Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 09, 2007
Seeing Red

The Braves replaced Mike Hampton with Mark Redman. I don't see a lot of upside here. Redman's ERA lat season was high. Some of that was bad luck, but he allows a lot of balls in play, and those end up going for hits a certain amount of the time. The Braves rotation wasn't looking that good before Hampton was hurt, and now it's looking pretty rotten.


Posted by David Pinto at 01:11 PM | Transactions | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I wouldn't say it was rotten to begin with. Not great, but not awful. And who says that Redman is replacing Hampton in the rotation?

He signed a minor league deal. If he doesn't pan out, nothing really lost or gained for that matter.

Posted by: Rain Delay at March 9, 2007 02:49 PM

Redman was an All-Star last year, believe it or not. Of course, that says a whole lot more about the game and the selection process than Redman.

Posted by: Phil at March 9, 2007 03:02 PM

Redman's a classic example of what you might call a Dracula pitcher -- just when you think his career is dead and buried, he rises up and has a halfway decent year. (Dustin Hermanson, Scott Williamson...) If he's got another revival left in him, Atlanta could just be the spot for it.

Of course, if your team is resorting to the likes of Mark Redman in the middle of spring training, that's what baseball insiders call "Not A Good Thing."

As for whether Redman is "replacing" Hampton, the linked story says Redman is taking Hampton's spot in the spring training rotation. Clearly that means he's getting every chance to make the regular-season rotation. And clearly the Braves didn't have any use for him until Hampton got hurt.

Posted by: jvwalt at March 9, 2007 03:23 PM

It's not good news for the Braves, but honestly, how much worse is it than the news that Hampton will be in the rotation all year would be?

Hampton is an old, bad pitcher who's coming off season-ending surgery. I don't think anyone except incurable optimists was expecting him to be any good anyway, and "as bad as Mark Redman was last year" wasn't something anybody was ruling out.

Posted by: cwp at March 9, 2007 04:39 PM

The Braves were basically using a six man rotation this spring if you count Hampton who hadn't pitched yet. In all likelihood, Lance Cormier will be Hampton's replacement in the regular season with Redman just replacing him as the emergency replacement.

Posted by: Daniel at March 9, 2007 09:07 PM

Hampton was done anyway, so Redman, also done, is just a stopgap. There's nobody else to throw out there. If the Braves are way behind on July 31, axing Redman for even a minor prospect will be a great deal for Atlanta.

Posted by: david at March 11, 2007 03:18 AM
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