The Cub Reporter poses these questions about the Cardinals:

1) St. Louis: Mark Mulder was long a great pitcher in Oakland, though most of his numbers (strikeout rate, walk rate, age) were heading in the wrong direction. Will Mulder be much better than Danny Haren, who the Cards gave up in the deal, even next year? Or better than Woody Williams for that matter? How much will the losses of Williams, Renteria, Womack, and Matheny affect the team?

So how will the Cards fare?

a) Mulder will be better than Haren next year. Unless Mulder doesn't play. Haren could be a good pitcher in the future, but next year he's no better than a number three.

b) Williams could hurt. Womack and Matheny will do the oposite of hurting though. They'll do their hurting for other teams. First I'll assume Molina will be Mike Matheny this year. That's a little low projection but it's safe.

The middle infield:

Player   Line
Womack   .307/.349/.385/.735
Grudz    .307/.347/.432/.779
Renteria .287/.327/.401/.728
Eckstien .276/.339/.332/.671

Raw numbers balance out pretty well, of course Womack will probably regress, Renteria could do better, but as far as comparisons go the Cardinals aren't giving up much on last year. Since the Cards saved almost $6 million in the deal they came out ahead.

The Cardinals are in effect replacing Williams with Mulder, a deal I think should work out for the Cards quite well. But worst case I can't see Mulder being any worse than Woody.

Basically the Cardinals managed to update the roster and find themselves at least equal to where they were last year, with a full year of Larry Walker thrown in and a big chunk of savings to throw around at the trading deadline.

The Cardinals were the best team in the central, and they havn't lost any ground. If Womack collapses and Renteria doesn't take a step up they'll end up much better off than they would have been if the Cards had brought their middle infield back.

Worst case in the short term is break even (in the long term Haren could end up being more valuable than Mulder).

Best Case Mulder recovers from whatever was bothering him last year and is a clear improvement on Williams.