No way you’re getting him to sign a 3/21. Harden is looking at Jake Peavy money if you want him to sign an extension.

He’s the perfect candidate to wait it out for FA. He needs to prove a year and a half of health. If he does, he’s a nine-figure player. So there’s no incentive for him to sign a 3/21.

then he’s worth way more than 3/21, heh. As it is, he can’t be worth more than Haren in a trade, but he’d still be worth more than 3/21.

Also, I’m not sure if you’re equating the A’s to the Marlins or the Red Sox in that trade…I thought the Red Sox, because at the time Beckett was established and Hanley was not, but it sounds like you don’t want a contract or corpse in exchange for Harden. Which is understandable, of course. Or maybe you are looking at things from the Red Sox POV, and you’re just saying that we wouldn’t offer a corpse and a contract. Though, of course, we could (Sweeney and Chavez, respectively. Or, seeing as Harden would be the centerpiece, perhaps the other team would think that providing an additional corpse wouldn’t really be necessary).

And Phil Hughes seems to be on his way to establishing a Harden-like health record.

a second-round draft pick and a sandwich pick, which is what Harden will yield in a season and a half. And the longer you wait, you the smaller that package will be. (Look at Santana’s surprisingly low haul, or Sabathia’s declining value).

Trade value in baseball is a ticking clock.

Porcello’s stats are very good for a 19 year-old in high-A ball. To say they are “not even impressive by any means” is almost as ridiculous as the hyperbole in your post title.

is a poor man’s Jack Cust. He just needs a team to give him an opportunity to play every day without getting jerked around. He’s an .800 OPS waiting to happen. I hope that some team will eventually tolerate the 170 k’s and get rewarded with a 30 bomb, slugging heavy, .800 OPS season at the big league level. But it has to happen soon because he’s 28. The same age, incidentally, as Cust’s renaissance.

Checked all over the web trying to find the blurb about the A’s from that article. I hate that EPSN is the only site that charges to read articles from it’s columnists. There is no way I am going to pay for insider when there are about 2 articles per year I would actually like to read.

I was assuming that by this point of the comment section someone would’ve helped out The Outsiders, but I guess I expected too much of the Socs.

16 HRs, 33 RBIs in fantasy this week, entering Sunday. I think I’m starting Adam Dunn at every position. You’re having a good week by deadbeat owner standards, but my team is finally starting to hit for power. Someone needs to compete with andeux, it might as well be me.

A call came in Sunday morning that said, “Billy Beane has the single most important piece to trade to win the World Series. But the question is, how many songs do you let Slowhand play before a string breaks.”

Hello, Rich Harden. Beane is right—Harden is the most dominant pitcher in the American League right now. Nine starts; the last time he had more than that was 2005. Seven quality starts. 11.31 strikeouts per nine innings. 53.1 innings pitched, 40 hits allowed. Has started against Boston twice, the Angels, Detroit and Atlanta once. He has a career 35-18 record, but he’s had a career in which his starts have gone from 31 to 22 to nine to seven before 2008.

Beane’s Athletics are a fascinating team, especially as Eric Chavez, Santiago Casilla, Joey Devine and Ryan Sweeney get healthy. They have a $47 million payroll, and Beane is trying to reconstruct another five-year run; he’ll be in the Dominican Republic this week to see free agent right-handed pitcher Michel Inoa, which would be the equivalent of signing a top 10 draft pick. Beane has made it clear whether it’s Harden or Joe Blanton, Bobby Crosby or Mark Ellis that his store is always open.

The Athletics began Sunday’s game with the Giants three games behind the Angels in the AL West and three games behind the Rays for the wild card. So if someone is willing to play the Harden Card, the price - remember, he will makes $11.5 million in 2008 and 2009 combined - will be extremely high. Harden could get Oakland deep into the playoffs. He could also get someone else deep into October. Or a string could pop.

I think the A’s deserve props for waiting out all his injuries, and resisting the urge to trade him (during the bad times) for a pile of nails just out of frustration. But as much fun as it may be to reap the rewards of his unlikely comeback, one should not place an infinite amount of value on that fun. In other words, if someone offers MORE value in a trade, pull the effing trigger.

I still haven’t figured out the ones who say “+10” (or more), though. Do you really think you are 10 people? Or do you just figure you’re allowed to vote 10 times?

isn’t as much of an issue, or shouldn’t be as much of an issue, with Gaudin in the pen. And that’s just the 3rd-starter-caliber-long-reliever…basically, with the bullpen as deep as it is, it doesn’t matter.

I’m absolutely shocked by this post.

I liked Francona’s quote after the second start…something like, we’ve seen enough of that guy

One of the two non-quality starts was his first start back from injury, which was a blatantly non-quality start. Subtract that and see what stats you’re left with…

With that inventory, it’s clearly Neiman Marcus and Wal-Mart under one roof.

This guy must be from a Haitian bordertown…”Michel”? Speaking of prospects I know nothing about, anyone happen to be in the know about the 3B who recently defected from Cuba? ESPN dedicated some bottom-line space to announcing his arrival in the US, and he’s only 19, but with national team experience, so I figure he has to have some ability. Then again, where have Kendry Morales or Danys Baez been lately….

I must have missed this post in my frustrations. Thanks for giving us the info.

having Harden pitching twice against the A’s in ALCS’s over the next 5 years means we will never see an ALDS. I don’t care how many “prospects” you get back from those evil empires! If Beane is going to trade him, it should be to an NL team. Maybe the Marlins. If it is to an AL team, it should be the Rays, so they can torment the Yanks and Sox for years to come.