DownSwinging.com

I’m actually a really big fan of the Atlanta trio, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz. I think everyone is. I bet you could even find a few Mets fans out there that really appreciate those guys. They were a part of the game for so long, and were so successful in such a good way that it makes me hope that they will each continue to be part of the game in a different capacity for some time. So when I find out that Glavine was sent down to the minors for three rehab starts before he could join the Atlanta rotation, or at least the bullpen, and then released before finally moving up to the big club, I’m disappointed.

Baseball teams have to be run like a business. They are a business. I get it, they have to be cutthroat sometimes, they need to be efficient in order to beat out the other 29 teams and win it all. But when it comes to stomething like this, I don’t like it.

It’s not that they released Glavine that upsets me, its the way they did it. “Had I been told, you’re going to go on a rehab and you’re going to have to make the team again, then I think that becomes very different for me,” Glavine said. And it becomes very different for me too. Certainly there comes a point in every career where a player can’t make it anymore, and its time for them to hang it up. But that’s not what happened to Glavine. I don’t care what Braves President John Schuerholz says, this move was made for financial and structural reason, and not for performance reasons. Glavine threw six scoreless innings in his last rehab outing, how is that not performing. The simple fact is that Glavine was going to receive $1 million if he made the major league club, and that was fine with the Braves in April. But now that its June and its time for the next big thing Tommy Hanson to come up, that’s a wasted million bucks for the Braves. So they cut Glavine. Tom Glavine. All they had to do was tell Glavine, when he got hurt, that he wasn’t needed by the club anymore. He would have understood. Of course he would have, he’s a veteran. But instead, they decided they would disrespect a guy that has over 300 wins, mostly for their ballclub. That’s embarrassing.

Well Tom, if its any consolation, I don’t think anyone is siding with the Braves on this one. See you in Cooperstown.