Undervalued Wax – Dan Haren

Recently Dan signed a long term deal with the Diamondbacks at 4 years for $44.75 million.  That should have been a wake up call to the world of card collectors.  Dan Haren is for real.  Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, Dan is mired to the bargain bin for his autographed cards.  Over the past several days, I have noticed an alarming amount of his cards going for between $0.99 and $2.25.  Now, he is no Nolan Ryan, but he has done something, not too many pitchers have done, and that’s win more than 14 games 3 years in a row (4 if you include this year where he is already at 12-6).

The Diamondbacks have a potentially explosive team, I am not sure as to why they seem to struggle year in and year out after winning the World Series back in 2001.  They have a couple of top flight starters in Webb, Haren, Johnson, and Owings.  Their position players are loaded with the likes of Jackson, Reynolds, Drew, Young and Upton.  They currently lead the NL West but it might not be for long the way the Dodgers have been playing lately.  Dan Haren is a huge part of why they are in first.

He has been part of some big trades in his career.  Ironically, he was traded to the A’s by the Cardinals to get then ace, Mark Mulder, then once Dan was the ace, he was traded to the Diamondbacks, where three of the players sent will be in the rotation by year’s end (Brett Anderson, Dana Eveland, and Greg Smith).  The end result though is that Daren gets to spend his prime years with the Diamondbacks.  He has the potential to battle Webb each year to win the Cy Young, yet his cards get no respect.

Right now on eBay you can get the following cards for less than $2, and the only reason I’m letting you in on this is that I already got my quote of his signature cards for the year (8), none cost more than $1.50.