Glavine Back With Bravos

Tom Glavine has agreed to a one-year, $8 million free-agent contract to return to Atlanta.

Some of my good friends at BTF seem to think this is a bad move for Atlanta -- a primate by the name of Rough Carrigan terms it "a triumph of emotion over reason" -- but I couldn't disagree more. Unlike the Mets -- and unlike the 1987-2002 Braves -- these Braves are not looking for Glavine to be a front line starter. They are looking for him to be a more or less average innings eater that they can plug in to the 4th or 5th slot in the rotation and not have to worry about him.

If you want to talk about the triumph of emotion over reason, we can talk about the overwhelming urge to kill Atlanta fans had each and every time someone not named Smoltz, Hudson, or James took the mound for the Braves last year:

Buddy Carlyle: 5.21 ERA in 20 starts;
Kyle Davies: 5.76 ERA in 17 starts;
Jo-Jo Reyes: 6.22 ERA in 10 starts;
Lance Cormier: 7.09 ERA in 9 starts;
Mark Redman: 11.63 ERA in 5 starts;
Anthony Larew: 7.71 ERA in 3 starts;

Tom Glavine had a 4.45 ERA in 34 starts, which included a late season implosion that doesn't appear to have been health related (most of the season he was under 4.00). If he does even slightly worse than that in 2008 for Atlanta, he will represent a dramatic improvement.