18
2013
2013 Mets Projections: Matt Harvey, SP
An article by 
Despite losing a Cy Young Award winner via trade this offseason, the Met pitching rotation is still arguably the club’s biggest strength. The rotation is built around a few young and talented pitchers, with a more just a few months from the big leagues. The most promising of the bunch is Matt Harvey, who catapulted himself to ace status after last year’s incredible ten-start stretch to end the season.
Harvey, 23, was the subject of much debate last July, as the Mets needed a starter to fill the void left by Johan Santana, who was injured and shut down for the last two months of the year. Being only 23 with only 245.2 minor league innings under his belt, some people were skeptical and thought that the Mets should wait to bring up the 6’4″ right-hander. I was a little skeptical as well, but after a few starts was convinced that Sandy Alderson made the right decision in calling him up.
Harvey got his first taste of the big leagues on July 26 in Arizona. The team was in the middle of a long west coast road trip, so the time seemed right. The pressure was still high, despite the situation. Mets fans around the country were glued to their televisions. Harvey responded with a dominant performance. He allowed only three hits and three walks, while striking out 11 D-Backs, more than Dwight Gooden and Tom Seaver fanned in their big league debuts.
The rest of the season went just as smoothly for Harvey. He had one tough start in San Diego in which he gave up five runs on eight hits, but was otherwise dominant. He finished the year with a 2.73 ERA over 59.1 innings, striking out 70 while walking 26. The walk number is a bit high, but it is what you would expect from a 23 year-old rookie.
There is no reason not to be extremely optimistic for Matt Harvey this season. He has everything going for him. He’s dominated every level of the minor leagues, and put up fantastic numbers at a very young age in the majors last year. The only negative for him will be the pressure that will come from being the ace of the pitching staff, but with the pressure that he has already faced as the top Mets prospect for two years, I don’t think that will become a problem.
What I love the most about Harvey is his work ethic. He always wants the best, and doesn’t ever want to settle for anything less than dominance. You have to love that in a rookie. Harvey is also an extremely hard worker, and is willing to make adjustments. That’s why I think he will see major success this year. He won’t see much of a “sophomore slump” like other pitchers tend to do. Even if the Mets aren’t in the playoff hunt, Harvey and the other top prospects will make this season worth watching.
2013 Projection:
3.45 ERA, 195 IP, 9.5 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 4.0 WAR
About the Author: Connor O'Brien
I am a very young, but passionate Mets fan who has blogged about the Mets for three years. I hope you all enjoy the unique perspective that a fan like me can bring to the table. More about me... favorite Met- Johan Santana... favorite food- Citi Field burgers and hot dogs!... favorite musician- Mos Def... favorite Mets moment- the no-hitter of course, but I also attended Game 1 of the 2006 NLDS as well as Johan's three-hit shutout in late September 2008. Follow me on Twitter @UpAlongFirst
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Nice job with this Connor. I’m looking forward to watching Harvey as he continues to grow as a Mets Starting pitcher.
A little bold on the projection. I think it’s the boldest I have seen yet on Harvey. I like his work ethic, moxie, teachability, and willingness to make adjustments. But in the big leagues, players and teams make adjustments as well. The book will be out on Harvey and he will take his licks as part of the learning curve. I still expect a solid season, but a 4 war season for Harvey would be all-star and borderline elite (top 18-20 SP in all of baseball). Now I hope for this, but it might be too much to ask.
Really looking forward to what Harvey will do in his first full year in the MLs.
If you can’t get excited about Harvey then who?
With Harvey, Gee, and (hopefully) Santana getting more starts this year, Marcum replacing Dickey, Niese improving a bit, and Wheeler making maybe a dozen starts, we actually might have a better rotation this year than last.
