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Tom not terrific Signing with Mets marked beginning of Glavine's problemsPosted: Tuesday August 05, 2003 12:37 PM
Now that the Mets are a confirmed train wreck of a team, among the very worst in the National League and headed for a fourth-straight season of fewer wins than the previous year, Tom Glavine can forget about the happy talk and optimism of the winter days when he signed with New York and allow for some real honesty. Only now he admits this: "I knew coming here this year was iffy. It's not like this was a surprise." According to Glavine, Mets owner Fred Wilpon told him that the team could rebound from its 75-86 last-place finish in 2002 if several high-priced veterans had bounce-back seasons. But, Wilpon told Glavine, if those players faltered again, the Mets would struggle and the front office would look to shed contracts in order to begin a quick rebuilding of the team. "One of the things they told me was that this team was always going to be one of the top five revenue teams," Glavine said. "So they weren't going to need a three- to five-year rebuilding plan. They were going to turn around and build it back up right away." Wilpon's worst-case scenario has come to pass and Glavine has been swept up in the malaise. Through Monday, the veteran left-hander is 6-11 with a 5.70 ERA, headed for his first losing record in 13 years and his worst ERA since he started nine games as a rookie in 1987. At a time when he needs his defense more than ever -- his strikeout rate (4.0) is his worst since 1988 and his strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.13) is his worst since 1987 -- Glavine badly misses Andruw Jones in center field and Javy Lopez behind the plate. The Mets are a poor defensive team, and Mike Piazza, their primary catcher before he went on the DL in May with a partially torn groin muscle, frustrates pitchers when he moves only his glove hand, as if waving hello, rather than changing his setup and framing pitches. "I know in Atlanta we moved our catchers a lot," said Brewers manager Ned Yost, a former Braves coach. "It's a big part of what we did there." Further, Shea Stadium has been a nightmare for Glavine, partly because it is one of 13 major league parks outfitted with the QuesTec pitch tracking system. Glavine is 2-7 with a 6.27 ERA at Shea, where he is unlikely to get as many charitable outside strikes called by umpires as he might without Big Brother watching. New York would seem to be a poor fit for Glavine. He is 37 years old, and has maybe three seasons left in him after this one. The Mets gave him a three-year, $35-million deal, though it becomes a four-year, $38.5 million deal if he throws 600 innings from 2003-05 or 200 innings in 2005. (He is on pace to throw 178 innings this year.) With the clock ticking on his career -- and Glavine needing to average 14.5 wins over four seasons to reach 300 wins -- why would he commit to a team with such a trap-door possibility to its season? After all, for nearly the same money he could still be pitching for the Braves, the team with the best record in baseball, or the Phillies, the NL wild-card leader. Glavine is one of the more astute, responsible players in the game, and as you might expect, his answer is not as simple as choosing the team with the best short-term prospects for winning. "I knew in my heart what I wanted to do and the reasons don't change, whether we're a first-place club or not," he said. Glavine's exit from Atlanta was greased when the Braves opened contract talks with a one-year offer, a slight that told him his 16 years laboring for the team would mean little in the cold business of negotiations. "I probably would have signed there for less than I took here [in New York]," Glavine said, if such a three-year offer had come earlier. The opening proposal, however, immediately took loyalty out of the equation on both sides and set Glavine thinking more about the possibility of playing elsewhere. Why, though, would he choose the Mets over the Phillies? He was enamored of New York and the opportunities it offers for polishing a Hall of Fame career and a life after playing. More specifically, though, he felt comfortable around Mets pitchers Al Leiter and John Franco, whom he had befriended at countless union meetings over the years, and thought he'd be more comfortable around those two and the rest of the older Mets -- players nearer his own age -- than with the youthful Phillies. The irony, of course, is that age has hastened the demise of the Mets due to injuries and ineffectiveness. Morever, once Glavine came to terms with leaving Atlanta, he knew that New York would be convenient for his New England-based parents. Philadelphia would not. "That was the biggest factor," he said. "In that sense , the difference between New York and Philadelphia was enormous. My parents have been down for all but maybe five days [of the home schedule]. Our kids have seen their grandparents more times in the past six months than in the past six years. "I don't get my happiness out of being a baseball player. That's only what I do. My family is everything for me. I would be far less happy if the team I was playing for was doing really well but they weren't happy." If there is one surprise for Glavine in New York, he said, it is not the way the team has played. It is how the media in the Big Apple does its job. "Just the constant attention, the sheer number of people." he said. "You're aware of it as a visiting player and you hear things, but there's no way of understanding it until you experience it. Except for maybe New York and Boston, typically you have two or three beat writers around and that's pretty much it. Here, everything is magnified by 10 across the board. Stuff turns up and it doesn't die, true or untrue. The story about [Rey Sanchez getting] the haircut in the clubhouse. Here it lasted a whole week. It's not bad. It's just different. That's been the biggest surprise." Glavine has experienced some elbow irritation this season and, more recently, a strained rib muscle. He doesn't maintain his stuff deep into games; batters are hitting .385 off him once he gets beyond 75 pitches and his streak of 15 straight years with at least one complete game is in jeopardy. Nevertheless, he's too good of a pitcher, too hard a worker and too studious of his craft to be written off as an elite pitcher. Glavine has plenty of good baseball left in him, though much of that will depend on how the Mets rework their team. It's difficult to see them making the giant leap into contention next year with so much money still tied up in players beyond their prime: Piazza, Leiter, Mike Stanton, David Weathers, Roger Cedeno, Cliff Floyd, Steve Trachsel and, yes, Glavine himself. New York needs a Kevin Millwood or a Bartolo Colon to put in front of its rotation and the team also needs to add a big bat. Yes, the Mets will spend right up to the luxury tax line again next year, but spending alone guarantees nothing. Meanwhile, the Mets try to become the first ocean liner to turn on a dime, Glavine insists he's happy, content with his decision. And when the Mets' season finally ends, he will go home to Atlanta, where he will have the month of October off. It's been 13 years since the National League held playoff games without Tom Glavine starting one of them. These are indeed very strange days for him. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag.
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