With Sidney Ponson and Kirk Rueter rumors floating around, I wanted to do something besides think about potential additions to the 2006 roster. There's just not an appropriate response to the prospects of a Cardinal pitcher coming off a 0.53 K/BB last year. Dan of GUB kinda beat me to another potential topic, how Cardinals are faring in winter ball. I suppose I can add that Yadier Molina's hacked his way to a 830 OPS while DH-ing and we may get some practice for the "Free Johnny Rodriguez" campaign. Omar Olivares is still pitching evidently.

One other possible topic is the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Mulder trade. I didn't want to re-hash what was said a year ago. Or at least that would be the plan.

My original goal was to say nice things about Mark Mulder, maybe even predict that he'd be the best Cardinals pitcher in 2006. To re-hash a bit, the Cardinals should've been going for the brass ring in 2005, and there wasn't much else to do besides find a Game 2 starter. Go back and look at those strikeout to walk ratios from 2001 to 2003 and the Adjusted ERA+'s. This was a very good pitcher and last winter when he was looking for that Game 2 starter, Jocketty couldn't have done much better. As it turns out, Mulder pitched well in the post-season even with a case of the yips in the elimination game. Roy Oswalt just happened to pitch better.

Like I said, the original goal was to say nice things. You see, at the end of business on July 3rd, Mulder had a 4.63 ERA in 107 innings. For the remainder of the season he had a 2.57 ERA and that's not just an arbitrary endpoint either. OK, maybe it is, but right at that time Duncan was waving videotape around and saying he could solve Mulder's problems while Mulder was saying he hadn't been listening but now would. The thing is, I shot down my own theory about Mulder and Duncan with a little more research. It turns out Mulder had a 45/37 K/BB during that pretty ERA stretch, and if you looked at those old K/BB's you know that isn't the old Mulder. Mulder has become more of a groundball pitcher, but even in an ideal world that's trading a Porsche for a Buick.

Now I'm back to square one, a nattering nabob of negativity once again. Actually I'd say that it's worse than it was a year ago, as the Cardinals have had time to "fix" Mulder and didn't in all likelihood. Further, the Cardinals are likely to think they did fix him, much as thought they fixed Jeff Fassero in 2002. Then there's the fact that Mulder's numbers should've improved when moving to the National League. What the hell happened to him?

I do have one friendlier take on the trade, even though it's old news to some. Daric Barton continued to hit, posting 900 OPSs at both high-A and AA. His power came down from a year ago, so the debate now seems to be whether he'll be John Olerud or non-Petco Brian Giles. Either way he looks like a major league regular, answering the general question about position prospects in positive fashion. The specific question for him -- does he have a defensive position -- isn't going so well. His defense at 1B hasn't drawn rave reviews and more relevant to our cause, the A's have barely tried at him in the outfield. In fact, in the two months he spent at AA, this is the only game I could find where he played in the outfield and that's because it was "Cardinal What-Ifs in Right Field Night". With Barton's physique, as an outfielder he would've been a deluxe version of Craig Wilson -- they graduated from the same high school! -- and thus much as it pains me to say it, the Cardinals were going to have to trade Barton eventually.

That's my nice thing, that Barton was going to be traded. While it may not sound like much, I was a charter member of the Daric Barton Fan Club. I've been forced to give up my grand hypothetical of Barton picking up the slack as Edmonds started to go into the sunset. Granted that the Cardinals would've traded him at some future date, the Cardinals would've been better off trading Barton for Jeff Brantley, keeping Haren and Calero.

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I really didn't mean go down that path, and I feel especially silly focusing on the negatives for a franchise coming off consecutive 100-win seasons. So how about exploring a different facet of Jocketty's work? The consensus on Jocketty has been that he's a good trader and not-so-good in the free agent market. But look at how free agent and trade acquisitions have matched-up the last two years:

(1) Chris Carpenter is the best free agent pickup in Cardinals history. Mark Mulder could end up like Ernie Broglio. Score a big one for the free agents.

(2) The Cardinals traded JD Drew for Jason Marquis, Ray King and Adam Wainwright. About the same time, they acquired free agents Jeff Suppan, who matches Marquis nicely, and Julian Tavarez, who matched Ray King nicely. It's too early to call Wainwright a bust and King was flipped (that will give Jocketty a bad back) for potentially useful players, but with Drew having an MVP-caliber campaign in 2004, the free agent moves are at worst a tie with the trades.

(3) Larry Walker was acquired via trade and Reggie Sanders was acquired via free agency. They're about the same age and they even car-pooled together. While both had their post-season struggles, Walker did contribute a little more. His salary was a little higher than Sanders' though. The Cardinals picked the main chip in the Walker trade, Chris Narveson, off the waiver wire. It's close, but I'll give the edge to the trades here.

(4) Tony Womack was acquired via a bargain basement trade and Mark Grudzielanek was a bargain basement free agent acquistion. Womack's miraculous offensive advantage probably doesn't match Grudz's defensive edge, but I'll call it a push.

(5) John Rodriguez was a minor league trade that's worked well and Al Reyes was a minor league free agent pickup that worked even better, at least to this point. Call that one a tie on potential, although it's too early to tell.

(6) David Eckstein was signed as a free agent. There really isn't anything to match with him, as there were many more free agent deals than trades. Eckstein would have to fall off one of those diving cliffs in Mexico for this not to be a plus. We start getting into the roster filler moves, like Roger Cedeño, Einar Diaz, Marlon Anderson and John Mabry. Everybody has to do that though and those guys are almost by definition not very good. Technically Matt Morris and So Taguchi were free agent acquisitions, but for all practical purposes they were extensions, so let's not consider them either.

Tallying it up, it seems Jocketty regressed to the mean as a trader and excelled in the free agent market. One way to explain the Cardinals' ascendancy from good in 2000-2002 to great in 2004-2005 is that Jocketty, with many of his good trades still in the bag, got the hang of free agency.