The Tortoise and the Haren: Shaggy Soft-Tosser Gets off to Slow Start, Needs to Walk Razor’s Edge Due to Decreased Velocity
Dan Haren didn’t necessarily jump out of the blocks in his first start with the Cubs, allowing two runs in the bottom of the 1st inning in Pittsburgh Wednesday night. It didn’t help that his teammates didn’t do much to help him out defensively, but Haren wasn’t at his best and he admitted as much.
“I’m glad that’s out of the way, but obviously I have to be a lot better than that to help this team,” the well-traveled veteran admitted after the loss. “It’s over and done with. I have to be better next time.”
You’d expect no less from the new guy just getting acclimated to his 8th different team in 13 big league seasons, but Haren was being a bit modest there. Maybe too modest. Not that he should have rocked the boat, but worry a bit about leaving the door open for unfounded criticism. Of course, you’re going to have that regardless of performance; one need look no further than Jon Lester to see that.
Haren’s an interesting case though, a bit of a change from the rest of a rotation that sits near the top of the majors in nearly every important measurement of pitching performance. The most notable part of the grizzled righty’s game is what he’s not able to do: break 90. I suppose if he was willing to risk the health of his arm, Haren might be able to dial it up to Kyle Hendricks-level velo. For the most part, though, his fastball couldn’t even trigger time travel via a flux capacitor. It can’t even catch up to the Binny’s Beverage Depot guy.
Not since 2011 has Haren averaged 90 mph, and he’s dropped 4 ticks in the four seasons since. But despite only working in the mid-80’s, Haren has had a bit of a resurgence, posting his lowest WHIP and ERA totals since that long-ago season in Orange County.
I want to believe that he’ll be just as good with the Cubs as he was with the Marlins, but there are a couple things that worry me a bit. Most notable among my fears is Haren’s tendency to allow the home run, which was on display Wednesday as he gave up shots to Gregory Polanco and Andrew McCutchen. Haren’s 1.54 HR/9 this season is the highest of his career, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story.
That number might actually be suppressed a little bit by playing in the pitcher-friendly Marlins Park, a venue that allowed fewer home runs per game (1.25) than all but AT&T Park (1.17). In nearly equal innings totals, Haren’s allowed only .96 HR/9 in Miami but 2.30 on the road. Some might make the conclusion that he pitches better in the comfort of familiar confines, but I’d argue that it’s the ballpark itself that has helped.
So even though he’ll now become familiar with the Confines, Wrigley is, for all intents and purposes, part of that 2.30 HR/9 mark. Maybe the winds will continue to blow in for another couple months, thus maintaining a 1.73 HR/game mark that has Wrigley ranked 22nd in baseball. That would certainly help to mitigate the fly balls Haren allows at a 49.3% rate. I suppose one positive here is that he has allowed less hard contact on the road (29.6%) than at home (34.3%).
If it sounds like I’m getting down on the guy, I apologize. My intent isn’t to point out that he’s a bad option, but rather to highlight areas he’ll need to control in order to be effective for the Cubs. One big key will be to maintain a feel for the cutter, which has easily been his most effective pitch this season. Despite getting knocked around a bit over the last few seasons, it’s also been one of the best offerings of his career, even though he didn’t really start throwing it until 2010.
Haren had been using a splitter with relatively high frequency over the past decade as well, but it has lost favor after getting increasingly bad results. At this point, the guy has a repertoire that includes a cutter (40.5%), four-seam (27.9%) and two-seam (10.2%) fastballs, a knuckle curve (12.8%) and a splitter (8.5%), but only the four-seamer and cutter have yielded positive results this season.
In checking through Haren’s metrics, something that really jumped out at me was the contact he gives up on pitches outside the zone (O-contact%). While this number has increased steadily throughout his career, it has really jumped up over the past couple seasons. Perhaps not coincidentally, those are the two seasons that have also seen his velo finally dip below 88 mph. A quick look at location shows us that Haren isn’t really doing anything different there; if anything, he’s actually been working more down in the zone.
While Haren doesn’t appear too familiar with grooming products, pitchers in general are often walking a razor’s edge when it comes to location and movement. A couple ticks on the radar gun might not seem like much, but those few fractions of a second allow a hitter to pick up the spin just a little better, to have just a hair more time to decide what to do with a pitch. To that end, Haren has to be much more careful with exactly where he’s pitching these days.
As you can see from the charts above, batters are having a much easier time collecting hits both above and below the heart of the strike zone. But I had mentioned earlier that Haren appears to be working down more and it’s there that’s he’s encountering some issues. Take a look at the middle of the lower third of the heat map and see hitters are tuning Haren up. Every one of the 6 areas in lower-middle display markedly higher batting average figure.
Haren is, however, still having success when he stays out of the zone, particularly when he’s working the corners. He’s been particularly tough on righties, who are batting only .210 against him this season. In order to continue that trend, Haren will need to live either either low and away or up and in. Sounds simple, but this is no longer a pitcher who can get away with missing his spots. At the same time, he’s also a guy who has been around for a long time and who has pitched in pretty much every situation imaginable.
So if I’ve got to choose between a few different guys who all have very thin margins for error, I’m going to take Dan Haren over Dallas Beeler or Clayton Richard (who has actually performed really admirably and whose passage through waivers on two occasions really surprised me) every time. He knows who he is as a pitcher, doesn’t walk a lot of guys, and should be counted on for 6 innings every time out.
He may be a little slower these days, but maybe this time the Haren wins in the end.
