While every Met fan counts down the days until the 2016 season starts, we each have our own great expectations of what our favorite players might accomplish. The rookies Michael Conforto, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz will now have a full season to display their immense talents. Perhaps this is the year Travis d’Arnaud avoids the DL and blossoms into an All-Star. The forgotten phenom Zack Wheeler will be back to join the best rotation in baseball (ask ESPN) by June or July. But what this fan is looking most forward to is a full, healthy and unrestricted season of Matt Harvey. That’s right – the Dark Knight unchained.
When Harvey came up in 2012, he was just 23 and joined the team after the All-Star break to give us 10 starts – a taste of greatness to come. The 6’4” righty demonstrated pure power, impressive control, a complete repertoire of pitches and a prize fighter’s determination. He had four pitches, including a blazing fastball, biting slider, sweeping curve, and sinking changeup, that kept hitters off balance. He had a presence on the mound that at once elicited poise, confidence and domination. He immediately looked like a future ace and his small sample of numbers backed that up. The rookie posted a 2.73 ERA and 70 strikeouts in just 59.1 innings.
In 2013, Harvey looked like a Cy Young candidate. Despite horrific run support (3.37 runs per game average), several blown saves by the Mets’ bullpen and a season cut short by injury, he still started the All-Star game at Citi Field and finished fourth in the Cy Young award voting. In 26 starts, Harvey pitched to a 2.27 ERA and a 9.6 K/9 rate. Harvey showed improved control and a mastery of a nasty slider that no one could touch. It became his best out pitch. Harvey’s terrific sophomore season was cut short by a torn ulnar collateral ligament and eventual Tommy John surgery. He’d go on to miss the 2014 season rehabbing his elbow.
No one knew what to expect of Harvey and his reconstructed arm in 2015. For starters, the Major League recovery rate for pitchers who’ve undergone Tommy John surgery is somewhere between 79 and 83 percent according to the American Journal of Sports Medicine. That is to say roughly one in five major league pitchers who undergo the surgery never pitch in the majors again. Still more are never quite the same. Taylor Bucholz and Victor Zambrano are two recent examples of many who threw fewer than 100 innings for the rest of their careers following the surgery. Our friend Bobby Parnell may unfortunately prove to be a member of this club. Let’s hope not.
Recognizing the value of their young ace, the Mets understandably treated Harvey with kid gloves. Despite his desire to suit up and take the hill at the end of 2014, the Mets front office insisted Harvey wait until 2015 and take a full 18 months to rehabilitate. This would give his elbow time to heal, allow him to regain strength, flexibility and confidence, while giving the organization peace of mind. It proved to be the prudent move.
Harvey started off 2015 like the ace we all remembered, winning his first five decisions. By May 18, through eight starts, Harvey was 5-1 with a 1.98 ERA. Then he stumbled a bit, getting roughed up in three of his next four starts, before settling down and pitching well the remainder of the season. For most of the summer, Harvey was effective but not overpowering. He limited runs and walks, stranded base runners and got the key outs, but his strikeouts were down.
In this writer’s observation, he was hesitant to throw that hard slider that was so often his out pitch. The once 98 to 100 mph fastball was coming in at more like 95 to 96 and hitters were fouling it off or flying out before grounding out on a changeup or curveball. While a recent in-depth study by the NY Times actually proved that a fastball actually puts the most strain on the arm (more than sliders or even screwballs) there is a prevailing notion that sliders are tough on the elbow.
Then the September game against the Yankees came, the one when Harvey was famously pulled after five stellar innings and then felt the ire of New York who felt he wasn’t leaving it all out there for his team. Controversy aside, Harvey looked as good as ever in that game, striking out seven and allowing just one hit. Notably, the nasty old slider was back. Combined with his last two regular season starts, Harvey finished the season allowing just two earned runs in 18 innings of work with 24 strikeouts and only one walk. The Dark Knight was back. Harvey finished the season 13-8 with a 2.71 ERA in 189.1 innings pitched, exceeding the supposed hard innings limit imposed by agent Scott Boras and possibly, maybe also medical staff. In four post season starts, Harvey was running on fumes and adrenaline, but still managed to go 2-0 with a 3.04 ERA under the spotlight against the best teams.
