The Aaron Harang Streak That Won't End

I say "Aaron Harang" and you think...what?

Andre the Giant look-a-like?

League-average innings muncher?

Eight-team mercenary?

Active pitcher with the longest career without a playoff appearance?

Yes, Harang has donned a uniform for 13 summers and 352 starts without enjoying firsthand the pageantry of October. Although he has twice entered service for a playoff-bound squad -- first his rookie campaign and then his inaugural season in Cincinnati -- in neither case was he a sufficient staple of the rotation to eat playoff frames. Since then he has endured the Reds' lean years and successive one-year-or-less stints in San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Queens and Atlanta, none of which hosted post-season contests.

This year, at 37, Harang has found work for $5 million before the good people of Philadelphia, or at least what few of them will deign to countenance Citizens Bank ballpark while the home nine kills time until 2019. His streak, so lovingly nurtured across 2,150 innings of regular season action, appears destined to flower further, in large part because Harang can be expected to Rototill innings while Phillies brass contemplate what they can secure in trade for closer Jonathan Papelbon.

The Hardball Times points out that Harang is sixth in baseball in games pitched since he became a regular in 2004, eighth in innings and 11th in strikeouts. That shouldn't obscure what a plug-average hurler he's been over his career. In fact, setting aside his two peak seasons of '06-'07, when he won 32 games with a 3.75 ERA, 24% better than average; consumed 466 innings; fanned four times as many batters as he walked; and added 11.2 wins to the Reds' standing; Harang has enjoyed just one season more than five percent above average and four seasons at least 8% worse.

Over the 13 years, Harang has earned 23 WAR, two-thirds of it in his three best seasons. In Atlanta last year, Harang kept the ball in the park unusually well en route to 204 thoroughly average innings. That is unlikely to occur in Philly's breadbasket ballpark. Don't be surprised if the giant Californian gives back a WAR or two in '15.

Then again, if he continues the third-starter act he reveled in last year, Aaron Harang could find himself trade-deadline bait, perhaps to a contender in need of veteran presence. That's about the only hope he has for the streak to end.