The Staying Power of Tom Glavine

Fantasy owners woke up this morning to a mean alarm. It's not 1996! Greg Maddux gave up 7 earned runs last night to a Padres team whose best hitter, Brian Giles is a free agent in our fantasy league. It was as if Gregory was 40 years old giving up hits to Mike Cameron and dingers to Khalil Greene. The way that Maddux and old Atlanta Braves buddy Tom Glavine have been pitching this season, Maddux's most recent start not withstanding, it was as if the two of them spent their offseason in a corn field in Iowa. While I'm not sure if the Padre pounding is a sign of things to come for Maddux, I am very confident that Tom Glavine will be a reliable starter for the rest of the season.

Glavine is pitching for the Mets. Not the Benny Agbayani Mets, not the Braden Looper Mets, but the 2006 Mets. The Mets who have had David Wright batting 6th and the Mets who have a closer who can hit triple digit velocity and the Mets who might have 4 different position players on their way to the all star game. Glavine will surely get run support and Billy Wagner should turn his season around to save Glavine's leads. There is nothing more frustrating than having a pitcher who seems to have the ERA, WHIP and innings to be a 20 game winner but at the end of the year isn't in double digit wins because of bad luck. It's a player rank killer, but something that Glavine owners won't be worried about.

He is certainly not going to be the guy that makes mouths water with k's or his youth and potential to go out and dominate every night like Felix Hernandez or John Patterson. But by the same token its not going to be a mystery if Glavine can pitch effectively after throwing 180 innings in one season, a feat TommyBoy has done in 17 seasons compared to Felix's 0 seasons. Glavine also won't be someone you're constantly monitoring the rehab progress of, hoping once he does come back that he can stay healthy - Glavine hasn't been on the DL in a decade, John Patterson at press time hasn't resumed throwing activity.

Then there's the biggest thing to fantasy managers - the numbers. He's never been much of a strikeout guy, but part of the value in that is that Glavine stays healthy by being a finesse pitcher. The last two seasons he hasn't raised too many eyebrows with his middle of the road 3.57 ERA and 1.32 WHIP, but this season he has been steller. With a sub 2 ERA and a WHIP hovering around 1 only Jose Contreras has put up better numbers among starters with at least 4 starts. There is a tendency to over analyze stats when a player has a good month, but Glavine's dominance can be dated back as far as last year when he decided to tinker with his delivery. Over each of the three time spans listed below, Glavine has given up less home runs than former Cy Young winners Bartolo Colon, Chris Carpenter, and Johan Santana as well as fantasy stud Roy Oswalt - thus reducing the likelihood of big innings. Here are the beautiful numbers of which I speak:

Post all star break: 2.22 ERA and 1.01 WHIP, 5 HR allowed in 109.1 innings
September: 1.71 ERA and 0.85 WHIP, 1 HR allowed in 47.1 innings
This season: 1.94 ERA and 1.04 WHIP, 2 HR allowed in 46.1 innings

No, he probably won't keep his ERA below 2, but I am confident he will finish with the ERA under 3 and the wins will keep piling up. The question is if Glavine isn't on your team (my situation) how do you get him? I have discussed a deal with the defending champion in our league (who gets no credit for being pretty good) involving Alex Rios. I've told a couple writers on this site about the deal and they think I'm nuts. Yes, I know Alex Rios is young and could be emerging, but guess who's sitting on my bench tonight? Rios. The only guy he could play for is Bonds but thats not much of a trade off.

If you made it to the bottom of this post, you're probably raging about Glavine being 40, trading a valuable chip like Alex Rios is like Willy Wonka giving away the chocalate factory and that Field of Dreams was based on a fictional book. That's fine by me. At least I know what I'm getting.