Return of the Moose

Yankees veteran right-hander Mike Mussina takes a four-game winning streak into his start tomorrow night against the Devil Rays. Over that stretch he has lowered his ERA from 5.75 to 4.36 and gotten himself back on the fantasy baseball radar. Admittedly, I drafted Mussina in the latter rounds of one of my leagues, only to drop him following the pounding he took at the hands of the Red Sox on April 17 (five earned runs on seven hits, including two homers, in three innings) for his third loss in his first four decisions. I was ready to stick a fork in the 250-game winner. Now, however, I’m contemplating picking him back up in that very same league because I have an open roster spot after sending Scott Baker and Vernon Wells to the disabled list.

Yet I am hesitating to pick up the Moose because I know I would feel compelled to insert him in my starting lineup, and he has done little but burn fantasy owners who have shown faith in him since the beginning of last year. “When you start getting up there in your 30s, you’re not sure what’s going to happen,” Mussina admitted a few weeks ago to the Star Ledger. “I didn’t know if all that stuff that happened to me last year was going to linger, carry over or cause any residual problems. … I didn’t know.” But after scuffling through last season and the first three weeks of this one, Mussina has bounced back and some would say has reinvented himself at the age of 39. “You can try to be the pitcher you were and you’ll be out of the game. Or you can adjust and try to hang in there,” Mussina acknowledges.

Moose can’t uncork his fastball in the 90’s anymore so he’s getting by on guile, which isn’t as easy to measure as a 93-mph fastball and tends to fade away. Is it better to burn out than fade away? Sometimes, for players who used to be really, really good and still carry a lot of marquee name value it probably is… lest they think they can fool father time, fantasy owners, and themselves for long.

Thus, I remain torn. Should I hop on the broken down Moose bandwagon for one last ride or wait long enough so that some other owner in my league takes the plunge and thus relieves me of making the decision? For now, I’m waiting.