Tom Glavine

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

"I have five days at the end of our season to accept or decline [the option]," Glavine said from his Alpharetta, Ga., home. "Most likely, I'll decline it."

No need to call him names CF. Glavine is hopefully going to do us a favor and grant our wishes by declining his guaranteed option. I say, "Bless you, Tom. Can we have in writing to make that official, please?"

The money due Glavine (actually, $ 13 mil. due to IP) should he elect to return to Shea could be put to better use in shoring up the bullpen. I hope he follows his heart and opts to retire to Atlanta. Hell, he can pitch for Atlanta for all I care, as long as the Mets are off the hook for all that money.

Edited to denote article quote.

[soupcan]

He came here with a seasonal average of 16-9 and a 2.67 ERA over his 16 years with the Braves. He took a hell of a lot of money to then average 12-11, 3.97 over the next 5 years.

His regularly scheduled clock cleaning appointments always coincided with his facing the Braves.

He choked so bad he made Mets fans fondly remember Armando Benitez.

Good riddance you non-emotional professional athlete.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't want to hear any more distortions about Armando Benitez.

[soupcan]

Once again - you know exactly what I'm trying to say.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I wish you'd frame it without bringing a firm-yet-irrational position of too many Met fans into it.

[soupcan]

I'll keep that in mind going forward.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Hey, Tom, tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

[TransMonk]

http://mets.lohudblogs.com/2007/10/05/glavine-declines-player-option/

Shocker.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Bam. Walked away from a $10 million payday.

[bmfc1]

I am neither devastated or disappointed that Glavine has declined his option.

[Frayed Knot]

I've alwasy suspected that his option was more like a gentlemen's agreement between Tom & the Wilpons along the lines of, well if we still want each other at the end of the season here's the money we'll agree in advance to. That the option was his and not theirs was largely a formality of contract language I think.

Thing was he had to decide by today and either he's not ready to do so or he's already decided to call it a career (which is what he hinted at since a year ago). He can still re-sign here if both sides agree of course. But declining now gives him time to check w/the family but also to see what's out there (read: Atlanta).

I strongly suspect we've seen the last of him.
Now the trick will be seeing if that ~$10mil can find us a replacement starter - not an easy task considering that the likes of Suppan, Meche, Lilly, etc not only landed more than that last year but got multi-year deals at those prices.

[Guest Grote15]

Tom Glavine..Thank you!

Ding dong the bitch is dead
Ding Dong the wicked withch is dead

hey Tom get your friggin shine box

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I never really disliked Glavine, but I'm glad that he appears to have called it a career. He was a class act and he had a Hall of Fame worthy career, but he was no longer the pitcher he once was. It's a shame that his final few starts were so poor. I wish him wll, but unlike two months ago when I would have welcomed him back in 2008, I am now glad that it appears he has decided to call it a career.

[nymr83]

i just read that he officialyl said "no" to the option and will receive the 3 million buyout.

[Elster88]

I think people are grossly underestimating how hard it is to get a pitcher to pitch 200 innings of average baseball a year.

I'm disappointed that so many people here are being typical New York fans when it comes to Glavine.

When Pedro misses his customary 8 starts at the same time that El Duque's arthritis flares up, 2008's Jose Lima/Brian Lawrence is going to be called up from AAA there's going to be much sadness.

200 innings of Glavine is worth more than 100 innings of El Duque when the extra 100 innings go to Lima. It's a concept Nymr for one will never understand, nor will the WFAN callers. But I believe it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I have it on good authoriity that baseball played at league average productivity is worth zero.

[nymr83]

the difference in innings between el duque and glavine was 53, not 100.

i'd rather have 147 innings of el duque's production this year, 25 innings of pelfrey, 15 innings of humber, 5 innings of whoever the longman is and 8 extra innings on the good relievers than 200 innings of glavine, not to mention that glavine is unlikely to pitch even as well as he did this past year (96 ERA+) or as much as he did (200 innings) given his advanced age.
this is not to say el duque is likely to pitch well again either, but he's under contract so whether or not to bring him back isn't nearly as much of a question.
Glavine would have been paid what? 13 million? lets see who the Mets go out and get and THEN laud or criticize them for choosing that person (or people) over Glavine.

EDIT-
free agent starting pitchers (according to mlb4u.com- i dont purport that these are accurate) (divisions are mine and are for quick reference only, i dont pretend to have compared all the stats or anything)

pretty good- Pettite, Garcia, Schilling

not bad- Rogers, Wolf, Clemens, Chacon, Clement, Colon, Jennings, Maddux

some hope- Fossum, Milton, Od.Perez, Redman, Rusch, D.Wells, Benson, Byrd, Fogg, L.Hernandez, Lopez, Mays, Ohka, Ru.Ortiz, Ponson, Tomko, Traschel, Wakefield, Weaver

trash heap- Affeldt, Chen, Estes, Armas, Astacio, Elarton, Lawrence, Lohse, Miller, Moeller, Ra.Ortiz, Park, Sele, Thompson, Wasdin, K.Wells, V.Zambrano, J.Wright

[metsmarathon]

glavine: 99 ER in 200.1 IP

el duque: 61 ER in 147.2 IP
pelfrey: 15 ER per 25 IP
humber 13 ER per 15 IP
sele: 3 ER per 5 IP
heilman already pitched 86 innings, so lets give the other 8 to feliciano...
feliciano: 3 ER per 8 IP

total: 95 ER and a much less rested pen.

of course, embedded in those numbers is that glavine bequeathed 20 runners to his bullpen, and 11 of those runners scored. el duque bequeathed 10 runners, and only 2 of them scored. given the same lavel of bullpen support, either duque would've given up 4 more earned runs, or glavine would've given up 7 fewer, drawing down the difference between the two pitchers to a pick'em.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Now we just have to find another Orlando Hernandez.

[metirish]

Livan is a fee agent.

[nymr83]

again, i'm not saying that duque can repeat his performance or even that we'll someone who can. i'm just saying i'd rather have 150 innings of 3.72 than 200 innings of 4.46.
a couple of more points:
-this isn't "costing" the bullpen mush rest- most of these innings would go to spot starters called up from AAA or to the longman, the longman isnt usually overtaxed anyway and i couldn't care less about the toll on the AAA pitching staff (and neither should any MLB team trying to win)
-the league ERA is 4.26, the mets are loaded with $$, the mets can find better spot starters than the crap they paraded out there this year, guys who can pitch in the 4.26-4.51 range for a few spot starts. its on Minaya to make sure this team has better quality pitching depth.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, we might need Duque plus Duque. But Pedro may be Pedro.

Right now, the rotation is Pedro-Duque-Maine-Perez-Pelfrey. I can go forward with that, but we're going to need backup. I imagine the backup is going to be some Chan Ho characters for the short term and Humber for the long term.

I certainly don't advocate 13 big ones on Glavine and I'm glad we're off the hook for that. Nor do I advocate shutting the door.