Hall of Fame left-handed pitcher Tom Glavine, who spent 17 seasons with the Atlanta Braves and five seasons with the New York Mets, recently joined The Baseball Insiders podcast to discuss a plethora of things going on in baseball.
Glavine, now 57, had one of the most decorated careers for a pitcher in baseball history. In 22 seasons, he started in 682 games, and won 305 games. He recorded 2607 strikeouts, posted a 3.54 ERA, an 80.7 bWAR, and won two Cy Young Awards and made 10 All-Star teams.
Now, Glavine is still involved in baseball. He estimates that he will do 35 to 40 Atlanta Braves broadcasts this season. He has previously shown significant interest in owning an MLB team one day, at one point being among the most serious bidders to buy the Miami Marlins, only for the Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter-led group to purchase the team years ago.
To this day, Glavine has interest in owning an MLB team but admits there are hurdles in making that happen. In the interview with The Baseball Insiders, Glavine discussed that ownership pursuit, the current state of the Atlanta Braves, and his partnership with Sam's Club to celebrate their $1.38 hot dog and Pepsi combo.
Glavine, of course, spent the bulk of his career with the Braves. He spends the bulk of his time around the team in the clubhouse and in the booth as a broadcaster. And with the Braves at 90-46, and easily the best team in the National League, Glavine is a believer in the organization – both in the short and long term.
Braves: Tom Glavine is bullish on Atlanta now and moving forward
"What's not to be impressed by?" Glavine said. "They have certainly used the Atlanta Braves formula: they draft, develop, and they do that from within the organization. When I played, it was more geared toward the pitching side of things. I think this rendition is a little more offensive-minded. Nonetheless, the results have been great.
"Clearly, they have done a great job drafting and developing these guys. They've done a great job signing these guys up to long-term deals. It's a great situation. You can foresee this team, and the nucleus, being together for a long, long time. Provided that they stay healthy, provided that they continue to do all the things the organization anticipates them to do, they're going to be fun to watch for a long time. You have to give Alex (Anthopoulos) a lot of credit for being creative in signing these guys and tying them up, and also to the scouting and development for going out and drafting the right guys. Then developing them into the players that they think they can be."
That Braves nucleus consists of Ronald Acuna Jr., Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, Michael Harris II, Sean Murphy, Ozzie Albies, Vaughn Grissom, Kyle Wright and numerous others – all of whom are signed through at least 2026, with Riley being signed through 2033.
In 2017, Glavine worked together with billionaire Tagg Romney to buy the Miami Marlins. The group ultimately missed out, with Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter buying the team for $1.2 billion.
Despite missing out on the Marlins, Glavine maintains interest in buying a team. There are just numerous hurdles, specifically the Oakland and Tampa Bay situations, as well as the timeframe for Major League Baseball to expand from 30 to 32 teams.
"It is (something I'm still interested in)," Glavine said. "I've had a couple other things that have materialized, but in terms of putting groups together and looking at teams, probably the easiest way of doing that is expansion. Baseball has to figure out what's going to happen in Tampa Bay and Oakland before they're ready to expand. That cooled things off a little bit. It's hard to force Major League Baseball to do anything if they're not ready to do it. I think it's clear that they are going to expand by two teams.
"The biggest problem is what that timeframe looks like. It's hard to keep groups together because people move onto other things. But it's something I'm still interested in and if the right thing comes along … I haven't closed the door, so to speak since the Marlins thing. Just not as rigorous about this whole thing until I see what happens with Tampa and Oakland."