Revisionist History on Glavine

[G-Fafif]

From John Delcos of the Journal News in his LoHud Blog:

]The Mets hit the skids after the Subway Series. Roberto Alomar and Mo Vaughn were among their horrible decisions. Tom Glavine, however, was the lead domino. Pedro Martinez came later. But it was the Mets� ability to land tonight�s pitcher � never mind the monetary motives � that signaled the franchise was serious about winning. Glavine left a winning tradition to come to New York, and when a player of his stature makes such a move it told others to consider the Mets. Having Glavine made it easier to later get Martinez, Carlos Beltran and Billy Wagner. Having Glavine has made everything easier.

I've never heard of such an interpretation of Glavine's signing and I don't buy it at all. I always took the wooing of Glavine as a misguided impulse on ownership's part, considering where the club was after 2002. Glavine would have been a great pitcher for a team one starter away from a title. The Mets, entering 2003, were not that club. I don't believe his accepting big-time monetary compensation to come here instead of Philadelphia (another nonwinning tradition he would have lowered himself to partake in had the bucks been there) had a thing to do with the later moves under a different regime.

Glavine eventually worked out because the team was torn apart and put back together by somebody else in a different era. By then, Tom was a holdover, not the first domino. It's to his credit he persevered and has produced since the second half of 2005, but he was never the harbinger of anything except gettin' paid.

Among the beat writers, Delcos seems to understand how to best utilize his blog, but this assertion makes zero sense to me.

I also read "Having Glavine has made everything easier" as Delcos prefers talking to him as opposed to other Mets.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Good call, Greg.

And I don't agree with him that trading for Alomar was a bad decision. No one, and I mean no one, predicted that he was suddenly going into the tank. And we really didn't give up much to get him. That trade was pretty much a wash.

[stevejrogers]

Spot on Greg! Glavine was brought in to be the 2003 version of Mike Hampton, to insure that Al Leiter would not have the pressure of being The Ace like he had been in 2001 and 2002.

Glavine should get lumped in with the Vaughns and the Alomars, and to a lesser extent the next year with Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano.

The only reason Glavine came here was because he would be surrounded by veteran pitchers like Al Leiter and Steve Traschel, if he knew that Leiter would be gone by the end of the 2004 season and Traschel would be at the end of 2006 and that he would front a staff of Jorge Sosa, John Maine and Oliver Perez would he still have come? Who knows, speculation is that he spurnned the Phillies because of the youth on their staff even though the Phillies were in much better shape than the Mets were in heading into the 2003 season.

[G-Fafif]

I despise Roberto Alomar's Met tenure as much as anybody, but I was doing handstands the morning the news came down. I'd say picking up Alomar's option after his intensely indifferent 2002 was the horrible decision, not the original trade. That was worth a shot.

[G-Fafif]

SteveJRogers wrote: The only reason Glavine came here was because he would be surrounded by veteran pitchers...

To say nothing of dead presidents.

[stevejrogers]

G-Fafif wrote: ="SteveJRogers"]The only reason Glavine came here was because he would be surrounded by veteran pitchers... To say nothing of dead presidents.

Heh, oh of course.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Glavine helped the nation heal after Watergate.

[G-Fafif]

And is leading us through our darkest hours, according to John Harper:

]Three hundred wins don't necessarily need any context to be appreciated, especially considering that after Glavine and perhaps Randy Johnson reach the milestone, it could be more than a decade before another pitcher even gets close. Yet in Glavine's case, it's impossible not to notice the circumstances and timing that make this particularly appealing. Indeed, in a rather sickening week to be a sports fan, a week when Barry Bonds' tainted chase of the home run record plays like a Disney movie compared to the dogfighting and game-fixing scandals plaguing football and basketball, Glavine setting the stage for 300 is something of a godsend for anyone who cares about sports. He's one of the good guys in baseball, always has been, and if ever there was a time to celebrate that often inconsequential detail, as it applies to wins and losses, it is now.

Indeed. Michael Vick will be volunteering for the ASPCA as a result of Tom Glavine's career.

Lots of "what a guy!" quotes from Wagner and Wright. What do fellow lefty pitchers Oliver Perez and Pedro Feliciano think of him? Harper somehow forgot to ask them.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Steve, why do I want to eat my keyboard every time you talk about aces?

