The St. Louis Cardinals placed fantasy baseball disappointment Mark Mulder on the DL last night with a shoulder issue. A couple starts too late for his owners!
Mulder has been the type of starting pitcher that sinks teams. His atrocious ratios found themselves on team only based on 1. his prior success in Oakland and 2. decent year-end numbers last (good ERA/borderline poor WHIP and that ERA was made better by a 2.77 ERA 2nd half.)
The 2005 combination of good ERA/Mediocre WHIP/winning team and historical success likely lead to Mulder being protected at his 2005 draft salary of $20 or so. And that decision has sunk teams so far.
When a team invests the intellectual capital to protect a $20 player, the team owner is hard-pressed to accept the poor decision and make the best choice for the team - releasing the player. Why? Because the owner does not want to accept the poor results of a well-thought out decision. (Although I wanted nothing to do with Mulder, I cannot expect other teams to see the light of my wisdom.)
It is this very real avoidance of anything leading to cognitive dissonance that keeps teams from improving in fantasy sports.
What the Mulder owner should have done was cut bait a few starts ago. Just as any Livan Hernandez owners should have done already or Brad Radke owners or Andy Pettitte ones or...