Matt Harvey showed improved velocity early in his outing last night, but his fastball faded and he was again hammered as batters got second and third looks. The Mets now face a tough call on their former ace.
Many columnists are calling for Harvey to be removed from the rotation, at least temporarily. (See, for example, here and here.) With Logan Verrett on hand, the club certainly has a viable fill-in.
Indeed, the Mets appear to be considering some kind of move, even if they aren’t ready to reach a decision. “Right now we’ve got to think what’s not just best for Matt, but what’s best for us moving forward at the moment,” said skipper Terry Collins (via ESPN.com’s Adam Rubin). “There’s a lot of things to consider.”
As Collins hints, the devil is often in the details. In this case, the particular move to be made isn’t clear. Harvey has maintained that he is healthy, and no apparent injury issues have been reported. But to send him to the minors otherwise would require passing him through optional assignment waivers. They are revocable, and usually are easy to secure, but teams also don’t generally seek to send down assets like Harvey. Keeping him at the major league level while he’s figuring things out, though, would mean either using him out of the bullpen or wasting a valuable roster spot.
*Note: since this post was published, Collins has stated that Harvey will make his next starter, as Mike Puma of the New York Post was among those to tweet.
It’s always interesting to take the temperature of MLBTR readers on matters like this one. If you were sitting in Sandy Alderson’s GM seat, how would you handle Harvey? (Link for mobile users.)
[polldaddy poll=9428037]
trade to an AL team, bullpen, or minor league stint
I think minor league time might be best. That way he can get some help down there without too much stress. Others could be possibilities
Trade him to the Red Sox
you tellin me they want to give up on harvey cuz he he’s having a bad year and we’re not even at the AS Break? seriously, don’t be stupid. bullpen time is fine, but getting rid of him will come back and haunt them. don’t be dumb. young pitchers have hiccups.
I agree with HarveyD82. Send him to the pen, let him figure things out from there. Build his confidence back up and maybe work on his endurance via strength and conditioning. According to Collins, it’s part mental part mechanical….a session or two with a sport psychologist could offer some help as well…
Relax dude. I’m 99% sure that’s a Red Sox fan joking around because he’d happily take on Harvey…
It would actually be an excellent idea if it bought back any two of Moncada, Devers, Beinetnedi or Espinosa,
And trading Ryan Howard for Mike Trout would be an excellent idea as well.
Why not just ask for all of them and get hung up on faster? Would ave everybody a little time
you misspelled Orioles
How to fix harvey: stop letting him dictate what should be done, last two times Mets brass did, it’s made things worse. Ratchet down the panic. Even with Harvey and deGrom scuffling, Mets are 1.5 game out of first, have elite pitching and Cepedis. Relax. Follow the Nats book on Strasburg. If it’s D/L stints or bullpen work, give himself time to get things back out of the spotlight. Finally, don’t send him to the minors. That’s something he’ll never get over.
Tpar55 has the right plan
Agree and agree (on the notion of minors). Spread out his starts, use extra bullpens .. And yes relief if you want. I am sure if you wanted to trade him you would have 25 teams inquiring
Trading him now would be pretty dumb. Plenty of good pitchers have had a lost season in the middle of their career. Sometimes it’s related to a nagging injury, other times they’re just not executing right.
I’d definitely skip a start, take a breath, then try to bring him back slowly — maybe a pair of 4-inning starts like mid-Spring training. It feels like he just never got into a good rhythm this year and maybe needs a “reboot” of the season.
The bullpen doesn’t do much since he won’t need to use all his pitches, and then he’ll still need to be stretched out again. He’s not going to learn anything pitching against AAA competition, either, so why option him?
Such an over react time we are living right now, with the amount of media coverage, everything is so blown out of proportion. Go look up every pitcher in the HOF Believe it or not you will find a bad season or two sprinkled into every career. Not saying Harvey is on that level, but give the guy a break.
@winston2b you are 100% Correct. The key for a team is HOW they handle it. Dropping a guy to the minors when he doesn’t want to go shows a serious lack of confidence and some players do not respond to that well. The Met’s also need to think about whether they want Harvey to stick around long term because the way they handle this could affect his relationship with the club.
I don’t know Harvey’s personality but what I do know is that EVERY single person is different and young pitchers have egos so the Met’s need to figure out what works for them AND what works for the player. AND to the above point, not to overreact because of all the media attention.
Conditioning stint? Maybe he’s out of shape this year?
If it were an injury how does one explain his ok results in the earlier innings? It’s innings 4 where he’s been falling off a cliff, it seems. But he’s still not missing any bats, and looks like a head case out there with all the pitches he is bouncing.
Lucky for them, they’ve still got other pitchers that haven’t been terrible.
Looking like colon might be able to stay in the rotation when wheeler gets back if Harvey doesn’t improve
DL him with the standard “weakness in his pitching shoulder” excuse.
Talk to him, and find out if he is 100% serious that there is no injury/pain. If he really doesn’t have any of that, you could send him down, I guess. But Matt Harvey at 94 is just way more hittable than Matt Harvey at 97
And that is the difference between a guy who throws hard and a great pitcher. When you have a great pitcher, he is still a great pitcher at 88, 91, 94, and 97. Because location has always mattered a lot more than velocity.
