I hated this deal the moment I heard it was in the works. I’d seen Haren pitch in L.A. in 2003, and he looked great moving the ball around against Dodger batters. Then to see him pitch so well in the playoffs the next year, you could just tell he had something special in his make-up.

Then Jocketty made things worse by signing Mulder to an extension after he couldn’t finish the 2006 season. It was clear that deal was done to help justify the bad Haren trade, hoping that Mulder would at some point contribute something in St. Louis. So far, no good. I just wish dude could get healthy to show us what enticed Jocketty in the first place.

Let’s take what is still a leap to assume that Mulder will return as a competitive pitcher with his new arm slot. When Mulder’s shoulder went bad, what if he had changed his delivery right then? Could he have avoided the 9-12 month rehab (with the history we all know) and been where he is now in July 2006? It seems like all the cutting and rehab didn’t fix what was wrong with his shoulder. He’s now just working around the “impingement” that still keeps him from reaching his old arm slot. Is this an accurate description?

Is the underlying hip injury that supposedly led to Mulder’s shoulder problems healed or corrected?

Cards compounded the problem by passing on Brett Anderson 3 times and taking the 3 year older, less polished version of Anderson in Brad Furnish.

The passing of Porcello gets a ton of coverage, the passing on Melville will likely get some if he signs..but to me the passing on Brett Anderson for what amounted to be 350K was the biggest mistake the Cards have made under Luhnow’s control.

Great stuff as always Derrick…keep us up to date on the Walrus Watch…it is going into day 19.

:_)

derek- could you ppppppppppppleasssssssse stop reminding us of this horrible event in cardinal fans livesssssssss???!!
it is so brutal to be reminded of how we don’t have haren anymore.
the only person who feels worse than alot of fans is most likely dave duncan.
the story last year that quoted tlr about how much division there was between them after the trade brought back alot of painful memories..
let’s move on, and talk about our future—not the past.

I’m going to go puke now. Thanks, Derrick!

It’s funny what Oakland fans think of this… I live in the Bay Area and for the most part they all consider it some sort of karmic payback for the McGwire deal taking their best player in a long time and giving them nearly nothing in return. If you want a lopsided deal, look no further than the Big Mac trade. At least with the Mulder deal it wasn’t an instant failure. Injuries happen. For all anyone in St. Louis knew, we were getting a guy who was going to win 20 games a year for a few years and take the team over the playoff hump and into the series… and sometimes it just doesn’t work out!

And to think, the way the story is told, Walt was driving hard to have Jason Marquis replace Dan Haren in the Mark Mulder deal.

Dear Derrick
For me, the most worrying feature of this debacle is that Mark Mulder was already struggling at Oakland before the trade was done. In 2004, Mulder enjoyed a great first half of the season. However, he was not the same pitcher in the second half of the season, losing game after game and seeing his ERA soar. And yet the Cardinals simply ignored this. The fact is, the Cardinals bought damaged goods.
Overall, Walt Jocketty did an outstanding job for the Cardinals. However, his desire for experienced players meant he neglected the farm system and was willing to trade away the few good youngsters the Cardinals had. When challenged over this by the appointment of Jeff Luhnow, he sulked. How can a grown man refuse to speak to a crucial colleague? (Perhaps Scott Rolen can answer that one.)
The Mulder deal is not the only bad deal that was done in Jocketty’s time, simply the worst. We are still paying the price.
Regards
Dominic

My only issue is whether Mulder was already hurt when traded, and the A’s knew it. Otherwise, as the hoary cliché has it, “that’s the way the ball bounces.”

I am just hoping someway, somehow Haren finds his way back to St. Louis while he still has something left in the tank. In three years (two if the D-Backs don’t exercise their $6.75 million option, yeah right) he could hit the open market. Then the Cardinal Nation pain would be for only a couple of years not a lifetime.

Isn’t it ironic that in response to not “missing any bats” in the 2004 WS the Redbirds stated goal was to find someone that could, and that someone ended up being Mark Mulder, never the King of K’s? In return, the Cards gave up a guy that struck out 192 last year. Ouch.

To piggyback what Bill Rogers said above… with Mulder’s uber-collapse the last 2 months of 2004, has anyone ever thought to ask (or asked) Billy Beane 2 questions?, “What did you know, and when did you know it?”