He was signed --- rightly or wrongly --- to win games, to make the team better, not to serve Leiter's needs in any way, shape, or form.

[metirish]

SNY -Friday Night at 10:30PM.....Tom Glavine - Tom Glavine: Road to 300.

I like Glavine,just don't think he had any bearing on Pedro,Beltan or anyone else coming to the Mets.

[Willets Point]

This is a good thread to keep around just in case I accidentally poison myself and need to self-induce vomiting.

[Elster88]

SteveJRogers wrote: Spot on Greg! Glavine was brought in to be the 2003 version of Mike Hampton, to insure that Al Leiter would not have the pressure of being The Ace like he had been in 2001 and 2002. Glavine should get lumped in with the Vaughns and the Alomars, and to a lesser extent the next year with Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano. The only reason Glavine came here was because he would be surrounded by veteran pitchers like Al Leiter and Steve Traschel, if he knew that Leiter would be gone by the end of the 2004 season and Traschel would be at the end of 2006 and that he would front a staff of Jorge Sosa, John Maine and Oliver Perez would he still have come? Who knows, speculation is that he spurnned the Phillies because of the youth on their staff even though the Phillies were in much better shape than the Mets were in heading into the 2003 season.

None of this makes any sense.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Glavine signed because the Mets gave him the $$. WHY they gave him the $$ is the unanswered question. To suck and then gather in high-profile free agents? No way.

Basically the whole team had to be and was torn down except for Glavine since his signing: But it's Reyes & Wright, not Glavine, who they've built back around.

[Guest iramets]

And as little relevant Edgy thinks Wins and Losses are, I still insist that if I told you Glavine's W-L record as a Met in advance, none of you (maybe not even Edgy) would have agreed to the signing. To lesser degree with Pedro, you were all nervous about commiting the kind of money Glavine got even when you thought his total wins over the contract would be much, much greater than it turned out to be. It's just in retrospect that you're okay with Glavine's generally awful career as a Met starter, and consider his signing to have been a savvy move. To me, Glavine's a disastrous Met, in a league of his own--well, maybe in the same league as Alomar and Vaughan and Matsui, players who I would have much rather seen the team avoid and instead use the grotesque sums of money acquiring and developing homegrown talent, who on balance would have given you performances on the field that were just as good as the big names gave you. Signing them is just CYA--when they fuck up big time, GMs can just throw up their hands and say "Who knew? Did you see the resume he had?"

The answer to "Who knew?" is of course "It's your job to know, you mealy-mouthed shithead. Get a job."

[Willets Point]

Amen, Ira.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

So now Willets too is presuming to speak for the rest of us?

[Guest iramets]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: So now Willets too is presuming to speak for the rest of us?

Are you presuming that I'm including WP in my general observations, or that he's including me in his? if so, sir, you presume too far.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I can't refute the arguments you say I make, if I haven't made 'em, is what I'm saying, and Willets through his agreement with your sentiments, is also saying what you're saying I'm saying, which I'm not.

Castic fucktardery all around.

[metsmarathon]

iramets wrote: And as little relevant Edgy thinks Wins and Losses are, I still insist that if I told you Glavine's W-L record as a Met in advance, none of you (maybe not even Edgy) would have agreed to the signing. To lesser degree with Pedro, you were all nervous about commiting the kind of money Glavine got even when you thought his total wins over the contract would be much, much greater than it turned out to be. It's just in retrospect that you're okay with Glavine's generally awful career as a Met starter, and consider his signing to have been a savvy move. To me, Glavine's a disastrous Met, in a league of his own--well, maybe in the same league as Alomar and Vaughan and Matsui, players who I would have much rather seen the team avoid and instead use the grotesque sums of money acquiring and developing homegrown talent, who on balance would have given you performances on the field that were just as good as the big names gave you. Signing them is just CYA--when they fuck up big time, GMs can just throw up their hands and say "Who knew? Did you see the resume he had?" The answer to "Who knew?" is of course "It's your job to know, you mealy-mouthed shithead. Get a job."

if you had told me only glavine's 57-54 w-l in advance, i could draw from it that glavine has allowed about the same amount of runs to be scored against him as for him.

what this might mean is that the mets offense has been terrible, while glavine has been terrific. of course, it could also mean that glavine has been terrific, but the offense terrible. or it could mean that both have been, on the whole, middling.

altogether, you could say that, regardless of the above three scenarios, that at the time, the mets needed either a better pitcher or a better offense, or both. and therefore that there were better places to put their investment than tom glavine.

also, that glavine's been relatively healthy and that at the very least, they haven't been paying the guy to stay at home.

and who among us is calling the glavine signing retroactively savvy?

