I Call B.S. - Mark Mulder Edition

It should probably come as no surprise that new ESPN baseball analyst (and former oft-injured pitcher), Mark Mulder, does not know what he is talking about... the guy went to Michigan State! How embarrassing for him.

ESPN should probably hire smart guys like Chris Sabo or Barry Larkin to be analysts.... oh, they did hire Barry Larkin? Christ almighty!! Why do they need so many guys? Just re-hire Harold Reynolds and go with the classic lineup of John Kruk, Reynolds, and Peter Gammons and everybody will be happy! You could even keep Buster Olney and Tim Kurkjian. They do a good job too.

Anyway, back to Mark Mulder. Why was this guy hired? He clearly does not know what the heck he is talking about, as this is what he had to say regarding Justin Verlander's no-hitter on Saturday:

What makes him so good is the stuff that he has and he pitches to contact - which keeps his pitch count down (and) allows him to go deeper into games. I think if he wanted to, he could strike out a lot more guys but he chooses not to. He gets ahead and stays ahead and pitches to contact.

Okay, that is a reasonable analysis of the Justin Verlander that pitched the no-hitter on Saturday, but that is most definitely NOT consistent with what Tiger fans see on a start-to-start basis.

For example, "pitches to contact" who "chooses not to" go for strikeouts? You don't have to be a baseball historian like the aforementioned Tim Kurkjian to know that Justin Verlander led the major leagues in strikeouts in 2009 with 269. He followed that up with a fourth place finish in the A.L. in 2010 with 219. (By the way, he is currently tied for second in the league in 2011. He is one strikeout behind the current league leader, Dan Haren.)

To continue, then there is the "keeps his pitch count down" comment. That is such bollocks!! I got an e-mail from my father just last Wednesday where he completely unprompted wrote "Last line I saw on JV was 6 IP and 127 pitches... will he ever be able to pound strikes and develop command consistently?" Does that sound like a comment one would make about a guy who does a great job at keeping his pitch count down?

Want more evidence? Just look at JV's game log: Prior to the no-hitter, his last four starts were:

6 IP - 127 pitches
6 IP - 114 pitches
7 IP - 117 pitches
6 IP - 116 pitches

So let's not confuse JV with Greg Maddux or Orel Hershisher!

Oh, and one last piece of evidence. Prior to the no-hitter, Verlander was averaging ~17.0 pitches per inning. That is a total that would put him at the 7th highest in the league - behind six pitchers who don't have a sub-4.50 ERA amongst them as of this posting.

Memo to ESPN, please hire analysts who actually demonstrate that they know what they're talking about! And to reiterate, one hint that they don't know anything is a resume that mentions Michigan State.