Having seen Mulder for 5 years since I live in NoCal, I liked the deal, thinking “Muldew” would win 25 a year in StL. I think we all hated to see Haren go. It’s painful to see Haren pitch, it really is.

You think you’re unhappy about this trade now, wait till the little bears acquire Haren before the trade deadline as is currently rumored and sign him to a long term deal to torment us 3 or 4 times every year.

I think we have to be realistic about Mulder, he’s probably done. If he pitches against KC this weekend, I’ll bet that he’ll get torched. How many soft throwing lefty’s with command issues are going to be successful in the Bigs? I hope I’m wrong, but I really don’t seeing him being an upgrade over what we currently have when healthy. If Wellemeyer is truly OK, then you really can’t argue that Lohse, Wellemeyer, Looper and Piniero haven’t given us a lot of quality starts and I can’t see Mulder replacing any of them the way they are currently pitching. I assume Wainwright is going to be gone longer than advertised with his tendon issue, but unless Mulder is much better than he has been, I’ll take my chances with Boggs.

Bottom line is that trades more often than not don’t work out for both clubs and we clearly got the short end of this one. My only concern is did we really look into Mulder’s health before we pulled the trigger. There seems to have been concerns voiced about his declining performance/health prior to the trade on a number of fronts.

Hindsight is obviously 20-20. At the time, I thought it was a good deal. And compared to Steve Carlton for Rick Wise, this is nothing.

Problem was PE testing started in 2005. Mulder lost mph once he and fellow west coasters could no longer make trips to Mexico.

Hey, grow up people. In this game, it’s all about the W’s. Low ERA’s are great when you’re negotiating, but the bottom line is Mulder’s win pct. is .550, “The Haul”’s win pct. - .541. It’s a wash. Don’t try to make Jocketty out to be a rube who got fleeced. Injuries happen, and you usually can’t predict them.

If everyone wasn’t in love with Ankiel, that deal would have never happened. We could have traded Ankiel to Oakland instead of Haren, but the Cards wouldn’t let anyone touch their young Musuial. I love Ankiel more than anyone, and what he’s done is unbelievable, but what would you rather have, a pretty good outfielder or a top of the rotation starter?

Interesting discussion, particularly Bill Rogers comment above about ‘whether Mulder was already hurt when traded’. I’ve wondered to what extent the situation is simply ‘buyer beware’. Does it all hinge on the buyer’s opportunity for a physical exam? Is it a given that players and teams have no obligation to reveal injuries, and will attempt to conceal them?

It is too bad that this deal occurred, as I would love to see Haren in a Cardinals uniform today. The problem is that we won a World Series since then, and I would not change the deal in hindsight. What happens if Haren starts Game 1 of the WS in Detroit and gets shelled? The entire complexion of the series changes, and the Cards might not win it. I’ll take Mulder, bum shoulder and all, and that beautiful WS flag hanging in Busch over Dan Haren, Daric Barton, and Kiko Calero.

What struck me — more than the W-L, more than the ERA — was the quantity of innings (and starts) that Oakland got from that one deal. The Cardinals have personified the value of known quantities when it comes to starting pitchers. Think back to the hallmark of the 100-win teams: A steady rotation. Consider what’s happened the past two seasons: A mad scramble for healthy, available, emergency (Tomo Ohka!) arms to come up with any rotation possible at that time.

The Wild Cards in this trade are injuries and the World Series win. It ate at Mulder that all he got to contribute to that season was a few wins — and a prominent role in the on-field celebration after the final out. He was brought to St. Louis as the final-kick for such a championship, and he here it happened and he was … injured.

The hip trouble has passed. Mulder believes the drop in velocity, the shoulder injuries, the trouble — all of that was part of and even the culmination of a steady erosion of his mechanics and health.

It started before he came to the Cardinals, because as he said in Strauss’ article he won 16 games with “smoke and mirrors.”

dg
-30-

Derrick,
Thanks for the answer about Mulder’s hip. Is his new arm slot something he could have started two years ago instead of surgery? I would think pitchers in earlier generations might have often resorted to alternative mechanics, in the age before sophisticated orthopedic surgeries allowed such injuries to be “fixed.”

Let us know when you might be taking PCQs again. I prefer send my questions to you, because it saves the trouble of inventing bizarre Chatmeister salutations for Strauss.

Fuhrig,

Interesting question: Could Mulder have moved his arm slot a year ago? Short answer: No. There was a physical reason why Mulder could not throw and that rotator cuff had to be repaired. When the first repair didn’t take entirely — always a possibility when it comes to surgery — he needed the second surgery to get healthy.