[Guest iramets]

Okay, so let's hear what you think:

Did you think that the Glavine signing at the time was a good thing? (NB: I actually was mildly in favor of it originally, but I very quickly jumped off that.)

Did you voice reservations about the money, length of contract, etc.?

What were your expections of what Glavine would have to do to earn that contract from the Mets (not in terms of "pitch well" or "provide leadership" or other nebulous b.s., but in terms of starts, wins, ERA--like that.) I'm pretty sure if you would have told someone that he was getting four years' worth of 12-12 from 2003-6, he would have hemmorhaged blood from several orifices simultaneously.

The final question is key, to me. Because I think there's no doubt that, if I had asked a pin-you-down question, like "How many wins will Glavine need to accrue over the next four years to have earned his salary?" I don't think anyone, including me, would have put down the number he actually won, which is 48 (or the ERA/IP, or the WHIP, or any other other standard.) I'm guessing that everyone felt that he would need, for that money, to win 15 games or more per year. Therefore by my own lights, I'm saying that Glavine is a bitter pill, a disappointment, a hack, a waste of resources, a washout, you name it, even to those who refuse to sign on to my sensible and mild retrospective analysis. If you set a standard for someone to come up to, and he doesn;'t come up to it, how can you label him a success? I don;'t get it.

[metirish]

I think when all is said and done Glavine will be viewed as a bad signing as far as wins and losses go.However there seems be a view point these days to gauge what some players brought to a team other than win/loss.In that case his signing might be viewed as a positive,I think the Wilpons would try and sell that.

Also some experts credit Rick Peterson with changing the way Glavine pitched the last few seasons,although I don't think Glavine gives him as much credit.If you believe that Peterson helped him a great deal then you might wonder why Glavine was so resistant to that change as has been reported in the past.Did he cost himself wins because of that or were the Mets teams he was part of his first two seasons just terrible.


I liked the signing at the time IIRC,and I like him as a player now.I would trust him in a big spot in the post-season.


Looking back I don't think it has been a great signing for the Mets the first few seasons but it did get better.

[Willets Point]

metsmarathon wrote: what this might mean is that the mets offense has been terrible, while glavine has been terrific. of course, it could also mean that glavine has been terrific, but the offense terrible.

Aren't these the same thing?

[Guest iramets]

Willets Point wrote: ="metsmarathon"] what this might mean is that the mets offense has been terrible, while glavine has been terrific. of course, it could also mean that glavine has been terrific, but the offense terrible. Aren't these the same thing?

Whatever.

The point is Tommy's a great acquisition, despite what those stupid old numbers show.

[Willets Point]

Apparently so, since the long-suffering Glavine has to deal with all this terrible offense.

[soupcan]

Glavine has no right to take issue with the offense since he's been a Met.

I saw a stat the other night that said, If I can recall correctly (and I'm not sure I can) that during his 16 seasons with the Braves, Glavine was given a lead of at least 6 runs something like 14 times and came away with a win 13 times.

During his time with the Mets he has been given a lead of at least 6 runs something like 5 times and has lost 3 or 4 of those.

[Vic Sage]

last year, Glavine went 15-7, and made $10M.

Here is what the other pitchers earned last year, who had similar W-L records:

Mussina: 15-7 / $19m
Schilling: 15-7 / $13m
Halladay: 16-5 / $12.8
Oswalt: 15-8 / $11m
Smoltz: 16-9 / $11m
Glavine: 15-7 / $10m
D.Lowe: 16-8 / $9.5m
Zambrano: 16-7 / $6.5m
Carpenter: 15-8 / $5m
Trachsel: 15-8 / $2.5m
Webb: 16-8 / $2.5m
Bonderman: 14-8 / $2.3m
E.Santana: 16-8 / $0.5m

While we overpaid for his first 3 years, I'd say we paid market rate for his production last season, which resulted in also getting 2 more post-season victories. And since getting to the Playoffs was the point in signing him in the first place, I'd say he did what he was signed to do.