STEVE DON’T FORGET TO CONSIDER THE CATCHING IMPROVMENT EFFECT AS IT WILL SERVE THE LESS EXPERIENCED 4 STARTERS THOLE & NICKEAS COMBINED WERE NO BETTER THAN AN 8-BALL FOR ADVICE ON ATACKING SPECIFIC HITTERS JUST AS BARAJAS & BLANCO POSITIVLY EFFECTED NIESE & GEE, SO TOO WILL BUCK & HIS UBERTALENTED PROTEGE, WHO HAS ALREADY DERSCRIBED HOW HE PAYS PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO HITTER’S APPROACH DURING ABs,
THOLE, NEVER STOPPED LOOKING LIKE A 1B CONVERSION TO C EVEN WHEN HIS EYES WERE OPEN. AS LOOSLY TIED MOSQUITO NETTING WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE PREVENTED MORE PB.
AFTER 50+YRS OF OBSERVATIONS, I’VE DETERMINED THE 2 MOST LIKELY POSITION DEVELOPMENT FAILURES IN THE NYM ORGANIZATION SURELY ARE 3B & C WHERE TO DATE CERTAINLY WRIGHT IS THE TOP 3B PRODUCED WITH HUNDLEY AS THE EQUAL AMONG DEVELOPED BACKSTOPS. QUITE EASILY d’ARNOUD APPEARS DESTINED TO UNSEAT TODD
AS THE NY NL FRANCHISE WE’VE HAD A STRONG LGACY OF STARTING OFFENSIVLY STRONG #1 CATCHERS FROM WHEREVER THEY WERE ACQUIRED IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER… CARTER,HUDLEY, PIAZZA,STEARNS,GROTE…WHILE THEIR B/U WERE TYPICAL ‘BREAK GLASS IN EMERGENCY’ TYPES. PRESENTLY, WE ARE LIKELY LOOKING AT ENDING THE SEASON WITH THE STRONGEST CATCHING DUO IN MET HISTORY AS d’ARNOUD INHERITS THE #1 WITH BUCK SLIDING INTO CO-PILOT SEAT. THE OVERALL EFFECT ON A PROJECTED VERY YOUNG ROTATION IN THE 2nd HALF IS POTENTIALLY A GEOMETRIC IMPROVMENT LEAP BEYOND FORCAST ABILITIES.
Is it crazy to think he’ll win 16 games this season? Outside of Niese, I believe he’s the only one in the rotation who will be able to win more than 15 games this season.
could happen. If he pitches anything like Conner predicts, as with most guys will largely depend on the offense and pen supporting him. Key really is staying in the rotation all year and getting his 30+ starts in.
I dont know, if Marcum’s elbow is/and stays healthy, he could win 16.
strong projection here. Hope it works out!
Harvey to me is the most interesting guy to watch, in terms of his upside and potential range of results.
Love this kid. The brightest spot in this entire, miserable organization. Matt MFing Harvey!
4.0 WAR is tough. Only guys I see with the chance to do that for us this season are D. Wright, Ike Davis, and Jose Reyes. Ooops never mind about Reyes.
ridiculous expectations. Harvey is a young pitcher, albeit a mature one, who is 10 starts into his MLB career. He has a ton yet to learn and he will learn it through adversity like, for example when the Mets score no runs for him and he begins to press to throw a shutout every game, and tries to be too fine and starts walking too may hitters and getting behind in the count… There’s no substitute for experience and he will have to get it the way everyone else does. I believe he has a bright future and over the next 2-3 years he could become a dominant starter, but for this year let’s take the pressure off and just let him be the #3 starter on a team that will struggle to play 500 ball. BTW the staff ace is Santana, and the #2 starter is Niese.
4 war…doubt it.
195 innings walking 3.5 a game? He better get a lot of ground balls. The K’s and walks add to pitch count so by averaging 12 a game between the two he’ll be exiting by the 5th or 6th most of the time.
3.99/ 185 inn/ 7.8k/9 inn/ 2.9BB/9inn/ 2.4 W.A.R
PLUS, hes our best BAT off the bench !!
2013 Projection:
3.45 ERA, 195 IP, 9.5 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 4.0 WAR”
What the hell is this???? What about WINS? LOSSES? That don’t matter anymore?
No. Not for a pitcher.
Just so subjective Alex. It will depend on how well the team hits and plays defense. So if he puts up those numbers based on what we expect? 15-9?
