=== It's All In the Wrist Dept. ===

My own body type, at least when I was 27 :- ) was a lot like Aaron Harang's, as is my throwing motion (primarily as a flag-football QB)...

With a questionable CG transfer (because not light on my feet), but specializing in nose-to-leather finish and accuracy, the stress all goes to the elbow and, especially, forearm.

With command like Harang's, the hard muscle load goes to the ends of the fingers.  It's hard to describe how hard your wrist and fingers are working when you throw like that.

When you're a big guy with an, ahem, feather touch, the verrrrry, very end of your motion is where all the adjustments are made.  Whatever it takes to get the basketball the right distance, from 18 or 22 or 24 feet, the last joints of your 1st and 2nd fingers are pulling frantically to provide the right amount of leverage.

A Roger Clemens, that's a different situation.  He's getting tons of power from his hips, torso, and his shoulder, and the fingers have the luxury of using a delicate feel.   But if you shook hands with Aaron Harang, he'd probably leave you with a sack of nuts and bolts at the end of your arm.

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=== Forearm ===

The thing here is, from experience, I would maintain that Harang's is not an especially dangerous motion; it just leads to extreme fatigue in the forearm, to snap off the ball with the hand like he does to generate power.

That's precisely what Harang, as well as weekend schlub Dr. D, gets into -- screaming forearm muscles.  Take three weeks and you're ready to go again.

That's not to say such a motion is a guarantee against injury.  J.J. Putz is another athlete in this general category, and obviously his elbow gave out.  But J.J. was definitely max-effort, and the splitfinger is supposed to be the toughest pitch on your elbow.  Harang's little pub-darts fastball, and karate-chop slider, are easier on the elbow.

Felix, earlier, was another example of this:  his fingers were working so hard, generating his 1,000,000 rpm fastball spin, that his forearm cried "Uncle."  It wasn't dangerous.  It was just too much for the forearm when he was 22.

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=== Sabermetric ===

Harang did throw 211-234-231 innings three years in a row, but that was in his late 20's, not early 20's before his arm was mature.

Before that, he pitched in the excellent Oakland organization and in the year before his heavy 3-year run, he threw only 164 innings combined.  (If you hadn't noticed, Aaron Harang is the quintessential Billy Beane pitcher.)

As y'know, SSI loves the fact that Harang had a non-baseball DL trip, the appendix, giving him the benefit of two very light years in 2008 and 2009.

...........

OTOH, Ron Shandler has a formula for calculating injury risk, based on IP's trends, and he gives Harang a grade of C.  I mean, it's definitely possible that Harang will come up with a Putz elbow.

All pitchers are health risks, but being a soul brother to Harang myself, I like his chances real well.

My $0.02,

Jeff