A Trade Evolution: Mulder to Halladay/Lee with Holliday in Between

Sometimes, trades just continue to flow. Here is a cool one for how Mark Mulder actually ended up getting involved in the Roy Halladay-Cliff Lee deal being finished up and how Holliday and Halladay are closer than you think...and how that wily Billy Beane seems to be a part of all of this.

The Oakland A's traded Mark Mulder to the St. Louis Cardinals for Daric Barton, Kiko Calero and Dan Haren.

The Oakland A's traded Dan Haren with Connor Robertson to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Chris Carter, Brett Anderson, Aaron Cunningham, Dana Eveland, Carlos Gonzalez and Greg Smith.

The Oakland A's traded Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith and Huston Street to the Colorado Rockies for Matt Holliday.

The Oakland A's traded Matt Holliday to the St. Louis Cardinals for Brett Wallace, Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson.

The Oakland A's have agreed to trade Brett Wallace for Michael Taylor who is being traded to the Blue Jays with Travis d'Arnaud and Kyle Drabek for Roy Halladay (who is being dealt in the same deal as Cliff Lee).

Got all that (H/T to Baseball Reference for all the deals)? You would be missing a few positions, but you could field a pretty good team with all those players.