Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
Welcome, Dan. Since his inaugural post earlier this evening, there have been a few more details about the contract Glavine is set to sign (pending a physical) that have come out. These are rather significant and might well change his opinion on the signing.

Apparently (this is according to espn.com), Peter Gammons is reporting that the deal is for $35 million over three years (more than the originally reported $30 million) and the Associated Press is reporting that it actually includes a vesting option for a fourth year, for a total of $42.5 million. Having no sources of my own, but having had my ear on the reports coming out of the Glavine wooing bonanza in the past few weeks, I'm inclined to say that it's going to end up being the second of the two. I honestly felt that he would end up back in Atlanta eventually, as he really seemed (again, according to reports) to be hedging a bit of late. If it does include a vesting option, this has the potential to go from an unwise signing to a real bad one for the Mets.

Clearly the Mets rotation is upgraded with the addition of Glavine even if he performs substantially worse than he did in 2002. It's probably a safe bet that you're going to get at least 200 pretty solid (at the very least) innings out of him for the next few years, unless he really breaks down. Getting hurt is always a possibilty with any pitcher, but Glavine's excellent record in recent years (he's pitched at least 219 innings in each of the past seven seasons) leads one to believe he'll likely be pretty reliable. So the Mets staff is improved. Big deal. When we look at the Mets, what are the biggest problems with the team that jump out at us?

- they were really old in 2002
- they finished 13th in the National League in runs scored
- their starting outfield was the worst in all of baseball

The pitching staff wasn't that bad. Al Leiter, Pedro Astacio and Steve Trachsel combined for nearly 600 pretty decent innings, with the rest of the slack picked up by Shawn Estes (until he was traded), Jeff D'Amico, John Thomson and Mike Bacsik. The bullpen was also adequate, led by pretty awesome seasons from Mark Guthrie and David Weathers. So now the rotation looks like this: Leiter, Glavine (or swap them), Astacio and then likely Thomson and Bacsik (or Trachsel, if they resign him). Fine, that's a serviceable rotation. But the more important issues, like the absolutely brutal offense, particuarly the outfield, have gone totally unaddressed. Not only that, but it appears that the Mets may not offer arbitration to Edgardo Alfonzo, meaning they'll have yet another position to fill.

My question (and I'm echoing Dan here) is: where's the interest in the top outfielder available, Cliff Floyd? I understand he wants a whole mess of money and there are injury concerns surrounding him, but he also does something that Tom Glavine most certainly does not: he fills the Mets' most burning need. If I was Steve Phillips, I'd have gone into this offseason with the mission to go out and acquire the top offensive players available, forgetting about any other factors. Clearly the Mets have some money to spend, and I'm here to say they've now done so in the wrong way, yet again. I don't think Glavine'll be a bust for them and I think he'll pitch reasonably well for the life of the contract, even when it gets extended to that fourth year and he's pitching at 40. But he won't pitch well enough to justify the salary (like, say, Greg Maddux might) and he won't add production to what will continue to be one of the worst offenses in baseball.

I'll be back with more later, just wanted to get my two cents in on Glavine.
posted by VZW Watcher at 4:24 AM -