The Truth Is Out There

I am constantly amazed by the number of informed, analyticalpeople who blog about baseball everyday, and I don’t mean people who do it for a living. I would much rather read the views of my fellow bloggers instead of many of the so-called professional sportswriters and columnists around today. I don’t know how some of you come up with so many statistics or pull them all together to make informative posts, but chances are I will come to read MLBlogs when I’m looking for answers before going to the major sports websites.

I view the game purely from a fan’s perspective so what I have are just opinions, and I know I’ve been a little critical of the Diamondbacks’ front office for some of the moves and non-moves this year. As the hot stove season has begun to heat up, I’m starting to understand why the Arizona brass may have taken the direction it has (the color change notwithstanding). It’s like living in bizarro world. The free agent pitching market is out of control. If Adam Eaton, a pitcher who was injured most of last year and posted a 7-4 record with a 5.12 earned-run average in 13 starts, can get a 3 year guaranteed $24.5 million contract and a relief pitcher who only worked in 12 games last year where he recorded more than three outs can command a three-year contract worth $12 million then I’m not sure that’s a bidding war with which I would want to be involved either.

Obviously, the D-backs are rebuilding with lot of young talent (although it's talent that has not yet been proven to hold up over the course of a 162 game Major League season). If they were one pitcher or position player away from making a bona-fide run for the championship I would probably feel differently. Yes, the name “Doug Davis”, when spoken in the same sentence as “workhorse”, stirs up old nightmares with names like Russ Ortiz and Rick Helling; but the wonderful dream in which the D-backs sign Barry Zito or Jason Schmidt was long since put to rest after counting about the 99^th sheep. Of course, everybody would like the same thing: good, solid ballplayers with a small price tag that can take you to the Promised Land.

I am appealing to all of my blogging buddies, the great baseball minds of MLBlogs, to explain to me (a fan) why it would be better for the Diamondbacks to sign free agent Mark Mulder instead of re-signing Miguel Batista. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that it's not going to happen, that Batista was more or less run out of town on the back of a golf cart along with Luis Gonzalez and Craig Counsell at the end of the season and the fact that Batista is 35 years old and Mulder is 29. 

In the St Louis Post Dispatch there is an article about pricey pitching which reveals the fact that the Cardinals feel they have a better chance at keeping Mark Mulder than Jeff Suppan but that Miguel Batista might be a less costly option. 

“Jocketty on Friday stated a belief that the Cardinals had a better chance of retaining free-agent lefthander Mark Mulder than NLCS Most Valuable Player Suppan. Suppan is rated a "Type A" free agent; Mulder is coming off shoulder surgery on Sept. 12 and can be had for a shorter length of contract at a reduced price.

The club tendered Suppan a three-year offer last month, according to a source, but the annual average value did not approach the $8 million going rate for No. 3 starters in this market. 

Mulder, a Scottsdale, Ariz , resident, visited with the Arizona Diamondbacks last week. The Diamondbacks' prohibition against incentives may work in their favor as they may offer a larger base salary to a pitcher not expected to return from rotator cuff surgery until July. Mulder is set to be married this month. 

The Cardinals may explore less costly options, including free agents Miguel Batista or Vicente Padilla, who were offered arbitration by the Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers, respectively, Friday night.

Batista, who turns 36 in February, will probably fit within the Cardinals' desire for a shorter-term deal. The righthander earned $4.75 million last season while going 11-8 with a 4.58 ERA. He also offers unusual versatility, as the Toronto Blue Jays employed him as their closer in 2005. In 2003, 2004 and 2006, Batista averaged 199 innings while defining himself as a groundball pitcher. Command has proven a greater challenge. Batista walked 180 against 214 strikeouts in his last two seasons as a starter.”

If Batista is a good enough alternative for the Cardinals then why was he never considered good enough for the D-backs? Why would the D-backs, who would have to pay more upfront for a damaged pitcher than for a proven dependable starter, go for Mulder instead?

Arguably, you could say that signing any player is always a risk and you gamble that they won’t get hurt. In the article, Jocketty speaks about newly acquired pitcher Kip Wells saying, “In Wells' case, we got a guy everyone agrees will be very good if he stays healthy.” The difference is that there is no guarantee that Wells will ever get hurt again. In Mulder’s case there is no guarantee he will ever be healthy again. 

Is Arizona merely seeking to sign a big name pitcher for the sake of doing it even though he’s probably the riskiest and therefore most affordable big name pitcher on the market? It seems like a legitimate question so I have to ask. I can't help but feel like I must be missing something.