I just got my Hardball Times Annual, and they handicapped the Netherlands' chances by saying their pitching is weak. So the GM for the Netherlands went out and got Mark Mulder and Dan Haren. OK, Haren is evidently a maybe, as he's on the US list as well.

With the way his peripherals have gone the last two seasons (more on that in a moment) I've been wondering if Mulder's pitching through an injury, and this would suggest the answer is no. That is to say, I sorta regard this as good news, even though in theory there is some injury risk here. It's not just the confirmation that Mulder isn't hurt, either. Mulder's body language on the hill is that of somebody who would rather be elsewhere, probably the golf course in this case. These extracurricular activities speak otherwise though.

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I'm a little bit tired of looking at Mulder's numbers, but his decline in strikeouts goosed me into checking the latest Lahman database to see what exactly happens when pitchers' K-rates drop. I mean, I hear Monty Python yelling "Run Away!" when I look at pitchers like Mulder, so I decided to see if the bunny is as vicious as they claim. The query I set up had three criteria:

(1) The pitcher had to have at least three consecutive post-war seasons with 150 innings pitched.
(2) His K-per-nine in the first season had to be within 1.00 of Mulder's 2003 rate of 6.17.
(3) His K-rate in the first season had to be 25% more than it was in the third season.

Then I looked at the year-after for each pitcher. There are some ugly names on the list. For example, the legendary 1974 season for Steve Blass shows up as a projection comp for Mulder in 2006. Sidney Ponson's malodorous 2005 season pops up, as does Scott Erickson's 2000 season. Then again, there are some good names, like Tommy John (1971 and 1981 -- Mark Mulder is Tommy John), Tom Glavine (1994), Warren Spahn (1955 and 1963), and most impressive of all, John Tudor in 1985. Like Mulder, Tudor even had the league switch in his third year that should've fattened his K-rate. Doug Drabek appears twice, once good (1990, when he won the Cy Young) and once not so good (1998, when he was done).

All this is to say, there were some good years and some bad years. Well, that's not helpful is it? Weighting by innings, the average ERA is 3.83. Weighting by pitcher, the average ERA is 4.15. Maybe if I park-adjust or era-adjust or maybe if I include other peripherals or maybe if I look at age... then things would look a little different, but on the first pass I didn't find a smoking gun, or a smoking man for that matter.

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I live in Indianapolis, but I haven't followed other sports much this offseason. Wednesday night will change that, as my alma mater squares off against Mulder's in college basketball. It's the biggest game Michigan's played since their last trip to the NCAA tournament in 1998. Yes, it's been that long and, no, Quinn Snyder isn't the worst coach on the face of the earth.