Still, did we overpay Glavine, overall? Yes. He was a below-average pitcher in his first season (2003), and in the 2004 and 05 seasons, he was a decent pitcher posting an ERA+ of 119 and 118, respectively, so it wasn't like he was a liability, but he was getting paid around $11m/yr while pitchers with comparable ERA+ were getting about 1/2 that amount. (2004 = Maddux-$6m; Clement-$6m; Garcia -$6.9k; K.Escobar-$5.8m; Oswalt-$3.3m; Lilly-$1.9m)

But we spent money, not players, to get him, and the approximately $5m/yr we overpaid from 2002-2005 (based on his subsequent production in those years) should not have prevented an organization as rich as the Mets from acquiring other talent to help the team win. And our subsequent acquisitions of Pedro, Beltran, Delgado and wagner indicate that Glavine's salary wasn't much of an obstacle after all.

[metsmarathon]

Willets Point wrote: ="metsmarathon"] what this might mean is that the mets offense has been terrible, while glavine has been terrific. of course, it could also mean that glavine has been terrific, but the offense terrible. Aren't these the same thing?

aw, fuck. should've proofread... meant to say that based on only a 57-54 record, you could determine that either:

A) glavine good, offense bad
glavine bad, offense good
C) glavine average, offense average
D) some combination thereof

i do not think glavine has been terrific, nor do i think the offense has been to blame for his 57-54 record as a met to date.

hope that helps.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I've been trying to remember what I thought of the Glavine signing way back in late 2002. Maybe my written reaction has somehow survived the ezBoard massacre, but I'm not going to dig through that mess. I think my memory is pretty accurate:

I was glad they signed him. I figured he still had a few good years left and I'd have rather seen him with the Mets than with the Phillies or Braves.

I thought the contract had too many years and too many dollars. But I don't' worry too much about that kind of stuff (especially the dollars) because it's not my money. My biggest concern was that Glavine would be washed up by 2006 and he'd be stuck in the rotation because of his high salary. But I wasn't concerned a whole lot with 2006 back then.

The Mets were hoping that 2002 was an aberration, and with bounceback years from Alomar and Vaughn and Burnitz they'd return to contention and Glavine would help with that.

So I felt that they were gambling on 2003 and planning on dealing with the consequences in 2006. I didn't think that was such a smart gamble because although I thought Alomar was likely to bounce back (although he didn't) I figured it was much less likely for Vaughn. I didn't really see the Mets contending in 2003.

The way I saw it playing out, Glavine would pitch well for the Mets in 2003 but the team wouldn't contend. And by the time the team would contend again, Glavine would no longer be able to contribute much.

I was right about 2003 not being a good year for the Mets. I was wrong about Glavine pitching well in 2003. The biggest surprise may have been that Glavine ended up contributing more at the end of his contract than at the beginning. The Mets won the division in 2006 and Glavine was a part of that. He didn't earn his full salary, but he had a decent year.

I don't think he's been a disaster. I don't agree that he was the reason the Mets got Beltran and Pedro. I see him as a guy who's earned too much money, and got too much animosity because he was "tainted" by his time in Atlanta.

Overall, he's been decent but overpaid.

I don't concern myself at all about how Glavine's salary might have otherwise been spent. The Wilpons have plenty and I don't worry about their budget.

[Guest iramets]

]I don't concern myself at all about how Glavine's salary might have otherwise been spent. The Wilpons have plenty and I don't worry about their budget.

This is such crap. If the Wilpons hadn't signed Glavine INSTEAD of other Free Agents, if they'd offered an unlimited budget for acquiring every FA to come down the pike, this would make sense. It's not about how rich the Wilpons are, it's about their (somewhat reasonably) setting limits on the Mets' budget to sign FAs, and then allowing the GMs to spend it foolishly, resulting in some shitty, shitty years--the Glavine era, IOW.

[Elster88]

metsmarathon wrote: our opening day lineup in 2003 was: 1. cedeno CF 2. alomar 2B 3. floyd LF 4. piazza C 5. vaughn 1B 6. wigginton 3B 7. burnitz RF 8. sanchez SS 9. glavine P with mike stanton as our primary setup guy leading to armando benitez and tom glavine is the biggest reason we sucked that year? sounds good. until the next agenda, that is.

Wigginton is nasty