Wally Backman Talks About Matt Harvey, Says He’s Never Seen Him Pitch Like This Before

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• mike lloyd September 15, 2012 at 11:41 am

  Harvey probably was bored. He probably wasn’t pitching as much as just biding his time and getting his work in..How many minor leaguers have similiar thoughts? Harvey’s mentality had to be affected when he saw the Mets throwing guys like Batista and Hefner out there every 5 days…If you have confidence in your abilities wouldn’t you have that same mentality seeing people with inferior talent pitching in the bigs?
  • stick September 15, 2012 at 12:59 pm

    in that case, given how MLB is a very compettive environment, I would consider it a major red flag if he did that “woe is me” crap, as opposed to saying “F them” and going out and absolutely dominating to prove that he deserves a call.

    not that I believe he just pouted and did not bother to try (completely counter to all human nature) it it just happened to be a normal start to start variation.
    • mike lloyd September 15, 2012 at 1:29 pm

      I don’t think it’s a ‘woe is me’ mentality, as much as ‘Jeez, what do I have to do?’ Stick.
      An employee can have total belief in how good he is at his job, but if management doesn’t recognize and reward it, it becomes disheartening, and leads one to question whether their contributions are tangible, almost questioning their own confidence in themselves.
      Management can say “You will be the guy eventually, but show us a bit more” but if you believed you were ready for that promotion to your dream job, and were passed over, it can become disheartening. I think that mentality gets you down a little and shakes your confidence some, no matter what management says…be it for your own good or not.
• Metsie September 15, 2012 at 12:28 pm

  People forget a big part of developing talent is the mental aspect of dealing and encouraging the player.

  We all see how a simple loss of confidence can hurt what should be a good player. Happened just this year with Davis and Duda!
  Has decimated jason Bay at this point!

  When you play your heart out and acheive the best way to put the fire out is to have the boss say to the guy “Well I’m not impressed!”

  Harvey thought he should have been in this rotation much earlier than he was.
  He had an audition that was more than good enough to get promoted yet was told he wasn’t ready and what did he do in hs next start?
  Had an even WORSE outing than he had in the audition?

  And what did that get him? A PROMOTION!

  Where is the logic?

  While it is bad to rush a player who isn’t ready to pitch in the MLB because he is likely to struggle and lose faith you can’t just go by physical pitches alone. You muct take into account the mental state of the player!

  And if the player is ready and believe he deserves a shot at the challenge then you have to give him the chance to prove he is ready and if they are good players will RISE to that occassion!

  Take for example Tejada…He has been a light hitting IF for most of his MiL career. but once he got promoted to a full time player he rose to the occassion and was hitting .300 for a good part of the season!

  The whole purpose for promotion is t challenge the kids you have at each level and see how they deal with it!
  Once they have had some sustained success (as Harvey had) you have to challenge them further or they will ust go through the motions and stop competing since thier past success hasn’t seemed to get them promoted why bother?

  This is pretty much what Backman was alluding to!
  • Bayonne Mets Fan September 15, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    Exactly,

    It was just Backman’s choice of words on how to express it. It’s nothing new that some players just need to be promoted at a higher level in order to produce better. It’s as old as baseball itself.

    Much ado about nothing here.
• Des September 15, 2012 at 2:54 pm

  Harvey at Buffalo: 93 mph
  Harvey at CitiField: 96 mph
  Bored at Buffalo? Not too likely
  Juiced at CitiField: Maybe, maybe not.
  Difference at Buffalo and CitiField: the radar gun!
  • Fonzie13 September 15, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner. Not too hard to figure out ay Des. I was waiting for someone to mention something to that effect.
    • Des September 15, 2012 at 10:48 pm

      Fonzie13 — Thanks for joining me in the obvious conclusion. Last year I researched radar guns and their accuracy. Some are all over the place.
• Mr North Jersey September 15, 2012 at 3:00 pm

  Wally if I recall earlier this year felt that Harvey still needed to work on his change up and it wasn’t until around July 10 that he publicly stated he felt Harvey was far enough along where he could at least help the big club and about 2 weeks later Harvey was making his MLB debut. For me at least I defer to Wally’s opinion based on what he saw from Harvey throughout the season as to when he felt he was ready.
• Nester September 15, 2012 at 4:21 pm

  Poor choice of words by Backman. Not only does he make himself look stupid by saying Harvey was bored, but he almost paints the kid as a slacker. Backman still says stupid stuff after all these years.
• Bayonne Mets Fan September 16, 2012 at 12:25 am

  So we are going to assume, if this is true, that the radar gun at Citi Field is wrong and the one at Buffalo is correct? What if the one at Buffalo is the wrong one?

  Personally i don’t buy into it the belief that these teams are not testing these guns on how they react to all conditions that can lead to a false read prior to officially using them.

  And I don’t believe that a radar gun at Buffalo would be more accurate then one at the Major League Level – not that any of them should be any less accurate than the other.

  Sorry, but i think this myth is busted.