Mulder, what's the deal Cards fans ?

[titanut]

12 starts this year, he's given up 5 or more runs in 5 of them. I haven't
seen him pitch. The results suck, but, how does he look? IMO, you
can't trust a pitcher who gets lit up 50% of his starts.

[SaintsOfTheDiamond]

I wasn't expecting the Mulder of the first half of '04, but I wasn't expecting him to get lit up quite like this this early either. He's been kinda streaky from what I've seen. He will have a couple of good starts (like COL last week) followed by an outing like today. I don't want to venture a guess as to what he'll do the rest of the year because at this point he seems unpredictable to say the least as seen by his last two starts.

[BobbyRoberto]

Yeah, something's odd with Mulder, with such great outings and some real stinkers. Still, I didn't expect him to be an elite starter this year and avoided him in drafts because he was brutal in the 2nd half last year and his K/9 has dropped from '02 to '03 and again from '03 to '04.

This year, it's dropped again, down to 5.33. Luckily, he has the Cardinals offense behind him, so his record is 7-2.

Interesting look at the Oakland trade of Mulder, after ~1/3rd of the season:

Mulder: 77.2 inn, 5.33 k/9, 2.1 k/bb, 4.17 era, 1.34 whip
Haren: 69.1 inn, 6.75 k/9, 1.9 k/bb, 4.15 era, 1.38 whip

Plus, Mulder is making $6.5M this season to Haren's $325,000 and Oakland got 2 other players in the deal.

[beltrans_boy]

Yeah, something's odd with Mulder, with such great outings and some real stinkers. Still, I didn't expect him to be an elite starter this year and avoided him in drafts because he was brutal in the 2nd half last year and his K/9 has dropped from '02 to '03 and again from '03 to '04.

This year, it's dropped again, down to 5.33. Luckily, he has the Cardinals offense behind him, so his record is 7-2.

Interesting look at the Oakland trade of Mulder, after ~1/3rd of the season:

Mulder: 77.2 inn, 5.33 k/9, 2.1 k/bb, 4.17 era, 1.34 whip
Haren: 69.1 inn, 6.75 k/9, 1.9 k/bb, 4.15 era, 1.38 whip

Plus, Mulder is making $6.5M this season to Haren's $325,000 and Oakland got 2 other players in the deal.

Seriously. Rynman is sitting pretty with his preseason prediction...

[thehat]

Yeah, something's odd with Mulder, with such great outings and some real stinkers. Still, I didn't expect him to be an elite starter this year and avoided him in drafts because he was brutal in the 2nd half last year and his K/9 has dropped from '02 to '03 and again from '03 to '04.

This year, it's dropped again, down to 5.33. Luckily, he has the Cardinals offense behind him, so his record is 7-2.

Interesting look at the Oakland trade of Mulder, after ~1/3rd of the season:

Mulder: 77.2 inn, 5.33 k/9, 2.1 k/bb, 4.17 era, 1.34 whip
Haren: 69.1 inn, 6.75 k/9, 1.9 k/bb, 4.15 era, 1.38 whip

Plus, Mulder is making $6.5M this season to Haren's $325,000 and Oakland got 2 other players in the deal.

Seriously. Rynman is sitting pretty with his preseason prediction...

Particularly in any auction leagues!!!

[RynMan]

Yeah, something's odd with Mulder, with such great outings and some real stinkers. Still, I didn't expect him to be an elite starter this year and avoided him in drafts because he was brutal in the 2nd half last year and his K/9 has dropped from '02 to '03 and again from '03 to '04.

This year, it's dropped again, down to 5.33. Luckily, he has the Cardinals offense behind him, so his record is 7-2.

Interesting look at the Oakland trade of Mulder, after ~1/3rd of the season:

Mulder: 77.2 inn, 5.33 k/9, 2.1 k/bb, 4.17 era, 1.34 whip
Haren: 69.1 inn, 6.75 k/9, 1.9 k/bb, 4.15 era, 1.38 whip

Plus, Mulder is making $6.5M this season to Haren's $325,000 and Oakland got 2 other players in the deal.

Seriously. Rynman is sitting pretty with his preseason prediction...

Shhhhh!!!! Murphy is near.....

But check out the stats in my sig....this is ridiculous how close their stats are right now. The wins column really represents the teams that they are playing on.

[stumpak]

The interesting thing about the K/9 decline is that by moving to the NL, it shoudl have gone UP, all things being equal. So even a modest decline between his '04 rate and '05 rate is actually a really big decline once you adjust for the DH.

[AKhomebrewer]

All I know about Mulder I learned during the time he spent as a millstone around my team's neck the second half of last season.
The only surprise about his uneven starts this spring is that he's had a few good ones.

[Nerfherders]

I just traded for him so I hope he does well. I think he will easily get 15 wins even if his ERA is in the low 4's. That's not bad, really.

I got a good deal: I traded Mike Lowell straight up, whom I owed $5 to next year. So it works out either way!

[JTWood]

The interesting thing about the K/9 decline is that by moving to the NL, it shoudl have gone UP, all things being equal. So even a modest decline between his '04 rate and '05 rate is actually a really big decline once you adjust for the DH.

This goes with the philosophy that the Cardinals seem to have adopted last year. They had an All-Star infield, and they told their pitchers to keep it over and low and let the guys behind them do the work. The defense isn't quite as spectacular this year, but the same attitude seems to be there with the pitchers. That probably explains the drop in Ks - he's just not trying to strike guys out as much.

As for the equal stats, I have a feeling that Mulder does just a little more for clubhouse confidence, and I'd rather have Mulder pitching Game One or Two of the World Series than Haren. Let's face it: That's why Mulder's in St. Louis and Haren's in Oakland right now.