By TOM GAGE
The Detroit News

DETROIT - With the continuing thought that to rebuild, you must first knock down, the Detroit Tigers traded Mark Redman, their most effective starting pitcher, to the Florida Marlins on Saturday.

It's the fourth move the Tigers have made to overhaul a team that won just 55 games. Since the end of the season, they've parted with their best starter in Redman, their lone All-Star in Robert Fick, their Tiger of the Year in Randall Simon and a closer in Juan Acevedo who saved 28 games.

In return for Redman and minor-league pitcher Jerrod Fuell, the Tigers received three players: right-hander Gary Knotts, who'll be given a chance to replace Redman in the rotation; left-hander Nate Robertson, who pitched briefly for the Marlins in September and another lefty, Rob Henkel.

Knotts and Robertson were placed on the Tigers 40-man roster, while Henkel was assigned to the Double-A roster.

"For us to trade Mark, which we talked about all winter, we needed someone who would fit into our rotation right away," Tigers President and General Manager Dave Dombrowski said. "So in that sense, Gary Knotts was a necessity because we feel he's ready to start at the big-league level. But we like the other guys, too. Henkel is a quality prospect who could progress quickly and Robertson is a very solid pitcher."

Trading Redman, however, leaves the Tigers with a starting rotation on which Steve Sparks is the only experienced pitcher. The other starters at this point are Mike Maroth, Andy Van Hekken, Knotts and several hopefuls.

So why trade Redman, who pitched considerably better than his 8-15 record indicated? Remember, the 3.68 runs per nine innings the Tigers scored for him represented the worst run support for any American League pitcher.

"He was our best starting pitcher at the end of the season, no question about it," Dombrowski said, "but we had three left-handers (Redman, Maroth and Van Hekken) who pretty much fit the same mold, guys with below-average fastballs, but good off-speed stuff."

Having three of the same type was a little much and when you look at the group, Redman had the most value. He also was the one who was going to cost the Tigers the most money. Being arbitration-eligible, Redman is in line for a hefty raise over the $300,000 he made last year. But Dombrowski said that cost was not a factor in the deal.

"We would have gladly kept him as time went on," he said, "if we couldn't have made a deal that we wanted to make."

Redman wasn't surprised by the trade: "With the delay in negotiations with Detroit, it threw some red flags that they might have something in the works," he said. "I thought it was going to happen a little bit sooner."

Of his one year with the Tigers, Redman said, "things weren't going my way, I didn't get much run support, but I threw over 200 innings and I look forward to throwing 220-230 this year."

The Marlins made the deal for Redman after negotiations broke off to acquire Bartolo Colon from Montreal.

Knotts, 25, has made only one major-league start, but has been a starter most of his career in the Marlins' organization. In his only season as a Triple-A starter, he went 6-7 with a 5.46 earned-run average for Calgary in 2001.

Robertson was 10-9 with a 3.42 ERA at Double-A Portand last year. In six September appearances for the Marlins, including one start, he went 0-1 with an 11.88 ERA. Henkel, a starter with an effective knuckle-curve, had a combined 13-7 record with a 3.16 ERA in the minors last year.

Fuell, the other pitcher headed to Florida from the Tigers organization, was 5-4 with a 2.54 ERA last year at West Michigan.