The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
JEFF JACOBS
No heroic ending for Matt Harvey
He was a Connecticut kid. He is a New York story. Sometimes New York stories don’t end the way Connecticut kids want.
Matt Harvey graduated from Fitch High in Groton in 2007, only 11 springs ago, but stories of his unhittable fastball have long since become legend on the playing fields of the eastern end of our state. There is romance in the retelling, of course. And by the time Harvey went to the Citi Field mound in late 2012 and 2013, Harvey’s Connecticut story had been swallowed whole by the big city. New York hung on every Harvey start the way it once did with Doc Gooden.
His dad Ed used to bring him to the Bronx. He was a Yankees fan then, the familiar tale went, but a Mets hero now. He was a shooting star, the next Roger Clemens. Everyone wanted a piece of him and, in turn, he seemed to want every piece of New York. Supermodel after supermodel with exotic names found him. Television cameras found him sitting at expensive seats at Knicks and Rangers games. The cover of Sports Illustrated found him. So did a foreboding nickname.
Yet by Friday, May 4, 2018, when the club designated Harvey for assignment after he refused a demotion to the minors — ending his days with Mets — there no longer was any thrill in Matt Harvey’s story. New York had chewed him into little pieces and finally was ready to spit him out as the ineffective pitcher he is.
RIP. The Dark Knight of Gotham. Age 29.
General manager Sandy Alderson sounded somber, new manager Mickey Callaway said the Mets had failed Matt Harvey, but the truth was the divorce had grown as inevitable as those eroding celebrity relationships documented on Page Six of the tabloids.
Yes, New York can be cruel.
Baseball is crueler. And pitching is cruelest of all.
Even if his agent Scott Boras refuses to recognize it, Harvey has been bad for too long and only an overhaul can save his major
league career. The question now is the Connecticut kid man enough to recognize this? The Nutmegger has been ground to nutmeg. Is he self-aware enough to notice?
Sitting in the press box in 2012 and 2013, watching cameras go off, listening to fans’ cheers reach a crescendo with every building strikeout, Citi Field was electric. With 98 mph heat and a dive-bombing slider, the fearless Harvey was electric. By the time he started the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field, at age 24, nobody laughed when it was suggested he had the stuff to challenge Tom Seaver as the greatest Mets pitcher of all time.
He gave New York moments and New York lives for moments. Even after Tommy John surgery that cost him the 2014 season, Harvey gave New York his most brazen and cocksure moment in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series. The Dark Knight, the superhero, refused to come out after eight innings of shutout pitching. Pitching coach Dan Warthen tried. Manager Terry Collins tried. He had a message for them the dugout: “No way.” Collins relented. Sometimes the superhero fails, and Harvey’s ninth-inning failure was epic.
He would undergo thoracic outlet surgery in 2016 and while he has been declared healthy, the truth is he has been bad and only getting worse. Even his declining lifetime record of 34-37 with a 3.66 ERA has taken on the scent of career mediocrity.
His pitching, based on velocity, intimidation, no longer scares anyone. His fastball has dropped to 92 mph. After initially balking at the bullpen, he was awful in relief, allowing seven runs in six innings. Harvey was gone as a free agent anyway at the end of the season. And if the Mets can’t work out a deal for him over the next week, he can sign with any team for a prorated minimum of $545,000 (with the Mets picking up what’s let of his $5.6 million salary).
Teams are always crying for pitching depth, so there’s no reason to believe Harvey will not surface elsewhere. That’s not the issue, not yet anyway. The issue is this: Is Matt Harvey mature enough, willing enough to swallow his ego and accept that effective can replace dominant? At least when the alternative is failure?
Harvey is a fascinating study and Harvey in New York is irresistible. In 24 hours, many writers have offered their analysis. There is one theme I cannot fully accept: If Harvey had been healthy, nobody would have cared what he did off the field.
We know the Mets suspended Harvey for three games last year after a late night on the town, an early round of golf and headaches led him to skipping a game. In 2015, Harvey was fined for missing a mandatory team workout. Last week, he was at the opening of the Beverly Hills restaurant Avra with a bunch of A-list celebrities the night before a game and that led to all sorts of speculation.
His overall behavior may be better than the whispers. Who knows? We do know Harvey has come off as an aloof figure in the clubhouse. We do know he taxed the patience of his teammates. We do know the media gatherings around his locker have ranged from brief to awkward to hostile.
Jeter dated beautiful women and so did Di-Maggio, those quick to take up for Harvey say. Mantle and Namath partied too hardy and they were loved, right? As Joel Sherman of the New York Post rightly pointed out on the second point, Mantle and Namath also were loved by their teammates because they included them.
This is my argument: Harvey’s driving individualistic desire to be a star in New York has gotten in the way of his ability to evolve into a different kind of pitcher. That ego, that burning, almost savage desire to be the best may have lit up the New York nights, on and off the field, but Harvey has to accept he no longer is lights out. The 98 mph fastball ain’t walking through that door.
When they are willing and mature, pitchers can reinvent themselves. It isn’t uncommon. And if they have the talent Harvey has, it’s possible. Maybe the answer is in a fuller development of a change, a curve, and their symbiotic use with his fastball and slider. Maybe the answer is economizing his delivery. Furthermore, athletes can refine themselves as teammates, become a bigger part of the clubhouse fabric. In that sense, a move from New York to another club could be a blessing. But all of this takes some humility.
His dominant days gone, is the Dark Knight willing to be something less? Second fiddle? Is Batman willing to be Robin?