Adam Rubin of ESPN New York wrote what I felt was one of the strongest arguments in making the case for Matt Harvey starting the All Star Game for the National League.
He first compares Harvey, who he calls the NL’s Justin Verlander, to last season’s NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey:
Through 16 starts, Harvey is 7-1 with a 2.05 ERA, 121 strikeouts, a 0.882 WHIP, 4 homers allowed and a .188 opponent batting average.
Through 16 starts a season ago en route to the NL Cy Young Award, R.A. Dickey was 12-1 with a 2.15 ERA, 116 strikeouts, 0.885 WHIP, 9 homers allowed and a .190 opponent batting average.
So, other than the out-of-his-control win criteria, Harvey is better than last year’s Cy Young winner in every one of those statistical categories at the same point in the season.
Another great point he makes regarding his lack of pitching wins is this:
OK, Harvey is not the NL wins leader. That distinction is shared by Adam Wainwright, Jordan Zimmermann and Lance Lynn with 10 apiece. And Harvey is not the ERA leader — not yet, anyway. Right now Pittsburgh’s Jeff Locke (2.01) edges Harvey by four-hundredths of a point. (A more reasonable scoring decision at Wrigley Field earlier this season would have tipped that in Harvey’s favor.) Regardless, how about what Harvey means to the Mets? They have a .625 winning percentage in his starts and .357 winning percentage otherwise.
For those of you requiring additional reasons, Harvey leads the NL in opponents’ OPS (.491) and well-hit average (.086), according to ESPN Stats & Information. He also is the league leader in strikeouts (121) and WHIP (0.88).
In terms of WAR, which measures a player’s contribution to winning, Harvey also is at the head of the NL class. He owns a league-leading 4.2 WAR, topping runner-up Cliff Lee (4.1),Clayton Kershaw (4.0), Wainwright (3.8) and any other NL All-Star starter contender.
I knew about most of the statistics Rubin cited, but had no idea his WAR was that high which is pretty amazing to me. He concludes by saying that Bruce Bochy has to give Harvey the damn ball because he represents the host team.
He really does a great job of covering all the bases here… Read the full article…
