It's not just one play though. This is not a new opinion, and the play last night demonstrated perfectly his fundamental shortcomings as a SS: poor footwork & a poor arm. He got to the ball well, then didn't set his feet, shuffled around, threw off the wrong foot & loolipopped the throw. He looks great at the plate so far though. He's a great utility guy & can really help this team in that role; he'll make a fine starting 2B next year or thereafter.
While you're spot-on about his head, what about what all the scouts (not just the Astros' guys) were saying back then? I read more than once that his curveball was awesome, that it reminded them of Darryl Kile's curveball, and that his FB had "great" movement. They (scouts, GMs, etc., not fans) kept saying his stuff was "amazing". The talk was always about how a team could get his rough edges knocked off and maximize the potential of his "awesome stuff". The Astros had quite a few bids for Redding, and waited too long to trade him IMO (but hindsight is 20/20, esp. from the armchair).
Well, I'm just speaking about what I saw in all the 3 years that I watched him pitch... I never saw the amazing curveball, I never saw the fastball with great movement (unless you count the ones that ended up moving nowhere near the strike zone), and I never would have even thought that this guy was a super prospect if I didn't hear those non-stop scouting reports about how great he was. Something tells me that they saw his numbers at AA, saw how the system had churned out Wade Miller, then Roy Oswalt, and had a young lefty phenom in Carlos Hernandez... and thus everybody came to the conclusion that knew this guy had to be legit. Perhaps they saw things that weren't really there. Perhaps when they saw the movement on his pitches, they did not care to think that maybe he was the type of guy who could always do this sort of thing in practice, but put him in a real game... and he'd freeze. I remember getting excited after reading a Peter Gammons article about how great Redding was going to be... and it was much later on when I realized that Gammons wrote that entire thing based on 1.) Redding's amazing stats, and 2.) what some people who watched him at Round Rock told him. He had never seen Redding for himself, spoke to Redding himself, or got any legitimate feel himself for how Redding was really going to turn out. As you can see, the main point is... they can make anybody seem like a superstar when they're coming up through the system. In Redding's case, there were several red flags that should have been addressed (but were summarily forgotten because this guy "looked" like he was going to be a great pro)... namely, his decline in numbers when he actually got his first stint at AAA, and his mysterious decline in velocity once he was actually on the big league level (as his arm probably started to wear down as he started to build up significant innings, and actually had to labor for the first time in his career). On paper, the guy looked like a combination of Oswalt/Clemens. The reports said he had the best "stuff" in the organization. But in the end, I truly believe Redding was the biggest benefactor of one great summer at Round Rock... where his arm was brand new, faced a barrage of hitters who swung at almost anything that wasn't a fastball, and he just happened to be in an organization that seemingly couldn't miss when it was calling up its other highly touted prospects. Maybe I'll write his life story one day... if anybody can actually find out where he is...
Could any picture be worse than the one used by MLB.com to show the Astro's bond (it was the title)? Caption time... Lane: "Stawwwp it. Not heeeeere. They're looking. "
It's this damn computer in the lab....don't know why it posted 3 times. The server normally keeps you from posting more than 30 second intervals.
Redding and Daryle Ward always seemed similar in that regard to me. We kept hearing from everyone how great their ability was and how much we should look forward to their dominance and then....nothing. Little glimpses here and there but not enough to really fulfil the promise we had come to expect. Oh well, live and learn. Chris Holt was the same way (although I don't think he was every considered a big time prospect). He had like 3 or 4 decent pitches he could throw. None of them were really above average...but when he was ON, he looked outstanding because he could give the hitter so many different looks. There was no way you could guess right when you only had a 25% chance of just getting the PITCH right, let alone location. But then when he wasn't "on", which was much more often than not, he would get rocked, because nothing he threw up there was good enough to fool someone. But it was those few impressive games that kept you coming back (and the Astros, I assume). I miss Chris Holt.
Yep, I love this team. When the teams winning everyone is happy and the team has the best chemistry. They are so much fun to watch. I love watching home games because of the loud fans and the electricity in the atmosphere.
Chris Holt was never consdiered a prospect. When I was at Brookhaven College in '97. Holt came to pitch to us in a pre-season game vs. Richland and our team lit him up. I was thinking, "This guy is gonna be an Astro?". His stuff didn't fool anyone that day and it certainly didn't do it at The Show.
