Mike Redmond

I was playing BM when i stumbled upon this guy....

A lot of you probably don't know him, but he's a 38 yr old catcher who has been a backup catcher his entire life.

My question is...how has this guy never started? Houston's rosters give him the highest defensive rating at the catcher position, and if that weren't enough, his career avg. and obp line is .289/.345.

I will take .289/.345 with extremely high catcher skills on my team ANY day. The question is, why hasn't anyone else let him start? And if the teams he was on had a better option at catcher, why did no one else pursue him?

And finally, this from his wiki:

"He is also known as a very durable catcher. One example is during the second game of a doubleheader on July 6, 2007 when Redmond was hit in the head by the bat of Jim Thome who accidentally let go of his bat after his swing. Redmond received seven stitches, and was catching the next day."

I didn't put much work into defensive ratings... I would never use my defensive ratings at all (or, honestly, any of my roster ratings) for real life evaluation.

Anyway, the answer is, really, while he's probably been for the majority of his career average or slightly below average overall for a catcher (though his performance has been GREATLY variable - he's had OPS+'s that span the range from 57 to 122), he's generally been caddying with better catchers or splitting time very evenly. He's actually been the most used catcher for his team a few times, despite never starting for a full season.

His performance is highly dependent on batting average. If he hits .300, he's good. If he doesn't, he's terrible. That type of player generally doesn't play well as an every day player, though is a valuable backup, particularly at catcher.

He's not a reliable hitter, but at least it's better than being reliably BAD, like Ausmus and Schneider. Redmond has an +OPS higher than both of them, and I just don't see how they start and he doesn't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NYDodgers

He's not a reliable hitter, but at least it's better than being reliably BAD, like Ausmus and Schneider. Redmond has an +OPS higher than both of them, and I just don't see how they start and he doesn't.

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Part of it is because they haven't been on a team with Joe Mauer, of course ;)

And the other part is due to an over-emphasis on defensive reputation.

Maybe he just likes men *shrug*

Too bad there's no real stat you can measure a catcher's defensive ability with. I think a lot of it is unquantifiable.

Redmond's CS% is pretty high tho, 33%.