So, wins and losses don’t matter? Now we’re using WAR for a pitcher? you sabergooners are ruining the game…. SMH
So the fact the guy included traditional and non-traditional stats is enough to sabergoon him? Maybe he is trying to appeal to both sides of a fanbase by giving them as much information as possible and then letting them make their own decisions? NAH!!! Down with the gooners. At this point Alex, you are almost a mockery of your own self.
every time someone mentions sandy lover’s you jump in. sabergooners, you jump in, yet you don’t want to be pegged with them nor are one. so, what exactly are you? Like i said, wins and losses matter into a prediction, now we’re using WAR because why? It’s the most stupidiest stat there is in baseball to use, again look at wright’s and miguel cabrera last season, a sabergooner would’ve somehow argued with me that wright was as value as cabrera based on WAR, however, if you watch the game, you’d understand how ridiculous that statement is because cabrera is not only 124807209 Times better than wright, but he’s 487952685 more valuable to his team than wright is, yet WAR doesn’t think so…
And btw, you see why people don’t respect you here? Mind your own business you sandblaster PO’s
WHO THE HELL MENTIONED SANDY?
Also, considering the one’s that actually might not respect me? Why in the heck would I want the respect of the 3-5 members of the core?
I know this is a waste of typing, but TRS, along with Jessep and Donal, are all widely respected here, outside of a few of you that seem to be doing your best to run Joe’s fine site into the ground.
I guarantee that TRS is not known on numerous other Met sites as a joke, as some people here are.
and please, everything is not about Sandy. No matter how often you try to portray posters as being in some kind of Sandy loving cult, reality says it just is not the case.
Agree, on all points.
It’s OK. To be considered disrespectful by the leader of a fake superhero group is the stuff dreams are made of.
I guarantee that TRS is not known on numerous other Met sites as a joke, as some people here are.”
You are mistaken, the guy is a disrespectful db who doesn’t mind his business, you think he’s highly respected? think again.. only his desert people like him because they all do the sandy THIS agreement…
not only are you completely wrong on all counts here, you did a fine job of proving my point. So thank you for that!
and again, if you want to have private convervations with someone, invite them over to your house, go to a bar, or ese email. Posting on a public message board, by definition, is for the world to read and comment on, and not private.
Wins and losses matter for the team, not for the pitcher. When trying to evaluate how well someone is pitching, you try to isolate only what they are/aren’t contributing correct? You try to take how the rest of the team performs out of the equation. Is it Matt Harvey’s fault if Kirk Nieuwenhuis doesn’t hit a home run on May 17? Absolutely not. Wins are as much on the offense as they are on the pitcher, so if you are talking about how good a pitcher is, why use their win-loss record?
CONNOR THE NEED FOR THAT PARTICULAR HR QUITE POSSIBLY IS PITCHER’S FAULT AS I’VE SEEN TOO MANY SITUATIONS OVER THE PAST 5Y WHEN SANTANA CRACKED BEFORE HIS MOUND OPPONENT IN SURRENDERING RUNS. IT’S THE PITCHER’S JOB TO OUT ZERO HIS MOUND OPONENT MEANING TO PUT UP MORE IP ZEROES, TO DO SO, CERTAINLY NEGATES THE ENTIRE RUN SUP[PORT ISSUE THAT ALL PITCHERS DEAL WITH
CONNOR, MORE OFTEN THAN NOT LOW ERA & WHIP LEADS TO HIGHER ‘W ‘ & LOWER ‘L’TALLIES. NOT ALWAYS; BUT TYPICALLY CABISH?
Johan Santana would’ve won 25 games in 2008 if it werent for his bullpen and crappy run support…
Probably. That’s why an individual pitcher’s win-loss record is a poor way to evaluate him.
Nobody is talking about evaluating a pitcher, but a nice W-L prediction wouldn’t be so bad, now we’re goign with WAR? Dafuq is that? so if he goes 10-5 his WAR is 5.0? how can you measure the WAR on a pitcher who hasn’t pitched a full season? or comin off injury? WAR = another way to destroy the game…
Everything is an evaluation. I don’t care much for WAR, but it’s better than W-L because WAR at least attempts to factor in how well a pitcher pitches. W-L record can be entirely independent of how well he pitches, like a guy throwing a gem and losing 1-0 or getting bombed and winning 10-9.
