Redman was a first-round pick of the Twins out of Oklahoma (which I guess will make Joe Simpson happy, if nobody else) in 1995. Following an uninspiring minor league career, he got a cup of coffee in 1999 and was up for good in 2000. His 4.76 ERA that year doesn’t look too good, but he pitched pretty well; the run environment was obscene (5.27 LGERA according to B-R) and only one of his runs was charged unearned.
Unfortunately, he had some injuries in 2001, exacerbated by a trade to the Tigers for Todd Jones. He gave the Tigers average work through 2002, then was sent to the Marlins for prospects, one of whom turned out to be Nate Robertson. He had his best year in Florida, going 14-9 with a 3.59 ERA, which was enough to make him attractive to Billy Beane. There’s some roster shenanigans here that I don’t quite understand, where he was traded, granted free agency five days later, then re-signed the same day, but I’d bet that it’s an effort by the A’s to save a draft pick.
Anyway, he went right back to being average, which for a lefty ground-ball pitcher with Eric Chavez playing third base behind him means that he was actually below-average. Beane packaged him and Arthur Rhodes to the Pirates for what’s left of Jason Kendall. Redman was terrible for the Pirates, going 5-15 with a 4.90 ERA. The Royals, being the Royals, traded for him, and he was just as terrible (when you consider the run context) in 2006, going 11-10 with a 5.71 ERA. He made the All-Star team as the token Royal, apparently because he was the only pitcher on the team whose name Ozzie Guillen recognized.
Redman spent the last couple of months looking for work, eventually signing with the Braves due (almost certainly) to the Hampton injury. He is an extreme finesse lefty who last year put up a Horatian line of 167 IP, 76 K, 63 BB. Baseball Prospectus says that this can work if he has an airtight defense behind him; unfortunately, the Braves’ infield is now more of a colander. Two years ago, I would figure that Leo would get something out of him. McDowell will probably teach him how to make surrepitious fart noises.
All those ground balls to Chipper and Edgar. It’s sort of frightening.
The roster shenanigans were a non-tender with an agreement to a deal already in hand. I guess doing so avoided some paperwork or something.
Barf! But what are we going to do? The other ripple effect the Hampton injury has is that for all intents and purposes Davies is in.
Right?
Still I would rather have Redman and Soriano than Horacio and Reitsma
I have to hope the Braves are looking at this as a stop-gap move, and protecting Harrison by keeping him in the minors while Hampton recuperates. Having a pitcher face live major leaguers before he’s fully ready can be disastrous. (See Devine, Joey.)
If Hampton misses more than a couple of months, though — or Davies or Cormier struggle early — this could be the start of a real domino tumble. I for one will be a helluva lot happier if Hampton’s pitching and Redman’s swing-starting by early June. If not, look out.
a lot cheaper also, if he flops oh well. If he is decent, he might be another trade piece at the deadline
Redman is the poster child for the I suck but I’m a left handed pitcher that somehow stays employed. Folks teach your boys to be left handed pitchers….starting salary 340,000 dollars. (I think)
380,000 this year, actually (not that it matters)
Maybe Chuck James can teach him to be an extreme fly ball pitcher.
I think Mac’s not quite as complimentary of this move as he could be. Acquiring Mark Redman to replace Mike Hampton (who, as another groundball finesse lefty would have been TERRIBLE this year) is probably the best desperation move that John Schuerholz could possibly have made.
Redman isn’t a good pitcher, heaven knows, but he’s a better NL pitcher than AL pitcher, and he’ll be moving to a pitcher’s park and pitching no more than 2-3 times a month. He can’t possibly be worse than 2006 Jorge Sosa, and he probably won’t be too much worse than Hampton would have been. I love this deal.
If we got 11-10 with 167 IP from him, I’d be thrilled.
Hell with the ERA, WHIP & all that jazz. This guy’s not any good, at best he’s just below average. We need an inning-eater who will keep us in games. Hopefully, our bullpen will have some real heroes in his starts & we score some runs.
No problem with this move. I’m not sure we could’ve done a whole lot better.
Redman should be adequate as a stopgap, but I would not be surprised to see him be HoRam lite–which is not a good thing to be. Still, if it lets the Braves keep Davies at Richmond (assuming that Bobby thinks it necessary) and Lerew and Harrison in the minors to develop, then it is a good move.
I think that there is a chance that he will pitch better than he did in KC so I am cautiously optimistic….
‘cautiously optimistic’ that’s a phrase we see all too often around here.
“…There’s going to be one or two guys not making the rotation somewhere who are going to be available.” Bobby Cox’s response to Redman’s signing…
Yeah, Bobby we know, there is a reason no one wanted him. He is not good! Maybe he will be serviceable. let us pray
What, was Method booked?
re you kidding, this guy is going to be a starter, he is going to be our closer. Think about it a lefty that gets ground balls? That statement made Bobby’s heart skip a beat and he almost died.
He is going to be a lefty Grybo!
If we had paid decent money for him, I’d be mad (cough, cough, Tanyon, cough, cough). But since he’s dirt cheap, I’m kind of neutral.
Petros, Redman’s really not much cheaper than Sturtze, according to the reports I’ve seen. Sturtze’s deal:
Sturtze is guaranteed $750,000 and would make another $350,000 if he spends one day on the Braves’ 25-man roster. He also could earn another $450,000 in bonuses based on the number of appearances he makes as a starter and reliever.