That prompted this lengthy rehab for healthy but also afforded him time to repair his mechanics. He said they looked at video of him when he was younger and healthier and determined that his slot was up and it had dropped over time. So, they worked to RESTORE that arm slot. As you mention it’s not unusual for a pitcher to try different arm slots for comfort during a career. Whatever the shoulder will allow. As a scout said to me in Springfield as Mulder threw: “Look at John Smoltz.”

PostCards will return this week. Started digging into the questions last night and will do so again during tonight’s game. I do think I need to up the price of admission to hit the ‘bag with the Bard of Blogs …

Oh, heck, I can’t even fake it.

dg
-30-

The galling thing about the Mulder trade is that it was very clear from his catastrophic decline in the second half of 2004 that something quite serious was wrong with him physically. The A’s (and/or Mulder himself) explained this as “fatigue,” and the Cardinals apparently bought it. Abysmally stupid. In my opinion, the Cardinals (i.e., Jocketty) were motivated to make the trade because: 1) Tony is in love with anything left handed pitchers (if he had stayed in California, he could marry a left handed pitcher now; too bad); 2)Tony drastically under-rated Haren because at the time his MO was to avoid inexperienced players at all costs (remember he was going to pick Bobby Bonilla over Pujols); 3)there was a lot of media pressure to match the move the Braves made in picking up Hudson from the Braves. All of these motivations are horrendously stupid, and (I think) eventually cost Jocketty his job. Tony deserved the sack too, but I believe he is a changed man since cirumstances forced him to rely on young pitching in the 2006 post-season, which delivered him his first non-earthquake-assisted championship. So it’s time to move on. Mulder is toast (toast who happens to hold a big claim on Cardinals’ revenues). The Old Griz.

At the time I hated giving up Haren, but I could see why management thought it was a good idea. Mulder was the one of the top-ten pitchers throwing at the time. I think we all could tell that Haren had the stuff to be really good, but a lot of pitchers have great stuff ad can’t put it together. The odds that Haren would realize his full potential, as he has, were low.
This also took place during the time when Larussa refused to play any players and especially pitchers who were less than 25 years old. I just hope the same thing doesn’t happen to the young pitchers we have now. It seems they’ve already given up on Anthony Reyes, and that’s bad enough. TLR and Duncan have a ton of wisdom regarding pitchers, but after Reyes failed to producing using the sinker style they imposed on him they should have let him pitch the way he wanted. He couldn’t get any worse than last year. If we trade Anthony this year, and he gets a coach that will work with him rather than against him he’ll be the next Dan Haren.

I’m just sick of hearing about Mulder and Clement. People, people please, they ain’t coming back and they ain’t gonna contribute to this team, not this year, not next year, not ever. It’s time to think about packaging up some talent and getting another starter at the deadline (if the Cards are still in contention, which I’ll bet they will be, depending a lot on this road trip). I do not want to hear anymore of this pinning our title hopes on has beens and retreads. As Jim and Tammy Faye used to say, “enough is enough”.

Say what you want..but that deal for Mulder was on link in an chain of events that help lead the Cards to the 2006 WS title.

Could we have won with Haren? Sure
Would we have been better with Haren in 2006? Yes

But we dont know for sure, maybe if we keep Haren we dont get Eckstein, who doesnt win the WS MVP.

Maybe we keep Grudz and Belliard doesnt make that game saving diving catch in SD.

Maybe Kiko Calero is on the team and there isnt a need to bring up a tall right hander named Adam to pitch in the bullpen.

Of course I would love to go back and change the deal…but with having so many things go right in 2006…I dont think we get the same results.

So I would make that Mulder deal everytime if it resulted in a WS title.

Indirectly or directly….the trade of Haren for Mulder in some way helped this team win a WS.

You get what I am talking about? Sometimes even the worst things play a positive role in what happens!

What people forget is at the time the deal was made the Cards were looking for a front-line proven starting pitcher to take them further into the playoffs. While I’m sure they felt Haren would be a good future starting pitcher prospect, the pressure was on Jocketty because of the advancing age of some of the teams stars to adopt the ” The future is now ” team policy and beside that St Louis fans were crying not just for a playoff winner but a World Series winner. With Carpenter as the one punch, I’m sure they felt they needed a one-two punch in the playoffs and in adding Mulder they felt they getting that. Many teams have mortaged part of their future in order to win today. If the Cards had won a World Series with Mulder the deal would have been look at as a brilliant move by the fans today. — Ed H

When dealing with arms this expensive I wonder how much research is put into looking at video of things like pitchers arm slots, velocity, degree of movement etc. It is hard to imagine that the A’s didn’t fulling understand the problems that Mulder was experiencing with the degree to which they are said to measure such.

