These Guys Were (and might still be) Better Than Mark Redman

Cool, my blog has an early theme.

Who isn't better than Mark Redman, you may ask? Well, I went over that already, genius. But these are some people you may not remember or you may wish you could forget that I would rather have back in Atlanta than Redman.

Pete Smith was horrible except for one 12 game stint in 1992 with the Braves when he went 7-0 and subsequently was part of a poster called Five Ace's with newly acquired Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery. But this guy was horrible. 47-71, a 4.55 career ERA when the league ERA was 3.90 when he played, and two seasons with more than a hundred K's. But hey, I'll take him over Redman if he wanted to come back. He's only 40 and since he has not pitched in the majors since 1998, you know he is well rested.

Greg Oden looks like 40 at 20, but he stole that shtick from Marvin Freeman. Then again, Freeman was never young. Do you realize in 1994, Freeman finished fourth in the Cy Young balloting. I believe it was his random good performance that sent baseball to a strike. He was a fairly average pitcher who had a few decent years before finally, he was gone. Better than Redman who had a few decent years and he's STILL HERE like a bad visitor.

You couldn't find a guy I hated to see in the game more in 1999 and 2000 than Terry Mulholland and Bobby Cox kept feeding him to us like we were Rosie O'Donnell and Mulholland was some lard. He is essentially the classic "look what hand I can throw from?" guy. Oh, big shit, you can throw with your left hand. I can bitchslap you with my left hand and after watching you put up a 5.11 ERA and a 1.53 WHIP for the Braves in 2000, you owe me anyway. But hell, even you aren't as bad as Redman and if you're not busy, maybe you can replace him.

Speaking of people who are not busy, Shane Reynolds would be welcomed back. Granted, unlike some of these guys, he actually had a decent career until injuries took away his fastball, but I will still take the shell of his former self over the Indian. This is especially hard to say as I watched him take Jason Marquis's spot in 2003 without much reason. He kept getting start after start, sucking day after day, and somehow, he was 11-9. Do you still wonder why pitcher's win-loss records are worth about as much as my picture of that old guy down the street yelling at me to get off his lawn.

Right now, I will take Kevin Grysboski back. That's how desperate I am.



You know what we need? We need to get Reggie Jackson to think Mark Redman is the Queen and try to kill him. Everybody wins.