And Redman’s:
If Redman is added to the 40-man roster, he would get a $750,000, one-year contract and the chance to earn $500,000 in performance bonuses based on starts.
So if they show up on the roster, Sturtze is a $1.1M man, and Redman’s a $750K guy. But if we have to lean on them much, they could collectively cost the Braves $2.5M, or more. Yuck.
O.K. drewdat and KyleS have now pulled out Method Man references in back to back threads…That’s scary stuff!!!
Someone else mentioned Redman possibly being Horatio-Lite. If this happens, then I’m guessing we could probably get the Mariners to take him at the trade deadline for King Felix. This could prove to be the greatest move in JS history.
Its better than paying Reitsma and Horacio about 5.5 or 6 mill I guess. Any updates from the game today?
With …….. Tim Oblique Hudson and ……. Kyle Groin Davies as two of our starters, we may need all the extra back-up arms we can find.
I know many of you could care less about the Herd, but anybody ripping the mets is worth a listen.
hudson is gonna be solid, Davies will be HoRamish
If Davies can be basically league-average, as Horacio was last season, I’d be more than satisfied.
Amen
Best-case starter scenario?
Starter 1: Bad-ass. HoFer.
Starter 2: Former bad-ass finds his form.
Starter 3: Up-and-coming bad-ass.
Starter 4: Average, please?
Starter 5: How ’bout 150 innings?
Redman for less than $1million? That is a steal. Redman needs to fire his agent if that’s the best he can do in this market. That is terrible. Kudos to JS.
Davies will probably be up and down again this year but this will only be his second year full year in the bigs.
Smoltz said in an interview earlier this year that he, Glavine and some of the other guys got to pitch for a few years without any preasure. James,Davies, Marquis, HoRam, and slew of others haven’t really had that opportunity. Fan’s expectations have been high, and a fixed payroll have force the younger guys to sink or swim.
I think if we can still produce runs like last year and the bullpen lives up to its potential, our young guys will be to just pitch. If that doesn’t happen and they’re worried about giving up more than 3 runs per game then it’s gonna be a long season.
I think we’ll be fine, i like our chances in the division.
today’s box score
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=270309123
Harrison will be back in AA I believe
no offence to him, but he needs it. He’ll be a stud, he’s just got to get it down.
I also believe that the Royals management hurt Redmans #’s. 5 times he gave up over 6ER’s, that’s ridiculous. One time he had 9 er’s in 0.1 innings.
beedee, agree
well i don’t really think the royals are the come from behind team that we’re used to. : )
they probably just left him out there to see if he’d settle down, appaently he didn’t.
that had to be a long .1 innings. i guess everyones not as lucky as the vulture.
That’s how much confidence the team has in Davies and Cormier! Nice, JS finally realizes there will be no magic without Leo. This signing is a steal in today’s market. How much is Marquis getting for his above 6 ERA season?!
I’m not so sure it’s about confidence rather than protecting yourself and the bullpen. Anytime you can get a lefty starter who can eat up some innings on the cheep you should pull the trigger on it.
beedee, you think they will sign Redman if Hampton isn’t hurt? The way you said it sounds like the Braves would sign Redman regardless…
At this point I can’t expect Redman to be a whole lot above the Shane Reynold’s level. I definitely could be wrong and hope I am. That being said, it’s hard to find fault with JS for this deal. They’ve got a pitcher who has a better possibility of being average than Cormier, Villareal, or Harrison at this point in time. Maybe one of those 3 will catch fire, but starting out with Redman with his low salary is a very low risk proposition. If he stinks it up, they can always go back to plan B (one of the 3 above) and maybe Hampton makes it back (although I’m not overly optimistic).
I have to say that I would have been ecstatic if you would have told me last year that Hampton would be replaced with an All Star starter. Unfortunately, that All-Star just hasn’t been very good.
Anyone going to be at the Braves-Blue Jays game tomarrow? Would love to meet a fellow Braves Journal Fan
I have to say I’m surprised the mets haven’t already pursued redman, given the paucity of starting options along with the motley crew they’ve assembled (park, sele, etc).
Even if he only gives us an 80 era+ I think that’s fine – we just need someone to eat some innings
sorry kc i was away for a bit,
I guess what i was saying was that right now the orginization doesn’t really know what the sittuation is with Hampton. I think if they really thought Hampton would be back in the fold and back to pitching fulltime by the end of May then they would probably roll with what they’ve got.
Obviously they’re not so sure about that so they grab the best option that doesn’t require trading away the young ones and/or shelling out big bucks for a mediocre starter. Also you’ve prevented the other teams around you from being able to do the same. (The Mets could only wish Redman was their 5th starter, hell they would’ve snapped him up earlier if he was 5 years older and cost $5M.)
By picking up Redman they filled the hole and protected the bullpen that is sure to see plenty of innings this year.I could totally see JS picking up another arm or two at the end of Spring Training that fit the Redman /Thompson mold.
For whatever reason Bobby just doesn’t seem that high on Cormier, and he’s pitched well so far. But what you do have to deal with is that our starters haven’t been able to stay healthy. So maybe he’s looking for Cormier to be the #6 that plugs the hole when one of the other guys goes down.
Sorry if this is hard to follow i’m trying to do about 10 things at once.
short answer-no, Redman would not be on the team if Hampton had been injured. Redman woould have been on the team a week and a half later (if he was still out there) when Hampton is still strugling and JS wants some backup for the first half of the season.
so i guess i in part just echoed @38