Verlander or Harden?

[Giambis]

That is exactly what I was trying say. Most Verlander owners drafted him at the top to be thier ace. The Harden owners are taking him at the bottom of the draft. We are all well aware of his injury concerns and know that he will not play a whole season. What we do know is that we payed nothing for him and are currently getting much more production per that investment. I bid on Verlander but he went for a dollar less than B Webb, so I made the obvious choice. I like Verlander, but at this point in the season I am much happier to have drafted Harden for a dollar than to have wasted $23 on Verlander. No one could have foreseen this outcome to this point, but I am happy I came out ahead. I don't think anyone has said Harden will play the rest of the season. What they are saying is that while he is on the mound, you will get more production out of him than Verlander. Which is a tough point to argue against. So I will continue to get better production out of my 5th pitcher while your #1 continues to struggle.....that is what the pro Harden argument boils down to.

Great Scrappy... so now all of the people who didn't draft Harden are morons? Keep digging that hole.

Sorry man, the original post is "who do you like better the rest of the year." Not "who gives you more bang for their buck relative to their ADP," or "who performs better when they actually pitch."

[Yoda]

Sorry man, the original post is "who do you like better the rest of the year." Not "who gives you more bang for their buck relative to their ADP," or "who performs better when they actually pitch."

Harden owners are too busy congratulating themselves that they are not bothering to read any of these posts. It is so obvious that they've never had Harden on their teams before also.

[pokerplaya]

Harden. I'm a groupie.

[yanks924]

Harden owners are too busy congratulating themselves that they are not bothering to read any of these posts. It is so obvious that they've never had Harden on their teams before also.

Sounds like your too busy kicking yourself in the A for not taking a chance on him so far.

[Yoda]

Harden owners are too busy congratulating themselves that they are not bothering to read any of these posts. It is so obvious that they've never had Harden on their teams before also.

Sounds like your too busy kicking yourself in the A for not taking a chance on him so far.

lol and the funny thing is you probably really believe this!

[zhutou]

over/under 128 ip for harden.

i will gladly match any $100 bets for the over with my own bet for the under.

[AussieDodger]

Harden is the gambling man's Peavy.
I'm not loose enough with my money to have him on any rosters.
I have to put up with him on my real-life team as it is.

[AKhomebrewer]

I've watched (Harden's) last few games and he has been absolutely dominant. ...

Uh, he's always been dominant.

When he pitches.

I have neither, but I'd go with Verlander from today to the end of the '08 season.

[Inukchuk]

If people are really in current stats, how come they can't realize Verlander's improvement each month? His BB/ERA/WHIP have gone down while K's up. The rest of the way, I'd be happy with Verlander posting around his yearly averages: 3.6 ERA/1.25 WHIP with solid K's and wins.

I don't think going month to month is a great way to evaluate Justin's progress. His April was so bad, it was more or less impossible not to improve in May. Despite the fact that it was better, his K/BB ratio went from .82 (horrendous) in April to 1.85 (bad) in May. Despite the improvement in ERA and WHIP, his BAA stayed nearly identical (265-264). Also, looking at his last 3 starts, which many feel is evidence of him breaking out of his slump, he has 12K and 10BB in 21 IP. I find this even more concerning because it's masked by the fact that he didn't get shelled run-wise (by the 2nd and 7th worst offenses in baseball: Seattle and Cleveland. The 3rd start was against Minnesota, who's not exactly a juggernaut, either).

I'm not so much pro Harden as I am anti Verlander. I feel that over the course of the rest of the season, Verlander is likely to cause more damage to a team than Harden. I'm not convinced yet of Verlander turning the corner, and he was drafted by many teams to be a 1 or 2. Managers will continue to trot him out there and there's a good chance they'll pay for that. If Harden gets hurt today, while the missing production will hurt, the reality is that the owner loses his #4 guy.

I have neither on my team (Verlander was kept last year, and I'm usually unwilling to pay for what Harden tends to go for...there's no denying he's the riskiest pitcher this side of San Diego), but I would be much more upset at the end of the season if I looked back and saw a season's worth of poop from my supposed ace than a DLed bottom of the rotation guy who pitched like a #1 for a while...

[Yoda]

So I just put my money where my mouth is and traded for Verlander in my money league. We'll see.