Brad William Radke (born October 27, 1972) is an American former professional baseballpitcher who played his entire 12-season career with the Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball (MLB). Radke won 148 career games and was one of the most consistent pitchers in the Twins organization during the late 1990s.
Radke was not considered a top prospect before being drafted in the 8th round of the 1991 amateur draft by the Twins.[4] Once he was in the majors though, he was valued highly and the Twins were offered a large amount of talent for him, but they never gave him up.
In his debut season (1995), he finished 11–14 with a 5.32 ERA. In 1997, he finished an excellent season with a 20–10 record and a 3.87 ERA in 239 innings. During the year, he won 12 consecutive games in 12 consecutive starts, becoming only the third player since 1950 (along with Bob Gibson and Pat Dobson) to accomplish the feat.[5] He finished third in American League Cy Young Award voting.
Brad Radke pitching for the Twins in 2006
From 1998 to 2001, Radke averaged 12 wins a year and 32 starts each season. He pitched over 210 innings a season for the Twins.
In 2002, for the first time in his big league career, he failed to pitch in 30 games and fell one win short from finishing with 10 wins for the eight straight season. His ERA was 4.72, the first time since Radke's rookie season in 1995 that he had recorded an ERA above 4.50.
In 2003 and 2004, Radke came back to form, notching 14 and 11 wins respectively.
He was known for being one of the best control pitchers of the modern era, walking an average of only 41 batters a year, in an average of 34 games a year. He was, however, also known for giving up home runs, yielding as many as 40 in a single season, and he was often plagued by first-inning troubles. This had the effect of making his ERA totals sometimes seem deceptively high,[citation needed] as his first-inning ERA was sometimes more than a full run higher than his ERA's for the rest of the game. His susceptibility to home runs was lampooned in a commercial for Sega Sports' World Series Baseball II in 1995, and featured Radke watching as home runs sailed out of the park.[6]
Radke had hinted that he might retire following the 2006 season, citing a torn labrum (through which he had been pitching the 2006 season). A stress fracture in his shoulder suffered in late August sidelined him as of September 2. On September 12, he threw catch from a distance of 110 feet (34 m) (slightly less than twice the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate) without pain, an important step in the way to his return for the last week or two of the season and the Twins' playoff drive, and even more important with Francisco Liriano's season appearing to be over with the reappearance of pain in his left elbow on September 13. On September 28, Radke returned to action, pitching five innings and surrendering one unearned run, earning no decision in a 2-1 Twins victory over the Kansas City Royals. It was Radke's last regular season start. He finished the season with a 12-9 record in 28 starts. In his last major league appearance, he pitched in the third game of the division series against the Oakland Athletics, giving up four runs on two two-run home runs in four innings. He officially announced his retirement from baseball on December 19, 2006.[7][8] At the time of his retirement, Radke ranked second in franchise history in starts (377), third in wins (148), third in innings pitched (2,451) and third in strikeouts (1,467).[9]
On July 11, 2009, Radke was inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame.[10] On April 12, 2010, Radke was selected to raise one of the Twins pennant flags in left field at Target Field.[11]
Radke made his first of back-to-back-to-back postseason appearances in 2002. His postseason totals are very solid with an overall 3.19 ERA in 31 innings pitched.
His best postseason series was his first, against Oakland. He started two games out of the five, winning both with a 1.54 ERA. Radke only gave up one run in the deciding game of the series before the 5–1 Twins lead was almost squandered in the ninth inning, when Eddie Guardado gave up three runs. But the Twins won 5–4 and advanced to the 2002 American League Championship Series. He would go on to lose the only game he pitched against the Angels, but shut them out for the first six innings of that game. In the end, the Twins lost the game 7–1 and the series 4–1.
He was 2–3 overall in the postseason.
Personal life
In 2002, Radke and his wife, Heather, announced the formation of a charity, the Brad and Heather Radke Family Foundation, which would support the Hennepin County Medical Center.[13]
Radke's son, Kasey, pitched for the University of Tampa and his son, Ryan, played basketball for Radke's alma mater, Jesuit High School.[2]
In 2011, Radke sold his Greenwood, Minnesota home for $2.4 million (equivalent to $3.3 million in 2023).[14]
^Lesko, Ron (August 6, 1997). "A star is born". The Standard Times. Associated Press. Retrieved July 2, 2023. Drastic measures. That's what Brad Radke is thinking about now. Over the last two months, Radke has gone from a promising young starter with a habit of giving up too many home runs to an unbeatable ace who is challenging some of baseball's oldest records. He won his 12th consecutive start Monday night in the Minnesota Twins' 9–3 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. That tied Scott Erickson's 1991 team record for consecutive wins, and it moved Radke alongside Bob Gibson (1968) and Pat Dobson (1971) as the only pitchers since 1950 to win 12 straight starts.
^Murphy, Brian (April 11, 2010). "Live from Target Field: Puckett, good weather, hometown umps and Wally the Beer Man". Pioneer-Press. Retrieved July 2, 2023. 2:20 p.m. — With a nod to their championship past, the Twins welcome nine prominent alumni and general manager Bill Smith to raise flags representing the club's division titles in 1969 (Jim Perry), '70 (Bert Blyleven), 2002 (Eddie Guardado), '03 (Shannon Stewart), '04 (Corey Koskie) and '06 (Brad Radke); American League pennant in 1965 (Jim Kaat); and World Series championships in 1987 (Frank Viola) and '91 (Jack Morris).
