Cubs roll snake eyes with Harden deal

You ready for more heartache, Cubs fans?
You've already had close to 100 years of pain and suffering to go through, so the rest of this year shouldn't be anything different. Have fun when your shiny new acquisition, Rich Harden, inevitably ends up on the disabled list and the prospects that you traded away rush into the big league with the Oakland Athletics.
Think this can't happen? The people of Chicago know better, even if they don't want to believe it right now because their beloved Cubbies are in first place in the National League Central. Having been a Red Sox fan my whole life, I remember what it used to feel like when Boston was close to doing something good. We were always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go completely, tragically and impossibly wrong.
Here's all you need to know about Harden. My buddy Urs (a solid baseball man if ever there was one) and I put together an All-DL Team (featured in a future post) at the start of this season, and Harden is the ace of our pitching staff. It took us a combined 15 minutes to fill out our lineup card and maybe 30 seconds to put Harden's name down at the front of our rotation.
Harden is without question one of the most frustrating players in baseball. When healthy, he is borderline unhittable. His array of filthy stuff features a fastball that he can run up to 98 mph, a two-seamer that breaks bats, a sharp slider and a change-up that is almost unfair when coupled with his blistering heater. All of these pitches come whipping out of his slight body, a power arm stuck on a man who just doesn't look like he should be physically capable of throwing a baseball like he does.
And that's the problem -- Harden doesn't throw enough. He's been on the disabled list six times in his six-year career, including once this season due to a shoulder strain. When Harden has pitched it's been business as usual. He's 5-1 with a sub-2.50 ERA and high strikeout numbers, a resume that will only get better against weaker National League lineups -- if he's able to take the ball every fifth day. Consider this from his new general manager, Jim Hendry, while announcing the deal: "He's missed some time, but he's never had any surgery."
Not yet.
And if -- make that when -- Harden makes his next trip to the DL, Oakland general manager Billy Beane will be smiling all the way to the bank. Beane has a habit of either dealing his stars or letting them depart via free agency, then watching them fall apart at the seams in their new homes. Barry Zito is a $126-million disaster across the bay in San Francisco. Mark Mulder is just now getting back from two years of shoulder problems, and he's not close to the same pitcher in St. Louis that he was in Oakland. Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada are both disgraced steroid users and mere shadows of what they were when they were winning MVP awards and juicing in the shadow of BALCO's Bay Area laboratory.
Hendry felt he had to make this move to counter Milwaukee's trade for Cleveland ace CC Sabathia, giving the Brewers a legit 1-2 punch in Sabathia and Ben Sheets (another pitcher who is no stranger to the training room). At first glance, Hendry didn't give up that much to get Harden, who is signed through the 2009 season, and fellow righthander Chad Gaudin (5-3, 3.59 ERA in 26 games). Promising righty Sean Gallagher (3-4, 4.45 ERA in 12 games with 10 starts), Four-A outfielders Matt Murton and Eric Patterson and Class-A catcher Josh Donaldson went to the A's in the trade.
Look a little closer. Beane doesn't make this type of trade without a definite plan. It's how he's made his way into the playoffs consistently with payrolls less than a third of the size enjoyed by the Red Sox and the New York Yankees, guiding a team that plays in one of the Major Leagues' worst ballparks and one of its most depressed cities. Beane is the man who turned Billy Taylor into Jason Isringhausen in 1999, Angel Berroa and A.J. Hinch into Johnny Damon, Cory Lidle (R.I.P.) and Mark Ellis in 2001, drafted Mulder, Eric Byrnes and Gerald Laird in 1998, Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton and Mark Teahen in 2002, Andre Ethier in 2003 and Huston Street in 2004.
Gallagher has already proven himself at the big league level, and he will be able to develop outside the pressure of a pennant race while pitching in Oakland this season. Murton was highly regarded by the Red Sox before he was dealt to the Cubs in the 2004 Nomar Garciaparra trade. Patterson's brother, Corey, is a major league outfielder, and his statistics will improve with more regular playing time. He only had 38 at-bats with Chicago this year. Donaldson is only hitting .217, but he has six home runs on the season. Project him out to 15-25 over a full year, and he becomes a rare commodity -- a catcher with power.
And that would be the final insult to the Cubs fans, watching their young talent flourish elsewhere. They're used to that sort of thing in Chicago. They're had 100 years of practice coping with such things, and one more year or deadline deal isn't going to make the difference.