Yankees have taken on Mets projects before, why not a Dark Knight

For every Mets fan sick of Matt Harvey’s act on and off the field — and elated that the former All-Star is being designated for assignment — here is your sobering and perhaps dreaded worst-case scenario as this saga continues to unfold: Imagine if the erstwhile Dark Knight switches Gotham addresses and reclaims even part of his superhero form to help pitch his childhood team, the Yankees, to the World Series this year.

Yes, only on YES, so many things still would have to happen for Harvey to end up in the Bronx in the coming weeks, but the Yankees have both an immediate need to bolster their pitching depth — with Jordan Montgomery likely out for a couple of months — and a history of taking low-risk fliers on big-name former Mets with troubled pasts.

Remember when Mets flameouts Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry resurrected their star-crossed careers with second chances under benevolent former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, earning redemption in the form of championship rings in pinstripes in 1996? Doc also tossed a no-hitter in the Bronx in May of that year, while Straw copped two additional titles as a key veteran influence with the Bombers in 1998 and ’99.

Heck, there were plenty of Mets fans and probably a few employees within the organization who were vehemently opposed to dealing Jay Bruce or Neil Walker — despite neither having as much of a strong attachment to Flushing — to the Yanks ahead of last summer’s trade deadline for just that reason.

Now multiply that angst by 100 if Harvey somehow figures out how to effectively record outs again at the big-league level, especially if it happens in the same market and for a playoff-bound Yankees squad.

That’s right, forget how fed up you are with Harvey for a second, and think about what it would be like to see him rejuvenate his oncepromising career on the other side of town.

Especially after you’ve painfully lived through all of the injuries and all of the gossip-page fodder and the failed expectations and all of the underwhelming performances of the past 13 months, which ultimately landed him in the bullpen last month and finally prompted Sandy Alderson to ask Harvey to accept an assignment to the minors on Friday.

Harvey, as you know, declined that request, as was his right, based on service time. Just as the Mets were within their rights — and justified, in my opinion — in their realization that enough was enough.

But do you think Harvey would turn down a similar request from Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman if it means possibly donning the exalted uniform of the team he grew up rooting for in Connecticut before the Mets drafted him with the seventh overall pick out of North Carolina in 2010, or potentially sticking it to the Mets, in the process?

I do not, even if it means he’d have to swallow hard and finally put aside his bruised ego to facilitate such a switch.

Harvey spoke early in his career of emulating and worshipping Derek Jeter, even going so far as proclaiming envy over the former captain’s success dating various famous women. He also raised the ire of Mets fans everywhere — I’m looking at you, Joe Benigno, The Bitter Bill and so on! — by attending No. 2’s final game at the Stadium while on the disabled list recuperating from Tommy John surgery in September of 2014, the same night the Mets played a game in Washington.

Clearly, that’s pretty much where any comparisons end between Jeter and Harvey, as it pertains to durability and sustained personal and team success on the field, as well as deft avoidance of controversy off of it.

Once Harvey is officially designated for assignment on Saturday, the Mets will have seven days to either trade or release him, since going to the minors already is off the table. The pending free agent has between $4.5 million and $5 million remaining on the oneyear, $5.625 million contract he signed last winter, so we’ll see if any team desperate for another arm — even a flawed one with a 7.00 ERA in eight appearances (four starts) in 2018 — would be willing to absorb some or all of that amount.

Assuming the Mets most certainly would prefer to avoid making such a move involving the Yankees, Harvey’s best chance of being Bronx-bound would appear to be Alderson’s inability to find a taker, forcing the Wilpons to eat the remainder of the contract.

“At the end of that seven-day period, we’ll have some resolution one way or the other,” Alderson said at Citi Field on Friday. “I can’t really speculate on how complicated it will be to make a trade. My guess is there are people out there willing to take a shot on Matt Harvey.”

Perhaps they ultimately decide he has too much baggage or isn’t a fit, but my guess is the Yankees would at least discuss taking a lowrisk flier on Harvey. It’s not like they’ve never bought low on fallen Mets stars before.