Mid-April Noodlings

Chris Colabello led the Majors with nine doubles for the Twins at this point last season. He was batting .361. The big first baseman finished the season with 13 two-baggers while batting .229. He’s not on the roster this April.

Nelson Cruz has more homers in five games last week than the Twins, Brewers, Marlins, Cardinals, and Indians each have all season.

The Yankees’ lineup on April 14: Jacoby Ellsbury, CF; Chase Headley, 3B; Carlos Beltran, RF; Mark Teixeira, 1B; Brian McCann, C; Garrett Jones, DH; Stephen Drew, 2B; Chris Young, LF; Didi Gregorius, SS. That includes one player from the team two years ago, and that was Mark Teixeira, who played most of that season for the Disabled List.

Aaron Harang is pitching in his 14^th season in the Majors. He’s won 123 games, earned 23 pitching wins against replacement, collected $60 million and hit like a girl. His .091/.100/.107 includes four walks and 278 strikeouts. In about a season’s worth of at-bats he has cost his teams four losses at the plate. 

With his first home run of the season, and the 155^th of his six-year career, Giancarlo Stanton became the career leader for the Florida Marlins, passing Dan Uggla. That’s the fewest to lead any franchise, but it won’t be for long. Once Stanton reaches 164, he will pass San Diego’s all-time leader, Nate Colbert. The only other active team leader is Evan Longoria with 185 for Tampa Bay.

On April 17, Mike Trout became the youngest player to 100 home runs and 100 steals, breaking Alex Rodriguez’s record by two months. Trout is more than three months shy of his 24^th birthday. The list of players to 100 homers faster than Trout – 10 in all – includes six Hall of Famers, one HOF-worthy (ARod), one future HOFer (Giancarlo Stanton) and two good players -- Tony Conigliaro and Andruw Jones. And hitting home runs isn’t Trout’s signature skill.

Diamondback hurler Josh Collmenter might want to retire now. He became the first pitcher to complete a game in 2015 with a four-hit whitewashing of the defending champs last night. He also threw the first shutout in baseball this year. He also piled up three hits, a run scored and an RBI.

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.