The St. Louis Cardinals' trade deadline move wasn't quite as exciting as some people might have hoped, but you can't take this away from them: It makes their bullpen significantly harder to pronounce than it was on July 30. Edward Mujica is a rare bird, as relief pitchers go—he combines average strikeout rates with, at his best, extremely low walk rates. He also gets killed by the home run ball, so don't expect him to take over the closing role any time soon.
↵And it's Moo-HI-ca, apparently.
↵He's a useful relief pitcher, skeptical though I am of anybody who had his career year at Petco, but what makes this trade odd is how it comes about—he's the Luis Perdomo to Zack Cox's Anthony Reyes, a would-be prospect unceremoniously dumped when he failed to live up to the Cardinals' expectations.
↵Cox, who never seemed like a good bet as their expensive 2010 first-rounder, went from "polished hitter" to a nasty strikeout-to-walk ratio in Memphis; he's a reasonable bet to perk up with the Marlins' AA affiliate, but I don't miss him. This all just seems like a challenge trade without a point.
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