Mulder isn’t the only problem on the club. As I look at the transaction list for this year, the Cards are tied for second with 20 (and several more in the coming days we expect). In first place with 22 are the Tigers (the year’s biggest disappointment) and tied with the Cards are the Rockies (right up there with Detroit as far as drop-offs). Signs confirming Bernie’s judgement that our manager is doing another bang up job. (As I have mentioned before, it seems as if Bernie calls each year Tony’s best managerial year to date. This year should be no exception.)

DG, you re-opened a can of worms on steroids with this blog

this article is another example of why I cant stand or deal with the post disgrace
If its either being reminded of how Jocketty made 2 bad deals in his tenure as GM or How much of a great manager whitey Herzog is and was and how his name always pops up when Tony decides or is on the verge of walking away…makes me sick and feel the after effects of a long night of Jack/Coke on ice.
Whitey is a quitter and not a great manager
The Mulder deal is not like the cardinals traded a player the caliber of a Pujols,Molina,Wainwright.
Last time I checked this morning the year was 2008 and this town, writers for the disgrace and “cardinal” fans are still ranting abut this deal

A quote from one of my favorite 80’s movies that sums up this article,everyones comments…”Its over ,Johnny…ITS OVER!!’-FIRST BLOOD 1982

It’s always tricky to play The Time Traveller* with these things, but it wouldn’t take long to unravel time and find an alternate reality where not dealing Haren for Mulder means not needing to acquire Jeff Weaver (for Terry Evans, mind you) and where would that leave the Cardinals come the World Series?

Not sure what you mean, but cans of worms are welcome. They ain’t pretty but they’re necessary.

* Too obscure of a reference? Sorry. Perhaps Quantum Leap, Rip Hunter, or Dr. Who would have been the better time traveler to use instead of referencing H.G. Well’s unnamed chap.

dg
-30-

arguably the worst trade in cardinals history.

Apologies to Rick Wise, but two words: Steve Carlton.

In an interesting twist, Wise’s best win total as a Cardinal was … 16.

dg
-30-

i know that the a’s have a rich pitching history. with great success like catfish, vida, etc. but i also remember guys named norris, kingman (brian - not dave) and a slew of two year wonders whose ruined, worn out arms halted an otherwise promising career. unfortunately, billy ball (both bean and martin) requires getting the absolute most from young players before they become pricey. and often when they are dealt, they incur injuries. point is, when dealing with the a’s let the buyer beware. i’ve been in northern cal thirty years now, and watched the a’s win consistently often at the expense of young pitching careers.
my other comment is regarding the proficiency of the cardinal medical staff. their track record is not the greatest. derrick, i wish one of you guys would do an in depth series on the medical aspect of the game. people love medical thrillers and at least with the cards, the medical side seems full of action.
and last but not least, st. louis fans ARE the smartest on the planet.

I don’t remember the story last year about the conflict over the Haren trade, between tlr and whom, Duncan? I saw one of the responses and just don’t remember that story.

I can’t even say, much less type, the name Dan Ha… And I certainly can’t watch the guy pitch. It just hurts too darn much. That trade was a tragedy of epic proportions in baseball terms.

It is natural to second guess a trade in hindsight. However, what really makes this trade hard to comprehend is that Mulder is not the pitcher they needed. The 04 series made it obvious that the Cards, although a great regular season team that as currently configured could pile up the wins with starting pitching, did not match-up well. This was because the starters did not make guys swing and miss enough. Recent championship teams (the 01 D-backs being the best example) had a top-heavy 1-2 starting rotation that could dominate a playoff series by starting 6 of 7 games. The 04 team had Carp (although hurt for the playoffs) and needed another front-end starter. So they traded for Mulder.

But Mulder was never a power pitcher who made guys swing and miss. I did not like that trade right when it was made for that reason. Anyone who could have looked beyond Mulder’s gaudy W-L record would not have made that trade and looked elsewhere for a front-end starter. To this day, I am surprised the Card’s brain trust did not, apparently, realize that Mulder was not the pitcher they needed. Hindsight was not needed to see this at the time.

