After spectacular years in 2006 and 2007, Aaron Harang produced two lackluster stat-lines over the last two seasons. Last season, he showed some improvement but still posted a 4.21 ERA and 1.41 WHIP with only 6 wins to his name. Fantasy managers are concerned with his performance declines but there is more to Harang's numbers beneath the surface.

Looking at MockDraftCentral's average draft positions, Harang is hovering at pick 320. That is around the 26th round in most 12 team drafts-late enough for him to go undrafted. Fantasy mangers are overlooking Harang because of his last two seasons but he has room for improvement.

Harang managed paltry win numbers for a Cincinnati Reds team that finished the season just shy of .500. Not surprisingly, the Reds managed only 3.22 runs/game when Harang pitched, the lowest run support in baseball for pitchers with 162+ innings. The Reds traded Willy Taveras (.240 AVG) and signed Orlando Cabrera this winter in the hopes of creating offensive support for their starting rotation. We have to expect a bit more support for Harang in 2010 which could lead to 12+ wins.

The home-run to fly-ball ratio is an important statistic when analyzing fantasy pitchers. If a pitcher's season ratio was significantly higher than previous seasons we can expect a move toward his career average. Harang's HR/Fly-Ball ratio ended with a 12% ratio due to a 10%/14% split in the first and second half of the season, respectively. A move toward his career average of 10% could result in a few less runs, moving his 4.21 ERA back below 4.00 in 2010.

As for Harang's 1.41 WHIP in 2009, his BABIP (or AVG for balls put in play) was significantly high at 34%. The league average is around 30% which Harang last managed in 2007 when his WHIP ended up at 1.14. Of course there are more factors involved with WHIP but a decline in BABIP could trigger a slight drop in WHIP and ERA.

Starting pitchers being taken over Harang include Barry Zito, Gil Meche, Aaron Cook, and Homer Bailey. With his high strikeout rate, Harang is going to give you far superior numbers over these starters. Do not be afraid to reach a little on Harang later in the draft as it appears most managers are not looking for him to improve over last season.