Unless you consider the 10-year $240 million deal the Seattle Mariners gave Robinson Cano as unusual, then what the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim did on New Year’s Day might drive you to drink as they signed veteran, and now-formerly retired pitch Mark Mulder an minor league contract that could be worth up to $6 million.
In case you forgot, Mulder has been a fixture of the “Baseball Tonight” crew on ESPN and hasn’t pitched in Major League Baseball since he was forced to retire part way into the 2008 season due to a nagging shoulder injury.
At that time, Mulder had played eight amazing seasons, the first six of which he really proved to be a top-tier talent as he went 87-50 in that stretch (2000-2005), racking up 784 strikeouts and a 3.78 ERA. Mulder made two All-Star Game appearances and even finished in second place for the American League Cy Young Award in 2001 as a member of the Oakland Athletics.
Paired up with Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, the three of them were the most dominant rotation trio in the Majors, and it would be Zito who would walk away with the Cy Young the following season (2002). Moving into the present, many things have clearly changed, and it all started with Hudson’s free agent signing by the San Francisco Giants on November 18, 2013.
When the Giants signed Hudson to a two-year $23 million deal two things happened: the first was that the Giants were obviously not going to be bringing back his former Athletics teammate Zito, who still remains a free agent. The second thing that happened is that the buzz on social media threw Mulder into the fire, but more as a joke since the “arch nemesis” of the Athletics had taken away their once prized star, and now might be another time when that could happen.
But, even though most people were making jokes, only a small few knew that Mulder had developed the itch to make a comeback in October after he watched Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Paco Rodriguez on TV and found something in Rodriguez's delivery that he could emulate. Mulder spent all of November getting back into shape in Phoenix at a facility run by former big-league catcher Chad Moeller, and threw off the mound for, at the time, three unknown teams near his home in Scottsdale.
Even though he was only clocking in at 89-90 MPH, the Angles saw enough potential to sign him. As jarring as it may be for Athletics fans to see two of their former stars in the hands of two of the enemies, this deal couldn’t be any better for both Mulder and the Angels. The two players that come to mind on why this deal will work for a parties is Manny Ramirez and Bartolo Colon.
Back before the start of the 2012 season the Athletics had signed Ramirez to a similar minor league deal loaded with incentives but at a low cost just in case he didn’t pan out. It didn’t, and in the end the Athletics were only out around $500,000, but they still ended up winning the AL West division title without him. A few days before they signed Ramirez the Athletics had signed Colon to a $2 million deal after he had a pretty decent rebound season with the New York Yankees in 2011.
Even though Colon got pinched for PEDs toward the end of the season and had been one of the best pitchers in the Athletics rotation, the Athletics still won the AL West and still re-signed Colon the following season around the same price.
In 2013 Colon was the best pitcher for the Athletics behind an 1806 record, 2.65 ERA and 117 strikeouts while only walking 29 batters. Colon was such a surprise that he ended up finishing sixth in the Cy Young vote and made an All-Star appearance at 40-years-old.
The most important thing to take away from these comparisons is that Mulder is 36 and his velocity is topping out around the same level as Colon has for the last two seasons, and Colon only relied upon a two-seam fastball, four-seam fastball and a changeup to get him through. Mulder has a few more tricks up his sleeve, but he still needs to work out the kinks with his new windup. In the end; however, like Colon and Ramirez, Mulder can turn out to be a very low risk signing with a potentially huge reward.
The Angels are desperate to put together a solid back end of a starting rotation to give C.J. Wilson and Jered Weaver a bit more help. Due to the amount of money they’ve poured into their bats (Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton), there hasn’t been much left to sign any top notch free agent pitchers.
That until itself was a bit of a dilemma as there wasn’t any young, reliable or big name talent on the market with the exception of Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana. Santana, of course, had already been run through ringer in Anaheim and wasn’t going to be going back. While the Halos did deal Mark Trumbo for Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago, there is no guarantee that either of those two will pan in the Majors. With all of this in mind, all evidence presented to the Angels which made them pull the trigger on Mulder was certainly rather compelling.
It’s hard to say how Mulder will do as he hasn’t been put through any kind of a real game simulator as of yet, so everyone will have to wait until the end of February to really see what kind of stuff he’ll be bringing and how he’ll pan out.
There are a few things of positivity than fans and critics get a better idea of what to look out for. Seeing as how he hasn’t pitched in a game since 2008, the last four-and-a-half years have given his shoulder time to rest. Whatever game film anyone has on Mulder will be outdated with his new throwing motion, so the chance to get the upper-hand will be taken way down. Lastly, Mulder is a big guy (6’6’’, roughly 215 pounds), and anyone that big always viewed as a bit intimidating.
It will certainly be fun to see him give it another go, and there is no doubt that Athletics fans, as jilted as they may seem, will be cheering him on… except if he makes it to the Majors and he ends up pitching against them. Then, for those one or more days, they’ll hope he has his worst days on the mound.