New York Mets Setting Up to Shop Matt Harvey?

Any baseball front office worth its weight in WAR views the landscape of their organization, and the rest of the league, much like a chess player; always thinking multiple moves ahead. We in the media are obliged to take the same approach, and so it is that some of us have found ourselves wondering if the New York Mets may have just set themselves up to sell high with Matt Harvey, be it this July, next winter, or beyond.

During Thursday’s first round the Mets used their number nineteen overall selection on Boston College righty Justin Dunn. They followed that up with the selection of UConn lefty hurler Anthony Kay at number thirty-one. Their mid-round picks were also skewed towards collegiate pitchers, particularly rounds six through nine, during which they selected four consecutive college arms. While some, including the Mets front office, are insisting that this is all nothing more than a matter of taking the best player available, speculation of something more deliberate is being considered by others.

No doubt, the Mets current farm system was, prior to the draft, lacking both high end talent and overall depth on the pitching side. However, one would tend to believe that a team in possession of such dominant pitching at the big league level would be more focused on developing young, fast track prone position players. One would especially expect such from a team that suffers from the sort of offensive futility that has become commonplace for the Mets these past few seasons.

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The truth may be that the Mets are more likely to fulfill their long-term needs via the trade market than through the draft. They’d be dealing from a position of almost unparalleled strength should they decide to begin fielding offers for former ace Matt Harvey. The reasons are multiple, and yet simple. First, Harvey is twenty-seven years old and under club control through the end of 2017. The risk of significant, sustained regression is relatively unlikely, and the risks that come with rent-a-players would be mitigated.

Second, the class of free agent pitchers in 2017 is very weak. Any team looking to make a quality addition to their rotation at any point this season or next will have to look either to the trade market, or else begin thinking about signing the likes of Andrew Cashner, Ivan Nova, or Rich Hill to potentially regrettable multi-year deals.

Third, the Mets would be in no rush to make a deal. They’re already the defending NL pennant winners as currently constructed, and now their capacity to replace Harvey, deGrom and others over the long term is vastly improved.

Choosing, specifically, to shop Harvey would also make sense on multiple levels. It’s no secret that he’s rubbed some in the Mets organization the wrong way. It’s also a well-known reality that the Mets need some more pop in their lineup. They currently rank 28^th in the league in runs, and although their more advanced stats suggest they’re better than that (18^th in wOBA, 15^th in wRC+, with the bad luck of being 26^th in BABIP), we all know Curtis Granderson and David Wright have more years behind them than ahead, and Yoenis Cespedes is almost certain to get the big multi-year deal he sought last offseason from some other team this winter. With Noah Syndergaard quickly developing into one of the league’s elite aces, Jacob deGrom still as solid as ever, and Steven Matz developing into quite the formidable piece in his own right, flipping Harvey for a package of minor league talent, or a veteran corner outfielder/third baseman in his prime wouldn’t be the craziest move ever.

The elephant in the room would of course be Harvey’s horrific, head scratching 2016 season. However, teams would likely be willing to give up quality goods for Harvey, especially if he can continue to string together performances in the mold of his past three outings. Diving a little deeper into the numbers reveals that doing so would be well-warranted. His fastball velocity is down (94.3 in ’16 from 95.2 in ’15), but he’s been above his ’15 average in two of his past three starts. Generally the rule is a 1mph decrease corresponds to a 0.26 increase in runs/9. Harvey’s runs/9 is up from a career mark of 2.91 to 5.15 thus far this season. In other words, his velocity loss of 0.9mph leaves about two runs per nine innings unaccounted for. Nothing else within his repertoire or execution is much different from his usual, aside from the fact that he’s been throwing his slider more often, and struggling to control it. He appears to be largely, well, unlucky, with a FIP that is 1.30 lower than his ERA, and a shockingly high BABIP of .381, despite the fact he’s generating more soft contact (24.7%) that at any point in his career.

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So, as teams begin to align themselves as buyers and sellers, don’t be too surprised if we begin to hear grumblings of the likes of Baltimore, Kansas City, the Dodgers, or any other of a number of playoff caliber teams who’d like some more rotation depth sending out some feelers on the Dark Knight. It just may end up making sense for all parties involved.