Scott Kazmir knows that almost nobody except himself and perhaps his family is counting on him to pitch effectively for the Braves in 2018. And he probably knows that many doubt the injury-plagued former ace left-hander will pitch at all.
But even if few others seem to think he’ll make it back and be a factor this season, Kazmir believes, or at least makes a convincing case of as much. The 34-year-old says he’s healthy and ready to surprise us all.
“Oh, for sure,” Kazmir said a few days into spring training with the Braves. “That’s the nature of the game. I was written off, what, back in 2011? And we’re here now. So that’s nothing for me, it’s just a matter of going out and staying healthy.”
Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos made it clear when they got Kazmir as part of the December salary-dump trade that sent Matt Kemp to the Dodgers that the Braves weren’t counting on Kazmir.
Truth be told, he was a throw-in part of the deal that allowed the Braves to move the last two years of Kemp’s albatross contract and enabled the Dodgers to move three high-salaried players in the last year of contracts, including Kazmir.
The Braves plan to get plenty from two others in that deal, utility man Charlie Culberson, a Georgia native with four seasons of team contractual control, and veteran starter Brandon McCarthy, who’s in the final year of his contract and penciled in for a rotation spot along with Julio Teheran and Mike Foltynewicz.
But Kazmir? He was something of a lottery ticket – the Braves would hope to get something from him but wouldn’t plan on it.
That’s obviously not how Kazmir sees the situation. The former three-time All-Star says he came to camp intending to win a spot in the rotation.
“Oh, for sure; there’s no question,” he said. After several days in camp, does that remain his goal? “Definitely.”
Nevermind that the Braves have top young prospects led by lefty Luiz Gohara, Max Fried and Sean Newcomb competing for the last two spots in the rotation. The fact that Kazmir feels good enough again and confident enough to compete and win a spot still has to be encouraging news for the Braves, who could possibly use him in a relief role if healthy, or have him as experienced starting depth.
Or maybe even get another team to trade for him and pick up at least a portion of the $17 million he’s owed this season, which the Braves are responsible for.
“He threw a side (session Friday),” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “He’s on the regular program, says he feels good. He didn’t pitch last year, but talking to him, he said he feels good. He’s just doing a normal program. Because he didn’t pitch (in 2017) he’ll probably be one of the latter ones that we see in the (Grapefruit League) games. But he’s throwing in a normal program right now.”
Kazmir is upbeat about his health and about being back with Braves pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, who was his pitching coach during Kazmir’s first two major league seasons in 2004-05 with the Rays.
The Braves are his fourth organization in four years, and Kazmir is in the final year of a three-year, $48 million contract he signed with the Dodgers in December 2015, a deal that did not work out at all as he or they expected.
He went 10-6 with a 4.56 ERA in 26 starts in 2016, allowing 21 home runs in 136-1/3 innings. That’s all the Dodgers got from Kazmir, who had recurring, nagging injuries last season, mostly his hip, that set him back each time the Dodgers thought he was close to being ready.
He pitched in four minor-league rehab games in the summer and early fall and plenty of simulated games but never made it back, not even to pitch in September after the Dodgers secured the West Division title on their way to the pennant and a seven-game World Series loss to the Astros.
“The toughest part was not being able to contribute, not being able to be with my teammates,” Kazmir said. “Especially with the season that was going on, how much success they were having, not being able to be a part of it, that was the hardest thing.”
He said his injuries were frustrating and that favoring one part of his body led to trouble in another.
“It kind of turns into that,” he said. “One little thing, next thing you know you start compensating and you have a whole mess of problems. That’s what it turned out to be and it was just a constant fight to get back. You start compensating, then have all these little things going on.
“I feel like I cleaned all that up this offseason and I feel great.”
Before being traded in December, the native Texan already made major changes to his offseason routine, determined to try a different approach to conditioning in order to revive his career. Hello, yoga.
“I changed a lot of routines I normally do, workout-wise,” Kazmir said. “Laid off the weights a little bit; I think I’m old enough to start doing that and think of more flexibility and everything. That’s kind of the route I took, doing yoga and pilates a lot, just getting that flexibility back and doing baseball-specific type of workouts. And I feel like I’m in a good place right now.
“I feel great. Hips feel awesome. I feel like the flexibility took a lot of pressure off my lower back, hips and everything like that. So I feel really good.”
It’s easy to forget just how good Kazmir was not too long ago. A first-round draft pick by the Mets in 2002, he was one of the top prospects in baseball for a few years before going 10-9 with a 3.77 ERA as a rookie for Tampa Bay in 2005. A year later he was an All-Star and had a 3.24 ERA for the Rays, and in 2007 he led the American League with 239 strikeouts in 206-2/3 innings while going 13-9 with a 3.48 ERA for Tampa Bay.
His injury problems began soon after that and Kazmir didn’t pitch as many as 160 innings again until 2014. Kazmir was released by the Angels in 2011 and didn’t pitch at all in the majors in 2012 before the Indians signed him in 2013 and saw Kazmir post 10 wins and 162 strikeouts in 158 innings to win the American League Comeback Player of the Year Award.
He signed a two-year deal with the A’s and had career-highs in wins (15) and innings (190 1/3 innings) in 2015, then a career-best 3.10 ERA in 183 innings with Oakland and Houston in 2016, those consecutive seasons of durability convincing the Dodgers that he was worth giving a big, three-year deal.