They should have done what the doctors recommend and shut him down at 180 innings last year. It’s not like they won a World Series with him pitching an extra 36 innings. I guess it shows the difference between a team that cares for the health of their players vs not caring. Strasburg Vs. Harvey.
Strasburg went through the same thing last year too and he is as good as ever again.
Strasburg threw way fewer innings upon returning from TJ. And his issues last year seemed to be tied to specific, non-elbow injury issues (and resulting mechanical problems).
I’m far from an alarmist on Harvey, and I think he’ll be good again (maybe sooner than later), but he’s in a different boat at this point than was Strasburg.
I think best case scenario is it is simply fatigue any pitcher is going face a wall after going that many innings for the first time in his career TJS or not. Keuchel seems to be experiencing a bit of the same and he had a lot of innings prior to his 230 IP year.
If the media
It also shows you the difference between a team that made the World Series last year and a team that still has never made the WS.
Ask WAS fans, Straus, and guys on the club if shutting him down was great for that season. I don’t believe they’ve ever won a playoff SERIES, let alone go deep in the playoffs.
Make him grow his hair as long as deGrom & Syndergaard’s – clearly the wilder the hair, the better the control.
Call Boras now and lock him up long term. Can Harvey afford to turn down a 5 year $75 million offer right now? I hope not. Cream always rises to the top so the Mets have all the leverage. Most stupid owners buy high sell low. What am I talking about as the Wilpon’s are as dumb as any owner in baseball. A year from now Harvey will get $200 million. Sign him now. This is just a good hiccup and a wake up call to Harvey about working hard. If you listen carefully you can hear Wilpon saying ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS
Matt Harvey has a career 2.92 ERA, 2.84 FIP, and 3.15 xFIP. Ian Kennedy has a career 3.95 ERA, 4.01 FIP, and 3.94 xFIP, with both having pitched nearly all of their career in the NL. (Their win percentages are about equal on some similarly bad teams, if you’re into wins). Kennedy gets $75 million, so Harvey could still easily turn down that offer. This is about the worst time for either party to discuss an extension.
Matt Harvey would never, ever accept 5 years and $75MM right now. Unless, of course, he knew of a secret injury, in which case it would be a terrible deal for the Mets.
He should be left in the rotation for now. He’s not exactly crippling the team (they’re still 7 games over .500 and only 1.5 games back in the NL East). He’s had an abnormally low stand rate and high HR/FB rate. The decline in velocity and strikeouts is certainly concerning, and they may need to revisit this in 2 or 3 starts in the poor results continue, but, for now, they should leave him in the rotation and let him try to figure this out, since he’s still a key piece of their team moving forward.
Skip his next start…maybe he just needs a little rest. Putting him on the DL with the whole arm/shoulder fatigue is always an option too. If he comes back from his time off and still struggles, explore sending him down to AAA. While I get sending a guy down can wreck his confidence, if his struggles continue he has to understand they are doing it for his benefit and the team’s. A start or two in AAA will allow him to work on his stuff and regain confidence (even if you know the level of competition isn’t as good, I’m sure just seeing good results will be beneficial). If Harvey gets all mad/dramatic about the time off and/or being sent down…trade him. The relationship will be hurt at that point and he will come off as a prima donna. At the end of the day, there’s only so much a team with championship aspirations can let a guy continue to struggle…if Harvey has a problem with that then he’s not fit to play a team sport.
The Dark Knight needs to go to the minors and work things out.
Trading him right now would be a huge mistake, if the Mets do trade Harvey (which probably won’t happen) they’ll want him to get his trade value up. His trade value right now couldn’t be any lower.
Ten percent think he should be traded? Talk about overreaction. (Or, perhaps, talk about non-Mets fans who would like him on their team.)
Dan Duquette calling………Sandy, I hear you’re having trouble with that Harvey kid…….may I interest you in a slightly used Ubaldo Jimenez?
At the end of the day, people need to realize that the Mets are a contending team and that you can’t stick with this guy much longer if you want to beat the Nationals in the division.
Id skip a start and if that doesn’t work then option him and let him figure out his issues in AAA
Keep him in the rotation, but only let him get through the order twice, and keep someone like Montero in the pen ready to pitch after him. Take him out before he can get into trouble. It would be to the same effect of moving him to the bullpen, but without the confidence-deflating associated with moving him to the pen. If that doesn’t work, send him down.
This is a little off topic but somewhat related, how do people feel about MLB expanding the MLB roster to maybe 27 players? I feel like if that happened teams might go with more pitchers but I’d really like to see the number of bench players increase as well.
I personally don’t like it. You can already have 26 for a double header, though that’s not an every day occurrence.
More importantly, I doubt management will like it since it will add ~$8.8 million in payroll per team (based on the 2016 average salary of $4.4 million) without a corresponding increase in revenues. And it’s likely the small and mid-market teams will be the most vocal in opposition.,
27 is what’s needed but management will never cut into the bottom line $. Or add the DH and make it 26
Trade him to Texas for Moreland.
Where is the option for: ‘Make him lose those extra 50 pounds’?
He a bully hard to coach trade him to a bad team with a strong management deal with the dark knight attitude