Matthew Berry has often stated that he has an extreme dislike of Dan Haren because he "can't pitch in the second half." I know that Haren had a comparatively bad second half last season, but as a Haren owner last season, I did not recall Haren ever being truly terrible in the second half. So I took a look at the numbers:

Dan Haren's First Half:
8 W, 2.72 ERA, 125.2 IP, 112 K (8.0 K/BB), 22 BB (1.58 BB/9), 5.09 K/BB, 10 HR (0.72 HR/9), 98 Hits, 0.96 WHIP

Dan Haren's Second Half:
8 W, 4.18 ERA, 90.1 IP, 94 K (9.4 K/9), 18 BB (1.79 BB/9), 5.22 K/BB, 9 HR (0.90 HR/9), 106 Hits, 1.37 WHIP

Yes, from a fantasy perspective, Haren was worse in 2 categories (ERA, WHIP) after the all-star break, but he also improved another category (Ks) and remained consistent in another (Ws). His ERA/WHIP were still very serviceable; a far cry from horrible by any means.

From a real life perspective, Dan Haren was almost as good in the second half as he was in the first half -- just less lucky. Haren's control improved and while the BBs and HRs per nine regressed a little, Haren's peripherals across the board were solid and consistent. If anything got worse, it was the hits rate per nine -- something that Voros McCracken and the minds at BP proved long ago that a pitcher has little, if any control over (although some pitchers -- mainly strikeout pitchers -- do seem to exert more "control" over hits per nine than others).

In fact, Dan Haren's real life career splits look like this:

1st Half
35 W, 3.23 ERA, 599.1 IP, 488 K (7.3 K/9), 134 BB (2.01 BB/9), 3.64 K/BB, 62 HR (0.93 HR/9), 516 Hits, 1.09 WHIP, 3.59 FIP

2nd Half:
34 W, 4.12 ERA, 476 IP, 402 K (7.6K/9), 108 BB (2.04 BB/9), 3.72 K/BB, 60 HR (1.13 HR/9), 524 Hits, 1.33 WHIP, 3.83 FIP

What does this data tell me? Haren is not a second half fizzle. The difference is FIP (0.24 runs per nine) is marginal. Haren gives up a few more HR/9 in the second half, but thats about it. The hits also increase in the second half, but Haren's been in front of some notoriously terrible defensive lineups in Arizona, so he can hardly be blamed for their fielding failures.

Especially in recent years, Haren has been a premier pitching force. His control is Maddux-like and if it weren't for a terrible offense/defense behind him, he would be a perennial Cy Young winner. I think Matthew Berry needs to apologize. His dislike of Haren is almost as unfounded and irrational as his disdain of Big Fat Bartolo Colon.

Love,
Jeffrey of Chicago

THE FOLLOW UP EMAIL:

Dear Matt and Nate,

I have a follow up to my previous email regarding Dan Haren, FIP and the likes, as I would like to clarify a few details.

1) FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching statistics and is almost identical to DIPS (defense independence pitching stats). It basically removes the luck element from a pitchers game by calculating his strike out, walk and home run rates to determine if a pitcher is over/under performing his results based on the peripherals. xFIP is similar to FIP, but it normalizes home runs per FBs (HR/FB) to 11% (league average). Basically, what I was trying to get at with Dan Haren's FIP data is that he has been getting somewhat consistently unlucky in the ERA department during the second half of his career, which is strange. I dug deeper into the data and found some interesting explanations as to why Dan Haren's ERA is much higher than his FIP (especially in the second half of the season).

Fangraphs has a defensive metric called UZR/150, which calculates a player's (or collectively a team's) defensive ability per 150 games in terms of runs prevention against the replacement level. As always, approx. every 10 runs equals one win in either direction (positive or negative). A team with a positive UZR/150 of 10 runs, therefore, would be worth 1 full win above the league average thanks to its awesome defensive prowess. A team with a 0 UZR/150, on the other hand, would have league average defense. Here are the UZR/150 ratings of each of the teams Dan Haren has played for since joining the Oakland rotation full time in 2005:

Oakland, 2005: 3.4 fielding runs, 9th best in baseball (9/30) -- above average
Oakland, 2006: -1.3 fielding runs, 16th worst in baseball (15/30) -- about league average
Oakland, 2007: -3.8 fielding runs, 8th worst in baseball (23/30) -- below average
Arizona, 2008: -5.2 fielding runs, 8th worst in baseball (23/30)

What should be duly noted here is that Dan Haren has played for bottom half of the league defensive teams (negative fielding runs) in all but one of his full major league seasons. You can't blame his ERA struggles on the poor fielding abilities of guys like Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn, who joined the Dbacks in the second half of last season. Dan Haren's peripherals (and innings) make him a true stud.

2) Dan Haren was, in my opinion, totally undervalued this season. Where guys in his tier (referring to peripherals here) like CC, Lincecum and Santana went in the first two or three rounds, Haren consistently went at the end of rounds 4 and 5. You say other guys who go later or at the same time as Haren are safer picks, but what is "safer" than a guy whose career ERA is under 3.6 (his ERA has only once been above 3.75 as a full time starting pitcher), has the best control in baseball, strikes out guys like clockwork and goes 200+ IP season after season? The mere fact that guys of lower tiers get drafted before him or in the same round as him indicates that people do not properly recognize the dominant force that Haren truly is.

