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Monday, November 19, 2007
Glavine’s back, and Cox is thrilled
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got off the phone with Bobby Cox, and as you might imagine, the old manager is quite pleased to be headed down to Turner Field this afternoon to welcome Tom Glavine back to the Braves.
“I’m very excited,” Bobby said as he hurried to finish errands and get to the ballpark for the 2:30 p.m. press conference with Glavine. “Tommy’s going to be a tremendous addition. He’s just one of those class pitchers who can win, who doesn’t miss turns, who’s ready to go all the time.
“He’s a guy you can rely on all the time. I think Tommy’s got a lot of pitching left in him, and now that he’s back in Atlanta he might consider going another year [after 2008].”
The word reliable keeps coming up when you ask anyone connected with the Braves about Glavine and why it was important that they bring back the soon-to-be 42-year-old lefty, who signed a one-year, $8 million contract after declining a $13 million option with the Mets.
The 303-game winner has pitched at least 198 innings in 12 of the past 13 seasons, including 200-1/3 innings last season when he went 13-8 with a 4.45 ERA in his fifth season with the Mets.
It’s not a stretch to say that if Glavine had produced those kinds of numbers for the Braves last season, they would have made it to the postseason instead of sitting at home for the second consecutive October.
Because while the Braves got 30 wins and 430 innings out of John Smoltz and Tim Hudson at the top of their rotation, Chuck James (11-10, 161-1/3 innings) was the only other starter to produce more than eight wins or as many as 105 innings. And after James, Buddy Carlyle (8-7, 104 innings in 20 starts) was the only other Braves starter to record as many as five wins or 90 innings.
“It’s extremely important that your starters give you innings,” Cox told me. “Tommy can do that. Now we have depth. Last spring we were down to the bare minimum of starters. Now we probably nine legit guys who can go into the rotation and do fine. Tommy allows us to do that.”
Many observers have pointed to Glavine’s final three starts for the Mets as a red flag, a sign that the aging lefty was/is out of bullets.
There’s no doubt he was bad — very bad — in those starts, going 0-2 with a 14.81 ERA while allowing 25 hits (four homers) and 17 runs in 10-1/3 innings, including seven runs with just one out on the final day of the season, a loss to the Marlins that completed the Mets’ epic 5-12 collapse and knocked them out of the postseason after they’d led the division almost from start to finish.
But it would be highly unusual for a pitcher’s career, his effectiveness, to end so suddenly without an injury as the cause, and Glavine has passed a physical and been adamant about having nothing wrong physically, no injury at the root of his struggles down the stretch. To his credit, he said he just stunk in those games.
Was he out of gas? I’m sure he was. And he might run out of gas at the 185-190 inning mark again in the 2008 season. But if Glavine gives the Braves 13-15 wins and 185 good innings, that would be a huge improvement over what they had in the No. 3, No. 4 or No. 5 rotation spots last season.
The effect on the bullpen and the team would be a major plus, because last season the weary bullpen had stretches when key relievers were simply too overworked and went through rough stretches because of it.
The only NL teams with fewer innings from starters than the Braves were the Cardinals, Nationals and Marlins, all teams whose injury-riddled rotations undermined their overall team performance.
To say Glavine is finished, to suggest he’s no longer effective based simply on his struggles in the last three starts, is to be blinded by his and the Mets’ woeful finish and avoid the body of work that Glavine produced over the course of the season. It’s not a very reasonable or astute to simply dismiss everything that came before those starts, to suggest that Glavine was a different pitcher then than he’ll be now.
Bottom line is this: Before those last three starts, Tom Glavine was 13-6 with a 3.88 ERA and 23 quality starts in 31 games, while averaging nearly 6-1/3 innings per start. In half of those six losses, the Mets scored zero runs while he was in the game.
Glavine was saddled with back-to-back losses in June when he allowed two runs in six innings against the Braves and Smoltz in Atlanta, and when he allowd three runs in seven innings against the Giants.
Was he bad in those last three starts? Yes, dreadful. But here’s what Glavine did in the 16 starts immediately before those three: Went 8-1 with a 3.20 ERA and 13 quality starts - again, that’s in the 16 games before those last three.
Is the same Glavine who won 242 games, two Cy Young Awards and a World Series MVP trophy as a Brave? No, and Glavine would be the first to tell you that.
But is he a quality pitcher, and could he be one of the best No. 3 starters in baseball? Absolutely.
Can he be a great influence on lefties Jo-Jo Reyes and Chuck James? Absolutely. Ask Damian Moss how much Glavine helped the Aussie lefty when he was a Brave, and how much Moss missed him after they were no longer teammates.
“Tremendous influence,” Cox said. “Tommy always has been that kind of guy.”
Glavine initially struggled after he left the Braves and joined the Mets in 2003, and no team beat him up like the Braves did. But he made adjustments midway through the 2005 season, finally relenting and acknowledging he could no longer get by with his changeups and pitching away, away, away.
After going 24-35 with a 4.21 ERA in his first 80 starts for the Mets through June 19, 2005, Glavine reinvented himself to a significant degree and went 37-21 with a 3.74 ERA in his last 84 starts. The Mets were 52-32 in those games. Yes, that includes those last three Glavine starts.
Glavine’s back, and the Braves and their manager are thrilled. If he’s got as much left in the tank as Cox believes, it could be a fun summer for Glavine, for his good friend and golf partner Smoltz, and for the Braves and their fans.
And if he doesn’t? Well, we can always throw on some classic Elvis Costello:
“PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING” by Nick Lowe
As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.
I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside,
There’s one thing I wanna know:
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh…
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding?
And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.
‘Cause each time I feel it slippin’ away, just makes me wanna cry.
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh…
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding?
So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.
‘Cause each time I feel it slippin’ away, just makes me wanna cry.
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh…
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh…
What’s so funny ‘bout peace love & understanding?
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