Lowering bar would be a good first step
PORT ST. LUCIE — Regarding Matt Harvey and the Mets, it’s time to stop being polite and start getting real. Harvey’s right shoulder is stronger than ever? Mickey Callaway couldn’t overlook his upside? OK. Nothing is impossible.
Yet after everything this pitcher and this team have endured and experienced together, they should aim lower, if only privately, in 2018.
How about just trying for a graceful exit?
“New year. People make mistakes,” Harvey said Thursday at First Data Field in his first news conference of the spring. “I’m looking forward to a new season.”
This quote came in response to a question about the nightmare that was his 2017 — the dreadful results on the field and his memorable three-game suspension for failing to show up to a Mets game at Citi Field. It easily could have covered the myriad mistakes made by both him and the Mets since Harvey first electrified the Mets’ fan base as the Dark Knight back in 2013. Harvey reported to camp with five years and 72 days of service time, so barring some unforeseen development, he’ll be a free agent at season’s end. Remember when he got mentioned right alongside Bryce Harper and Manny Machado (and the late Jose Fernandez, sadly) as someone set to strike it mega-rich at the 2018 Winter Meetings set, fittingly, in Las Vegas? In Thursday’s news conference, Harvey’s free agency didn’t come up until the sixth question. Shoot, if the Mets felt like saving a few more bucks this past winter, they could’ve justifiably non- tendered Harvey, who has a combined 5.78 ERA in 185 ¹/₃ innings for 2016-17, and set him free a year earlier than scheduled.
Instead, at the urging of Callaway, their new manager, and his new pitching coach, Dave Eiland, the Mets opted to keep the right- hander, who turns 29 next month, and they correctly turned down other clubs’ attempts to buy low on the fallen ace. Once they committed to him, they might as well go all the way. Get all the way through this
season and that’ll be it, right? On a scale of 1 to 10, from least to most certain, you’d put the possibility of Harvey in a Mets uniform next spring training at a 1. Both sides could benefit greatly from a fresh start in 2019.
Even more so, however, the drama-prone pitcher and the mishap-heavy team would do well to mend their oft-fractured relationship and make the best of this likely final lap.
Maybe Harvey, now over a year and a half removed from his thoracic outlet syndrome procedure, can really stay healthy and reach even the 100-inningspitched mark and be even league-average, neither of which plane he has crossed since 2015.
“I’ve got a lot left in the tank,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”
And maybe he can thrive under Callaway and Eiland.
“He might never be the Dark Knight again,” Callaway said of Harvey, “but the Mets don’t need that from him. … We need the best version of who Matt is today, and that person is going to be good enough.”
The best version of Harvey today and this year will avoid a repeat of last year’s off-field behavior that spilled onto the field, not to mention his many wrong decisions from his diva days of 2013-15.
Just as important, the Mets must treat Harvey better. No more having him pitch on short notice two straight turns through the starting rotation, as occurred in 2017. No more going pettiness-for-pettiness with him like back in the diva days. If Harvey can help pitch the Mets back to contention, or if he can make himself a viable trade chip in the scenario where the Mets stink despite a Harvey resurgence, that would really be something. It would be Walter White and Hector Salamanca putting their content i ous past behind them and teaming to take down Gustavo Fring in “Breaking Bad.”
“There’s a lot left I have to do,” Harvey said, thinking big picture. If he and his original baseball employer can part ways on good terms, that would be a lot, in and of itself.