15
2011
MMO Mets Top 20 Prospects – #3 Matt Harvey, RHP
An article by 
The difference between the #2 and the #3 Top Mets Prospect is so small, you can’t even see it from here. You would need some extreme magnification to see the difference between these two players. And since someone has to be 3rd, I flipped a coin, of course I’m kidding, I studied long and hard. I crunched the number’s, I poured over reams of scouting reports, made coffee, I went on dozens of websites, read countless people’s opinions, ate some power-bars, studied hours of video, interviewed a boatload of hitters who faced them, I talked to their parents, their managers, their trainers, their coaches (one made me buy him lunch but he shall remain nameless, you know who you are), I studied pie-charts of body fat indexes, made some more coffee, I even went so far as to call a single-A catcher on the phone in Venezuela at 5 am (his time), to ask him whose slider breaks more. So it’s not like a whole lot of analysis didn’t go into this decision. I haven’t even slept in several days.
So without further delay, it is my extreme pleasure to announce, the MMO 2012 Mets #3 Top Prospect, 6’4″ right-hander, Matt Harvey. Matt is pretty well known to us Mets fans, because he is the highest Mets draft pick since they took Phillip Humber 3rd overall, in 2004. Harvey, who went 7th overall in the 2010 draft, was taken two spots ahead of big Mike Pelfrey, who was 9th overall in 2005. Harvey was a three-year college pitcher out of the University of North Carolina, and he brought with him size, strength, experience, and two fairly advanced pitches in his four-pitch arsenal. Of course Harvey signed too late in the summer of 2010 to begin his professional career, which pushed his minor league debut ahead to the start of the 2011 season.
He began the year as the SP1 at St. Lucie, Advanced A, in the Florida State League. He teamed with Darin Gorski to give the St. Lucie Mets a lethal one-two punch at the top of their rotation. In his first 14 professional starts, covering 76 innings, Harvey went: 8-2 with a 2.37 ERA, he allowed just 67 hits and 5 HR’s, while striking out 92 and walking 24. The league was hitting .238 against him and his WHIP was 1.20 when he got called up to Binghamton at mid-season.
He ran into a speed-bump when he got to AA which lasted exactly three starts, during that time he got knocked around a little bit. Did I forget to mention that Harvey is a total bull-dog, and very competitive? When he ran into adversity, he took the bull by the horns, he grilled Wally Backman, his manager, and Ricky Bones the pitching coach as to what he needed to do to master the Eastern League, and tame it’s hitters, he worked tirelessly, he made an adjustment here and there, and by his fourth start, he was beginning to dominate again, business as usual. So much for speed bumps. He finished the year with 12 AA starts, going 5-3 with a 4.53 ERA.
Harvey throws his fastball 94-96 mph, topping out at 97, with good arm-side run. He has a 12-6 hammer curve that has plus, plus potential. He is working on a change-up and slider. Harvey has excellent size and strength and the ability to pitch deep into ball games. He should have no trouble starting in the bigs, but it all hinges on the development of his change-up. With only 135.2 innings pitched as a professional, the Mets will be in no hurry to promote Harvey to the big leagues. They will give him all the time he needs to work on his secondary offerings and his fastball command. Although we won’t be seeing Harvey at Citifield in 2012, barring an injury, we will be seeing him at Citifield in 2013.
Matt Harvey pitching to Wilmer Flores video, ST 2011
Check back on Monday when we unveil the #2 ranked player on our list!