3) When I talked about Wins in my email, I did not mean to insinuate that Wins were anything but the situational byproduct of many circumstances beyond Haren's control, but rather to highlight that despite the ERA and WHIP "struggles" (as if a 4.00 ERA can be called struggling), Dan Haren has remained stellar in the other 2 starting pitching categories (Ws, Ks) and thus you're hatred of him is somewhat irrational and overstated. Your perception of Dan Haren is almost in line with what Sam Walker called your irrational hatred of Big Fat Bartolo Colon during his prime years...I truly believe him to be a top 5, let alone top 10, starting pitcher (along with the undervalued Javier Vazquez, whom you also sadly hate and whom I will defend to the death another day)

4) Finally, I would like to point out that I am actually from Chicago, not Deluth, so screw the hilltops. GO CUBBIES!

Love,
Jeff

Look for more cool baseball posts in the next few days, though the frequency with which I provide them may decline in the near future.

Fantasy Focus Response to Eckstein's Haren Post

To our surprise, Eckstein's post on Dan Haren was read and responded to on the baseball fantasy focus podcast hosted by Nate Ravitz and "The Talented Mr. Roto" Matthew Berry. Matthew has been critical of Haren's regression in ERA in the 2nd half and does not value the pitcher as much as the rest of the fantasy world. Matthew continued to hold pat on his stance that Haren is a bad second half pitcher who is overvalued fantasy wise. Eckstein presented the facts and Berry was still reluctant to denote Haren as a top 5 pitcher.

I sent an email response to the fantasy focus, explaining what FIP is to the fantasy experts and showing them the terrible defenses Haren has had behind him.

You can listen to the fantasy focus podcast ; skip to the 16 minute mark for the relevant portions. Enjoy!

Why does Matthew Berry hate Dan Haren?

In his podcast Fantasy Focus, Matthew Berry has often stated that he has an extreme dislike of Dan Haren because he "can't pitch in the second half." I know that Haren had a comparatively bad second half last season, but as a Haren owner last season, I did not recall Haren ever being truly terrible in the second half. So I took a look at the numbers:

Dan Haren's First Half:
8 W, 2.72 ERA, 125.2 IP, 112 K (8.0 K/BB), 22 BB (1.58 BB/9), 5.09 K/BB, 10 HR (0.72 HR/9), 98 Hits, 0.96 WHIP

Dan Haren's Second Half:
8 W, 4.18 ERA, 90.1 IP, 94 K (9.4 K/9), 18 BB (1.79 BB/9), 5.22 K/BB, 9 HR (0.90 HR/9), 106 Hits, 1.37 WHIP

Yes, from a fantasy perspective, Haren was worse in 2 categories (ERA, WHIP) after the all-star break, but he also improved another category (Ks) and remained consistent in another (Ws). His ERA/WHIP were also very serviceable; a far cry from horrible by any means.

From a real life perspective, Dan Haren was almost as good in the second half as he was in the first half -- just less lucky. Haren's control improved and while the BBs and HRs per nine regressed a little, Haren's peripherals across the board were solid and consistent. If anything got worse, it was the hits rate per nine -- something that Voros McCracken and the minds at BP proved long ago that a pitcher has little, if any control over (although some pitchers -- mainly strikeout pitchers -- do seem to exert more "control" over hits per nine than others).

In fact, Dan Haren's real life career splits look like this:

1st Half
35 W, 3.23 ERA, 599.1 IP, 488 K (7.3 K/9), 134 BB (2.01 BB/9), 3.64 K/BB, 62 HR (0.93 HR/9), 516 Hits, 1.09 WHIP, 3.59 FIP

2nd Half:
34 W, 4.12 ERA, 476 IP, 402 K (7.6K/9), 108 BB (2.04 BB/9), 3.72 K/BB, 60 HR (1.13 HR/9), 524 Hits, 1.33 WHIP, 3.83 FIP

What does this data tell me? Haren is not a second half fizzle. The difference is FIP (0.24 runs per nine) is marginal. Haren gives up a few more HR/9 in the second half, but thats about it. The hits also increase in the second half, but Haren's been in front of some notoriously terrible defensive lineups in Oakland (surprisingly) and Arizona, so he can hardly be blamed for their fielding failures (check the comments for the UZR/150 data of Haren's teams).

Especially in recent years, Haren has been a premier pitching force. His control is Maddux-like and if it weren't for a terrible offense/defense behind him, he would be a perennial Cy Young winner. I think Matthew Berry needs to read this post and apologize.

Perhaps I'll just send this data to him.

The Value Of Win-Loss Records (Or Lack Thereof)

Dan Haren pitched 7 innings, 9 Ks, 0 BB, 3 H, 1 ER (0 unearned) and is about to get the loss against Colorado.

If you ever tell me that win-loss records of pitchers mean anything remotely substantive, I promise to kick you in the balls repeatedly.