What has become apparent with hindsight, as pointed out elsewhere, is the injury issue. Not just Mulder, but Hudson and Zito have not yet enjoyed the same level of success they had as A’s. And probably never well. I think that tells you a lot about the A’s handling of young pitchers. Not that the Cards are a model for player development and injury issues either. Although this trade was bad, would you rather be the Giants and have $126 million tied up in Zito? I think not, so take heart Cards fans, it could have been worse. S

till though, this trade should not have been made because even a healthy Mulder was not the player the Cards needed after 04.

GREAT story. I’ve been sick about this trade since the ‘Birds made it. Of course, you never know until you know and, overall, Jocketty did more than a decent job as the GM, but a guy had to have seen something in him when he was a 24-year old during the ‘04 post season! Haren was nails! At the same, one has to wonder about Mulder’s character.

I hated to see Haren go - I liked the way he went after hitters and he was a bargain compared to Mulder. But, I understood the desire for a lefty impact starter at the time.

“Impingement syndrome” is such a bogus diagnosis. So, he’s had two surgeries and suddenly he’s developed an impingement which was correctable during either procedure? Whatever. . . his flexibility sucks from all the scar tissue created during the two procedures, that’s all. He needs some Active Release Technique treatments from Dr. Leahy out in Colorado like Saberhagen had during his comeback (2 treatments, 1 hour, 4 mph - enough said). A lower arm slot may be in order at this point in his career, but only after the underlying cause of the problem is actually treated rather than ignored.

If the Cards hired Nelson Ayotte from the Blues, the team would be much better off as far as strength and conditioning goes - then maybe we wouldn’t have these largely avoidable problems to begin with.

While this wasn’t a beautiful moment in Jocketty’s tenure, the Cards did win the 2006 World Series. While Haren might have made the Cards a more of a sure thing that year (probably not), it’s important to keep in mind that the A’s haven’t gotten a whiff of the the World Series, and haven’t had nearly the post season success in the past 10 years as the Cards have.

But keeping Haren sure looks great now.

Caveat Emptor!

Did the Cards win in ‘06 BECAUSE of Jockety, or DESPITE him? Watching this year’s resurgence of young talent makes it clear it was time for Walt to step down.

When is it time to give up on Mulder?Two surgeries,and a host of other problems.I think the cardinals are going up the wrong road on this guy.He’ll never be the same again,so why keep up the hope. Its time to move on.

I’m not defending the trade, but the numbers differential do not seem to be so staggering to me. They show we would have 30 more wins had we kept Harren, but “The Haul” also produced 26 more losses. So, had we not traded, the figures show we would have gotten a lot more innings pitched but the end result is we would have had 4 more victories over a 3.5 year period — or, we would have one more win per year if we had kept Harren than have had with Mulder. It just doesn’t seem particularly significant to me. But, the money the Cards would have saved would have been exceptional.

When the deal was swung before the 2005 season the Cards were a team that was really close. They were a veteran bunch and many felt like the Birds were an ace pitcher away from a championship. It was a bittersweet deal. We were trading away a young promising pitcher in return for one of the premier pitchers in the game. You can’t place the blame on Jocketty. It was a deal at the time which was best for the team.

DG, what is going on with The Walrus right now? Great stuff as always.

Derrick,

On a completely unrelated subject …. I noticed that the Bosox were considering sending a complaint to MLB because they believed that the Phillies were stealing their signs. I found that particularly interesting because I noticed the Cardinal catchers were often giving multiple signs to the pitchers when no one was on second base. Since I haven’t noticed the Cards doing that in any other venue, is this a matter of ‘what goes around comes around’ with Boston? Have you heard any whispers of sign stealing during the series?

Perhaps stealing information from St. Louis teams might be some sort of Massachusetts disease? (talk about a can of worms)

How about trading Mulder to the REDS? Jocketty can have him back.

Dear dave

Thats cool that your from the bay area maybe you dont remimber the bigmac trad because the atletics had someone else in the clubhouse waiting ohhhh wait a minute that was none other than Jason Giambi and if i do recall he has played alot longer and has been doing farlywell altough he is no longer helping the As. So i wouldnt say it was a lopsided trade it just made since at the time. Even if you would have had Big Mac the As still would not have made it to the series he didnt even help us get to the series.