Cubs pick up Harden's option for next year

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said Wednesday that doctors found no major problems with pitcher Rich Harden's cantankerous right shoulder.

So Hendry had no problem picking up Harden's $7 million option for 2009.

Harden, the former ace of the Oakland A's pitching staff picked up by the Cubs in a July trade, underwent an MRI arthrogram Tuesday and was examined by Cubs orthopedist Dr. Stephen Gryzlo and doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

"Obviously, Rich has had a long history of some difficulty, but after the arthrogram was diagnosed by Dr. Gryzlo and other experts at Northwestern, it was clearly a situation where the best avenue was not going to be any surgical procedures," Hendry said. "Rich has had, at times, rotator (cuff) tendinitis. But there's been long-standing adaptive changes that every pitcher has in his shoulder."

Hendry termed the problem "subtle instability" (with no tears in the rotator cuff or labrum) in the shoulder and that Harden will be able to do the necessary work in Arizona this winter with the Cubs training staff to be ready for spring training and Opening Day.

Harden was 5-1 with a 2.34 ERA with Oakland before the A's traded him and reliever Chad Gaudin for four players on July 8. With the Cubs, Harden went 5-1 with a 1.77 ERA, including 5 starts in which he recorded double-digit strikeout totals.

The problem for the 26-year-old Harden throughout his career has been staying healthy. He spent a month on Oakland's disabled list earlier this season, and he went from Aug. 29-Sept. 11 between starts at one point with the Cubs. His subsequent starts were Sept. 18 and 25 before he started Game 3 of the National League division series, in which the Cubs were swept by the Dodgers.

The upside is that the Cubs describe Harden's stuff as "world class" when he's healthy. His lifetime record is 41-20 with a 3.23 ERA.

"Rich Hardens are hard to find," Hendry said. "If you told me today we were going to get 24 or 25 good starts out of Rich next year and we're going to have to push him back or miss a start or 2 here or there, I'd do that in a heartbeat.

"I've beaten a dead horse with this. If Rich Harden had no issues at all from a medical standpoint, you would never even be able to come close to acquiring him."