Though he hasn't made anything official and he's gone ahead and filed for free agency, Jason Schmidt is sounding more and more like a man who's thrown his last major league pitch. When approached by Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, Schmidt says that he field for free agency simply to "keep his options open," but in his mind, he retired when his season ended in August. If that is the case, that means that Schmidt's All-Star career will end with a whimper. After signing a three-year, $47 million contract with the Dodgers prior to the 2007 season, two shoulder surgeries limited Schmidt to only 10 starts in Dodger blue. Because of the injuries, he missed all of the 2008 season and huge chunks of 2007 and 2009.
The nature of his contract and the amount of time missed to injury (Schmidt ended up being paid almost $5 million per start in LA) are what a lot of people associate Schmidt with now, but there was certainly more to his career.
In the five full seasons he pitched with the Giants before moving to L.A., Schmidt never made less than 29 starts or threw less than 172 innings. He struck out a batter an inning with a 2.70 K/BB ratio and had a 3.36 ERA and 1.18 WHIP during his time in San Francisco. If not for Eric Gagne's amazing 2003 season, he might even have a Cy Young Award to his name.
That's the Schmidt worth remembering, even if his tenure in L.A. was disastrous.