2012 MMO Top 20 Prospects
3. Matt Harvey RHP
4. Jenrry Mejia OF
5. Brandon Nimmo OF
6. Kirk Nieuwenhuis OF
7. Juan Lagares OF
8. Wilmer Flores INF
9. Cesar Puello RF
10. Reese Havens 2B
11. Cory Mazzoni RHP
12. Jordany Valdespin INF
13. Darin Gorski LHP
14. Phillip Evans SS
15. Jefry Marte 3B
16. Collin McHugh RHP
17. Juan Urbina LHP
18. Akeel Morris RHP
19. Michael Fulmer RHP
20. Danny Muno INF
About the Author: Peter Shapiro
The first time I went to Shea was not for a Mets game, it was for the Beatles concert there in August of '66. My first Met game was '67, a guy named Salty Parker was the interim-manager then. My first pennant race was 1969. As a 12 year-old that summer and fall, I managed to get to the park for 3 games. The first was the beginning of the Miracle which actually started on Tuesday July 8, 1969 with a day game against the Cubs. I was there a lot in '73. I saw games 3 & 5 of the 1973 NL Playoffs against the "Big Red Machine", from the upper deck behind home plate. It was from there that I witnessed the fight between Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose, and the mayhem that ensued. And that sweet victory in game 5! I saw a couple of WS games at Shea that year against that legendary Oakland A's club. I was there in 1985 for every single game Dr. K pitched including his two 16 strikeout performances, and the day he one-hit the Cubs on an infield single and the Mets won 1-0. I loved being a Met fan in those days. Hopefully we are once again preparing to emerge from the darkness.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 24 | 18 | .571 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 20 | .535 | 1.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 32 | .256 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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Wow you have Familia rated ahead of Harvey??? Not too many people do.
That may be due to Familia having about the same potential but closer to the show. He may be ready to debut by midseason.
This is a shocker. I was convinced we’d be reading about Familia today and next Monday/Thursday would be a toss-up between Harvey and Wheeler. I’m curious to read about why the two guys ahead of Harvey are ahead of him. Great work!
Like I said in the first paragraph, these two are very close. There’s no big shock here when you consider how close these two players are in terms of risk/ceiling/talent. Any player on this list is a risk, look what happened to generation K. Both of these guys (MH and JF) project as solid middle of the rotation guys, unless they have trouble with off-speed pitches in which case they are projected as 8th or 9th inning guys. I don’t want to compare their attributes now, because I am presently writing a piece about it for Monday’s release. But I will say this, their “stuff” is amazingly similar, and they are both nearly the same size, with the ability to pitch deep into games. Their rate of ascent to the major leagues should be very closely linked.
Color me surprised here, but a very solid overall assessment. I’m also looking forward to the final two.
LOL, trading Humber ( + Gomez, others ) for Santana will turn out to be a s**t move.
No. Just, no. Santana was a beast for 3 straight years.
Very good work as usual, Petey Pete.
Thanks Sach!
very good read .. excellent job .. nice to see a bunch of names from last years draft and an appearance from juan urbina and a toby hyde favorite akeel morris
Another wonderful job, Petey. Thanks for all you’ve done.
Petey, good job on this, although i must say, i am intrigue to see #1 and #2 coming up… with that being said, i hope this kid turns out to be good for us, god knows we need pitching and if is a power pitcher even better, and regarding humber, as usual, baseball america was DEAD WRONG ON YET ANOTHER PROSPECT, the mets of course took him and look what happened, where is baseball america apology after saying he was a stud.. but no.. for every jered weaver there’s hundreds of phillip humber.. ugh…
Alex68 — As you know, injuries to young players are often impossible to predict. Humber was pitching for Binghamton in 2005 when he had to leave a game after feeling elbow pain. That turned out to be a Tommy John problem. Humber was never the same, despite coming back in just over one year.
Des, I stil don’t get this fascination wih the fact that BA can be wrong. As though predicting prospects is such an easy job right? Without BA you would know barely anything about your farm players.
In 2006, some of BA’s top 50 players were
Delmon Young, Justin Upton, Francisco Liriano, Justin Verlander, Matt Cain, Prince Fielder, Howie Kendrick, Ryan Zimmerman, Conor Jackson, Carlos Quentin, Nick Markakis, Jon Lester, Troy Tulowitzki, Billy Butler, Hanley Ramirez, CarGo, Mike Pelfrey, Jon Papelbon, Phil Hughes, Bobby Jenks, Anibal Sanchez, Russell Martin, Erick Aybar, Ryan Braun, Andrew McCutchen
Now that’s half of their top 50 right there and all of these guys have had success as big leaguers and truthfully that is all you can project.
Asking somebody to predict that a 20 something year old kid can turn out to be a quality big leaguer is a tough job. Prospects don’t always have to be superstars. People act like if you’re on the top prospects list you’re advertised as a future HOF’er.
Nobody says it’s the bible and you need to assume it will be 100% correct, but I’ll take a Baseball America list over an Alex68 list any day and twice on sunday