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The Matt Harvey Days Were Fun Weren’t They?

Matt Harvey deserves a tribute video, and an ovation from Mets fans, surely. He literally gave a rib trying to pitch for the Mets, and was a fireballing star for a few years there. Top of the world so to speak. That’s fun.

We’re perhaps making too much of his return here. It’s fun that we’ll get to see him again, but this isn’t aging veteran returning in the sunset of his career, nor is it talented free agent the Mets let get away and is now returning to threaten them. It’s a pitcher that had a few great and powerful years with the Mets, both on and off the field. He pitched our All Star Game, Our last World Series game, and he did so well. Maybe It’s me that’s not making enough of this.

It’s unfair to say Harvey burned bright and faded away, it wasn’t that he flew too close to the sun, or whatever metaphor you want to use. Like so many other pitchers, he was really really good, got hurt because pitching is dangerous, and hasn’t been able to recapture what made him great in the first place.

For Harvey, that’s fastball velocity. Baseball’s a game of inches after all. It’s hard to be the best of the best of the best, and while there are some pitchers that manage to adjust to fading velocity with command, or movement, that’s a different skill. Not all pitchers have them all to the same elite level. It appears Matt Harvey does not quite have it, and without the extra velocity, he’s just too hittable.

Matt Harvey started the All Star Game at Citi Field, which will forever be harkened back to every time or any time we host again. The Mets couldn’t keep 2015 going a few more games, but Harvey’s great performance in that game 5 will forever be remembered, and talked about whenever we make the World Series next.

The Harvey days were fun, and while his return this afternoon is not particularly meaningful, It gives us this time to reflect back and remember those good times. For an inning or two, before Lindor homers for the second time in the bottom of the 2nd and chases him from the game.

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Mets, With Matt Harvey, Learn From Nationals Mistake

The Mets have committed to not riding Matt Harvey, just back from Tommy John surgery, as hard as they can from bell to bell. A little caution and prudence is the right course here.

 

Managing the innings and workload early is the best way to handle this. Despite what you see in meaningless Spring Training games, there just might be an adjustment period for Harvey as he settles into facing competitive batters again. April, and the cold, are generally harsher on bodies than the warmer summer months and even the fall after you’ve build up arm strength all season. He’ll still face the Washington Nationals, the Mets’ principal foe this season, in the first round.

 

It’s those very Nationals that provided the template for what not to do. Perhaps if the Nationals had been wiser in 2012 about resting Steven Strasburg earlier in the season, they’d have had innings left to use him in the playoffs and perhaps the Nationals would have more to show for their playoff appearances than they do right now.

 

A slow ramp up is the right move with Harvey, especially as his own mentality would have him pressing hard and fast from the get-go. Ease into it; it’s a long season and the hope is to have Harvey healthy and fresh for October.

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Matt Harvey’s Record Is Actually Very Good

photo by CeetarPitcher wins mean next to nothing. They’re a factor of the offense, defense, the opposing pitcher and often times the bullpen. The best way to accumulate wins as a pitcher is to play on a team that scores a billion runs.  That team is not the Mets.

 

The Mets are 13-12 in Matt Harvey starts. He has nine wins and four losses, which is actually a pretty good percentage. The Mets are then four and eight after he leaves the game, suggesting that they are a team with a really good player and aren’t as good when he leaves the game. Additionally, they’ve been playing without their best hitter and best reliever for a couple of weeks now, the guys they’d need most in those post-Harvey innings. The Mets don’t score runs, and when they do they often do it in bunches. That is why they don’t win more Matt Harvey games. The less runs you score as a team, the less likely those runs are going to be scored for your ace.  This is especially true when you’re trying to build a cushion of runs to preserve a lead with the bullpen pitching at least two innings for even the best of starters in the league, of which Matt Harvey is one.

 

The Mets won 52% of Matt Harvey’s starts so far this year and 44.3% of their games otherwise.  Over 162 games that means they’d win 84 games if Harvey started everyday, and just 72 if he wasn’t on the team. That’s quite a difference, in fact it’s 17% better. Just for a reference point 17% better than a .500 team would get you to nearly 95 wins.

 

Of course, there’s a lot of randomness and luck in there because the Mets score runs independent of who they’re starting, so running into a lot of weak starters on one day, or a hitter happening to have a great day another can greatly skew these results, which is why a pitcher’s record mean so little. If Daniel Murphy gets hot and goes four for five with two home runs one day, that has nothing to do with how well Matt Harvey is pitching. There is no rhyme or reason to which batters happen to hit well on a given day, and it’s just luck if it happens on one pitcher’s starting day more than another’s. It’s safe to say the Mets aren’t quite wasting Matt Harvey starts, because he is making them much better. He’s helping them win games they’d have no business winning otherwise given how many runs they scored. In some ways, if they scored six or seven runs on a day Harvey started that could more be considered wasting his start, because they’d rarely need so many to cover what he gives up to the opposing team.

 

 

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Matt Harvey and the best pitching performance I’ve seen

photo by CeetarLast night I was lucky to be in the ballpark to see Matt Harvey baffle the White Sox hitters all night long. It was an amazing performance from the start, and a captivating one. I watched the game in awe; whether or not he would get the perfect game was immaterial to his dominance. You knew that he was pitching well enough to get one, and if he didn’t it would be that odd squib or perfectly placed grounder that broke it up. It was precisely that, a perfectly placed ball between third and short off the bat of the speedy Alex Rios that did it.

 

That didn’t take away from the greatness of it. That’s probably the best game I’ve ever seen in person, and it might just be the best game I ever will see in person and I’m only 31. Last season I saw Dickey spin a masterful one-hitter that had much the same feel as last night’s game in that you just knew the opposition had no chance. I also saw Johan Santana’s 4-hit complete game shutout the start before the no-hitter that was probably his most dominating game of the year. Before that I got to see Santana’s final start of 2008, that gutsy performance to flay the Marlins and keep the Mets playoff hopes alive. That was a great game too, but any of us would’ve taken a 12-10 slug-fest just as easily, the magnitude of the win overshadowed how it was achieved.

 

Watching Matt Harvey emerge..no, emerge sounds too timid. Watching Matt Harvey burst onto the scene as one of the best pitchers in the game the way he has is a feeling all it’s own. He leads the league in strikeouts and WHIP. He’s given up an average of only four hits per nine innings. He throws in the mid-high 90s with his fastball.  He’ll pitch with blood streaming out of his nose. He probably juggles between innings to entertain his teammates and feeds and nurtures the stray cats that live around Citi Field.

 

Onlookers that remember have started to draw comparisons to Dwight Gooden and how his starts at Shea Stadium were events. Matt Harvey is certainly getting there, and fast. Just look at Twitter and see all the people after the game last night and today planning to be there on Sunday for his next start. As the weather warms up this will become very evident, but it hasn’t yet. Last night’s crowd was sparse and quite for the most part. Everyone got into it as they realized just how dominating he was last night, but for a nice night against a team that few Mets fans have ever seen the crowd was disappointing.

 

I understand that you feel betrayed by the Mets, or the payroll, or the record, or the Wilpons, or Beltran, but baseball is awesome and every Matt Harvey start, if not every game, is an opportunity to see something wonderful. So instead of muttering under your breath about wasted starts and commenting to me about firing the hitting coach as we watch the bottom of the 10th, enjoy what’s in front of us; a great Matt Harvey performance and a walk-off victory.