Tom Glavine discusses Spencer Strider, the 2023 Braves, MLB’s rule changes

Ben Verlander

FOX Sports MLB Analyst

What’s better than one Hall of Fame pitcher from those incredible 1990s Atlanta Braves teams joining me on “Flippin’ Bats“?

Getting a second to join.

I got the chance to talk with Tom Glavine this week about that incredible dynasty in Atlanta that I grew up watching as they won 14 straight National League East titles. We also chatted about the current Braves team that just clinched their sixth straight NL East crown, their ace Spencer Strider, and of course I had to ask about Glavine’s old rotation mate and longtime friend, MLB on FOX lead analyst and weekly “Flippin’ Bats” guest John Smoltz.

But what got Glavine just as excited as anything is talking about how the new pitch clock in Major League Baseball has made things better for fans of the league — even if those fans are, like him, legendary former players.

“I’ve watched more baseball this year than I have in the last five years, simply because it’s a better product to watch right now,” Glavine said. “Sitting there for four-and-a-half hours to watch home runs, strikeouts and walks was just not much fun. With the rule changes now and particularly the pitch clock, you’ve eliminated so much dead time. 

“I have a much better chance to sit down and watch a ballgame that’s gonna last two-and-a-half hours. Four-and-a-half hours, you’re gonna lose me, and you’re gonna lose a lot of marginal baseball fans.”

Glavine is also a big fan of the shift rules and bigger bases, saying the style of baseball being played reminds him more of how it was when he was still taking the mound. 

“I kind of laugh a little bit watching pitchers today trying to control the running game, trying to figure out when to throw over or trying to figure out slide steps and do all those things that you know we had to do,” Glavine said. “The late-1980s St. Louis Cardinals were single-handedly the reason why I learned how to slide step because those guys ran all over you if you didn’t pay attention to them… The no-shift [rules], I think, have been great. The single’s sexy again.”

Glavine is also a fan of replay reviews and notices umpires get many more things right these days due to those advancements in technology; though, as someone who played for the legendary Bobby Cox, he does miss how often managers would jaw at the umpires and risk getting ejected much more frequently in the old days. 

Where Glavine does want to make a stand for tradition, though, is to advocate against replacing human home plate umpires with automated strike zones or “robot umps.”

“I just think that’s such a big part of the game, both for hitters and pitchers,” Glavine said. “If you’re a pitcher and you can fill up the zone, and you make it hard for an umpire not to call strikes. That’s a good thing, right? If you’re a hitter, and you’ve got the reputation of being a great hitter in the strike zone and [having] command of the strike zone, you’re gonna get the benefit of some calls. To me, that’s a part of the game I just don’t want to see go away.”

Glavine also shared some hilarious old stories about our mutual friend Smoltz, including when the famously avid golfer once lost his book full of golf-course information on a New York City bus — “You would have thought his one-year-old child disappeared,” Glavine laughingly recalled — or when Glavine claims that Smoltz burned his shirt while trying to iron it (a story which Smoltz still disputes to this day).

“He’s a 12-year-old kid trapped in a now-50-year-old man’s body,” Glavine added.

I also asked Glavine about what his old teammate said about current Braves ace Strider on a local broadcast recently, when Smoltz gave Strider a massive compliment by stating that the 24-year-old “is so far ahead of any one of us that’s ever pitched in an Atlanta Braves uniform.”

Glavine was not willing to go that far, but did say that there is a stark difference between young pitchers like Strider in today’s big leagues and where he and Smoltz were at in that point of their careers.

“I think all of us evolved and became better and did some things differently,” Glavine said. “I say this about just about every guy that comes to the big leagues now, they have better stuff and they’re probably a little bit more polished in some ways than I was and John probably was. But at the same time, I hesitate to say that because I don’t think they know how to pitch as well as we did when they get to the big leagues, simply because we had a number of minor league innings under our belt. These guys don’t anymore. They’re getting called up to the big leagues with less than 100 innings of minor league baseball routinely now. 

“So, the art of pitching is not necessarily there. But I think at a younger age, these guys are learning. Obviously, they throw with velocity, but they’re learning breaking balls earlier, they’re learning changeups earlier. I don’t think John and I really did that. I mean, I didn’t have a changeup really until two years in the big leagues.”

Braves’ Tom Glavine turned down NHL after being drafted in the 4th round

Glavine does believe Strider is a rare case, however, because of how much he trusts in himself as a pitcher already in his second big-league season.

“He’s got a good idea if what he’s trying to do, but I think more importantly, he knows who he is and he knows what makes him successful,” Glavine said. “I think a lot of guys at his age, myself included, if you asked them what they were good at, I’m not sure [that] they had an answer. … But I think Spencer knows who he is, and does a good job of making that his foundation. But having said that, there are some things that I think that I think we all would like to see him develop and do and add, and that’ll come with time.”

Strider has been instrumental in helping the Braves to a sixth straight NL East title, and Glavine — who has been involved with the organization since his retirement in 2009 — says this team’s current run of dominance has given him a new perspective on what his 1990s teams were able to accomplish by winning the division for 14 consecutive years, a record that I still do not think will ever be broken.

“When you see this current edition and how good they’ve been and how dominant they’ve been, they’ve won six straight, well, you’ve got eight more to go, and it seems almost impossible,” Glavine said. “Now, this group is going to be together for a while, and if everybody stays healthy, who knows?

“It’s hard to completely appreciate it when you’re going through it, because you’re just focused on doing it again. … I think I appreciate it more now, looking back at it, and probably even because what this current team has accomplished.”

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