Which one you’d rather though? a guy getting bombed and winning, or a guy tossing a gem and losing? Last i checked, wins are what matter right? Stats are for dummies isn’t that the saying?
I’d rather everyone get bombed and win. That’s the point. Team wins are great. The best. But pitchers W-L doesn’t say a thing about how well he pitches. You think that pitcher who got bombed all the time is a good pitcher? Even though he might have a good W-L record?
Let me ask you one question Alex. Do you think Harvey pitched well last year?
What was his WAR?? And based on pitching WAR, i will tell you if he did….
but he was only 3-5?..
This is a Matt Harvey projection, not a projection of how well the offense will perform in the games he starts.
What ever happened to the whole Wins and Losses projection? is that hard enough? How do you know how the offense will perform? and based on WAR, You think i care if he wins 15 games what his ERA is? Please… Moving on….
But how can you project how many games he’ll win if you don’t care how many runs he gives up or don’t know how well the offense will perform?
Projecting wins and losses is pointless and so is the statistic itself.
Case in point – Felix Hernandez wins the CY Young with one game over .500 with a 13 – 12 Win/Loss record.
last year at the mid-point, Johan and Dickey had very similar stats overall (ERA, Whip, etc.) yet RA was 12-1 and Johan was IIRC 6-3 (not sure about the losses, but he had the 6 wins).
at that point, Dickey might have been pitching a smidge better, but no way in hell was he 2x Johan!
Johan had some other years with the Mets where his win total was nothing special, because the pen blew a bunch late and the offense gave him next to no runs. I would still rather have 5 guys pitching at that level, over 5 guys that get pounded a lot but somehow always seem to be the beneficiary of huge runs support, because the 1st five will always give the team a better chance to win.
‘Johan had some other years with the Mets where his win total was nothing special, because the pen blew a bunch late and the offense gave him next to no runs’
2008, in particular.
First two months of the season (before Dickey threw all those one-hitters)
Santana
2-2, 2.75 ERA, ,225 BAA, ~9 K/9, 2.4 BB/9
Dickey
7-1, 3.06 ERA, .231 BAA, ~9 K/9, 2.4 BB.9
What the Met’s pitching staff needs most of all is to gel. It’s their best hope for a successful season, like ’69 or ’86 when their young pitching staff outdid each other every game. If only one or two pitchers do well, then the entire team sinks because the relief core will be overtaxed. But if the starting staff gels into unison, then the relief core is well rested and a lot of good things can happen. I’ve always been an optimist before April 1st, and this one’s a leap of faith. If Atlanta can do it every year with a mediocre lineup, then so can the Mets.
Does anyone here realize that all these “newer stats” are mostly fodder?
The main stats for a Major League starting pitcher are his innings pitched and his ERA. That’s the bottom line! If you are looking for numbers themselves strikeouts and walks per 9 innings will give an indication of what his pitch count might be but that may certainly influence a pitchers win total.
# of wins? Can be misleading if your team doesn’t score runs!
I see Harvey with 190-200 innings….an ERA of under 3.00 and depending on his support and 13- 16 wins
All stats are just fodder, the only question is whether the stat can actually encapsulate a players performance. ERA tells you nothing about defense or luck, it tells you nothing about how hard or soft balls are hit, pitcher wins and losses tell you nothing about run support or bullpen performance after the pitcher of record leaves the game. Even taken all together they don’t tell you a whole hell of a lot nor do they even remotely explain why or how the events occurred. They’re as useless as tits on a bull which is why newer and better ones are out there.
I believe he will be even better than that. Well I dont know about the whole WAR thing, but I can easily see him at least repeat his performance last year. I predict he’s gonna be 16-9, 2.88, 205 IP, 229 K’s. 2nd place in the Cy Young balloting.
Lets Go Mets!