WILD ABOUT MATT, METS
Harvey moxie reason to believe
The hot-take reaction to hearing Matt Harvey say the Mets are going to “shock a lot of people” this season is easy: How about proving you can be a decent major-league starter again before you start making bold predictions?
Except that would be ignoring the significance of Harvey talking like it’s 2013 again.
My own reaction to the sudden reappearance of his old Dark Knightish persona is that it just might be the best sign Mets fans could hope for as a new season begins on Thursday at Citi Field.
Remember, this is the same guy who last September was so discouraged that he sounded like he was ready to give up on pitching, and even in spring training stuck to a script of saying as little as possible, refusing to discuss anything connected to his injury-related struggles of last season.
So for Harvey to volunteer such a strong opinion tells me he has regained his confidence after a spring of encouraging performances, perhaps even regained a bit of the old alpha-dog edge to his personality.
Indeed, though he wouldn’t discuss it with the media, Harvey told someone he trusts last week that being another year removed from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery in 2016 has enabled him to finally rebuild strength on the right side of his body and pitch with “feel” again.
So while his fastball velocity may never reach the high-90s again, that feel has enabled Harvey to throw with better command, especially with his off-speed pitches. His change-up, in particular, was very effective in spring training, and Harvey now seems to understand he needs to use it if he’s going to be successful.
All of which should be enough to make him at least a solid No. 3 starter, and that’s good enough for the Mets as long as Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard deliver as expected at the top of the rotation.
In fact, the strides Harvey and Steven Matz made in spring training were vital for anyone looking for reason to believe the Mets can be serious contenders again after the catastrophe that was the 2017 season.
Likewise, Michael Conforto’s ahead-of-schedule return from shoulder capsule surgery and Yoenis Cespedes’ apparent commitment to staying healthy — to the point of giving up his beloved golf — were exactly what you needed to see to buy in again.
Well, I am anyway, picking the Mets to earn a wild-card berth in our Daily News season-preview section this week.
I don’t think they have the offensive firepower to match the Nationals and win the NL East, but as long as they’re not facing Madison Bumgarner again in the wild-card game, you have to like their chances with deGrom or Syndergaard starting, and from there who knows.
They’re due for some good luck with health, obviously, but the much-needed changes they made on that front, introducing injuryprevention techniques that other organizations were using, while also creating a position to oversee more sophisticated analysis, can’t hurt either.
I wouldn’t discount the impact of new voices, either, primarily those of manager Mickey Callaway and pitching coach Dave Eiland. It’s not a knock on Terry Collins and Dan Warthen to say the time had come for a change in leadership, and in spring training I got a strong sense that was a universal feeling.
It’s no secret there had been a disconnect in recent years between Collins and a front office that didn’t agree with many of his strategic moves, especially his handling of the bullpen, and longed for a more analytics-friendly manager.
But I realized I may have underestimated the extent of that disconnect when, after making the trek from Tampa to Port St. Lucie a week