Mets360 2016 projections: Matt Harvey

Welcome to our annual projection series, now getting ready to start its fourth season with a look at Matt Harvey.

It was a magical year for the Mets in 2015. Sure, sure we all wish it ended with a World Series win. But having said that every single one of us would have signed on the dotted line if offered a chance to lose in the World Series this time last year. Rather, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the one thing that we really wish could have been different last year was the timing and the delivery of the Harvey innings limit decree.

Harvey’s reputation among the fans took a giant hit. And even though he well exceeded the innings total that his agent claimed was a hard cap, the damage was done. Fans still talk about trading him now for a discounted rate, rationalizing that his agent is hell-bent on Harvey getting max dollars somewhere else at the first available opportunity. Fortunately, cooler heads in the front office have kept him in Queens.

So, now the immediate question is if Harvey did any damage by throwing 216 innings last year once you combine his playoff work with what he did during the regular season. We may never know the answer to that but if he comes down with an injury in 2016, you know select people will point to his workload as one of the main reasons why. So, what do we think? Here are our individual projections:

While there’s a 60-inning difference between our high and low forecast, the majority of us see him throwing between 195 and 215 IP, including two writers who got their projections in after the deadline. Here are the numbers for them:

Walendin – 201 IP, 2.82 ERA, 201 K, 40 BB, 14 HR, 2.99 FIP, 76.0% LOB%
Ferguson – IP: 200, ERA: 2.60, K: 210, BB: 40, HR: 14, FIP: 2.80, LOB%: 79%

Here’s what the group thinks Harvey will do in 2016:

In addition to him being healthy, we all expect him to be a good pitcher, with the worst forecast a 3.12 FIP. Harvey had great control last year in his return from TJ surgery and we expect that to continue going forward.

Now let’s see how our projection stacks up against the big boys:

Ours is the most optimistic but none of the projection systems sees him pitching poorly. Marcel has a low innings total, due to him missing 2014. In somewhat of a surprise, ZiPS doesn’t have him even reaching the alleged hard innings cap of a year ago. All four systems see Harvey posting a FIP within .05 points of his ERA, a bit curious given how he outperformed his FIP by 34 points last year, thanks to a 78.7 LOB%.

Check back on Monday for our next entry in the projection series.