Going into 2016, Harvey will be 27, a peak pitching age, according to FanGraphs, when velocity is still high and control is at its best. There will be no lingering injuries, no innings limits and no fear of throwing sliders. His extraordinary talent is only surpassed by his unwavering, pitbull-on-a-chew toy determination. More than anything Matt Harvey wants to be the best pitcher in baseball. This is his year to make his case.
Agree completely. Harvey has an excellent chance at winning the Cy Young this season.
I say we ride the Dark Knight to a WS ring and not be concerned with being able to sign him. If he walks in ’18 and we have a championship under our belt then so be it. With some better defense up the middle all of our starters will pick up a few more wins. There is no reason why any of the big three cant be Cy Young contenders this year.
Harvey was fabulous in 2013.
What I’ll always remember: 9 measly wins.
There’s a lesson in there, one that I’m worried the Mets organization seems unwilling to learn.
They clearly have the best starting rotation in baseball. And they play in a garbage division, mercifully. But offense, defense, bullpen all appear mediocre at best.
Here’s the numbers I’d be curious to see, if anyone had the time. We’ve all seen the lists of team payrolls, where the Mets rank 19th or something like that.
Now I’d like to subtract the money paid to the likely starting five pitchers from each team, and then re-organize the numbers.
My guess is that the Mets would shoot upwards quite a bit, possibly into the top ten. Which would underscore the point that when it comes to budget, in terms of address the bullpen and all the position players, Sandy has actually had a comparatively decent amount of money to work with. Other teams are spending $20, $30, $40 million on their rotations. The Yankees are paying Sabathia and Tanaka $45 million in 2016. The Red Sox are paying Price & Porcello $51 million in 2016. Yet even with that competitive edge in spending — Sandy is basically getting his big five for free, then you can throw in Colon — he hasn’t done that impressive a job assembling a team to support his starters.
Tigers paying over $70 for their starting five. Cubs over $50 (at $46, plus Arrieta’s arb number).
And so on.
Well, the teams you are listing have the biggest budgets and are spending big on both offense and pitching. Go to the lower rungs of the list and you’ll find plenty of teams who are spending little (<15m) on their starting 5. Basically it's all the teams who haven't splurged on a big name SP in the last few years.
Braves : ~6m
Reds: 4-5m without Homer Bailey, add 18m if you want to include him
Rockies: ~14m
Marlins: ~8m
Brewers: ~17m
Phillies : ~15m
Indians: ~12m
Astros: ~15m
A's :~12m
Rays: ~17m
My guess is that if you remove SP payrolls, Mets would probably stay in the same spot or move up slightly.
James- you make an excellent point. You could argue that Wright and Grandy eat up half the remaining salary, but you could also argue that the front office has wasted money on bad signings like Chris Young, Shawn Marcum, Cuddyer, and a few others
Mets just avoided arbitration with Harvey.
Harvey got $4.325 million. Strasburg got $10.1, perhaps a preview of what to expect next year.
James – a little follow up research on expected payroll. With contracts, arbitration estimates, and league minimums (but not counting $5 million in “retained contracts” for deferred payments to Bonilla, Saberhagen and Beltran) we’re looking at about $105 million. Subtract about 14 for the rotation and your left with 90. 36 of that is eaten up by wright and Grandy so that leaves just 54 for the rest of the team. Modest salaries to Lagares, deAza, Cabrera, Walker, Duda, Blevins, Tejada and then a bunch of minimums fill out the rest of the roster. For a NY team to only have 2 players earning upwards of $10 million is pretty ridiculous.