Dan Haren

Daniel John Haren, known simply as Dan Haren to baseball fans, played 13 seasons in Major League baseball, with his final 11 games coming with the Chicago Cubs.

After being selected 72nd overall in the 2001 MLB Draft, Haren quickly worked his way through the minor league ranks, making his MLB debut with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2003. His time there was brief (just 28 appearances and 19 starts across parts of two seasons), though he did throw 4 2/3 scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 World Series. After the 2004 season, the Cardinals traded Haren in a package that included right-handed reliever Kiko Calero and top hitting prospect Daric Barton to the Oakland Athletics for Mark Mulder.

Haren blossomed with the A's, beginning a streak of seven consecutive seasons with 200-plus innings pitched. Haren's durability was his calling card, as he completed 169-plus innings in every season from 2005 until his retirement in 2015. Despite his longevity and dominance, Haren continued to bounce around the league, pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks (where he finished fifth in NL Cy Young voting in 2009), Los Angeles Angels (where he finished seventh in AL Cy Young voting in 2011), Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Miami Marlins before making his way to the Cubs. Notably, in 2013 with the Nationals, Haren became the 13th pitcher in MLB history to beat all 30 teams. 

Finally, at the 2015 trade deadline, Haren (who was known to be unhappy pitching on the East Coast) was traded to the Cubs in exchange for minor leaguers Elliot Soto and Ivan Pineyro. 34 at the time, Haren immediately made it known that the Cubs would be the final stop of his career. Though he scuffled early upon his move to Chicago, Haren allowed just eight earned runs in 32 2/3 innings over his final six starts. All said, he tallied 187 1/3 innings of 3.60 ERA pitching on the year, making for a productive final campaign. His Cubs career ended unceremoniously when the team elected to keep him off its postseason roster, choosing Jason Hammel as the No. 4 starter in the playoff rotation instead. "That was it for me," Haren said after what would be his final game (a 3-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers). "If I have to pitch in the postseason. I'll be ready for sure." 

Haren was notorious for a methodical pitching approach, often relying on placement and control over velocity and raw stuff. He was also a beloved teammate and fan favorite, routinely laughing at himself and his diminished velocity (his Twitter handle is literally "ithrow88") and "old man" status.

Haren retired following that brief stint with the Cubs, finishing his career with the seventh best strikeout-to-walk ratio in major league history. In the years since, Haren has joined the Diamondbacks organization as a pitching strategist. He was credited with helping the pitching staff dominate on its way to a World Series appearance in 2023.