Screw you, Tom Glavine!

Even though I began to see him more and more as a Met and less and less as a Tomahawk Chopper over the past two years, Ken Rosenthal's recent column (at FoxSports.com) has caused me to change my mind a little about the venerable lefty.

I'm sick of his crap, his shtick, his whatever he's doing. It's unacceptable. Does it remind you of another lefty in the winter of 2004? He needed a bit too much time to think about whether or not he wanted to be a Met. And now, with Al Leiter throwing cutters in the Yankees broadcast booth, Tom Glavine is repeating the same old thing.

And maybe, it's a little bit different than Leiter. Leiter harangued Omar Minaya, on some level because he figured that his friendship with the Wilpons would give him precedence in decision-making over the new GM. Maybe it did with the Scott Kazmir trade, but Leiter's act was done the moment Minaya showed up in town.

Even though Leiter probably told Carlos Delgado not to play for the Mets, over a short span of two years Delgado mashed nearly 40 home runs wearing the orange and blue. Leiter, as I mentioned beforehand, is wearing a suit, taking in Michael Kay's spit rather than the aroma of a ballfield.

This brings me back to Glavine, who is using this whole "I have to hear what my family says" as a negotiation ploy. It's actually fairly simple. Glavine is hellbent on having the matter unresolved by the time the Mets have to choose whether or not to exercise their 1 year, $14MM ($16 MM if he's an All-Star) option on Glavine. And you know why that is, right?

If Glavine leverages the Mets into making a panic move, which he is trying to do with his shtick now, he will be able to extract far more money from that option than he will be able to on the open market. If he returns to Atlanta, which may actually be where he wants to pitch, Glavine's not going to get much more than 8 million for this year- if he's lucky.

Does anyone honestly believe that Glavine isn't trying to trick the Mets into exercising that option? I'm not saying such action is uncommon in the market place, but it is foolish to pass it off as Glavine being an earnest family man. The idea for him is to just load our heads with the idea that he's going to the Braves- so much so that we delude ourselves into keeping him at an unreasonable price.

This matter will become far more odd once Tuesday's option deadline passes and Glavine becomes a free agent. Ladies and gentlemen, we apparently brought this on ourselves.

So, who gives a crap? Let Glavine walk. Omar and Co. are in no mood to be extorted, and, accordingly, Glavine cannot behave like he is presently.

We'll keep ya posted...

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