New York Mets will tender Matt Harvey a contract for 2018
Yes, the New York Mets will bring Matt Harvey back for next season despite a horrid 2017 campaign. Can the onetime ace salvage his career?
Over the past couple seasons, Matt Harvey has watched himself go from hero to pariah in New York. The New York Mets right-hander has posted an unseemly 5.71 ERA in 35 appearances since the beginning of 2016, a far cry from the ace he was during his first three major league campaigns. Injuries and ineffectiveness have not only taken Harvey’s once promising career off the rails, they’ve turned him into an enigma.
Things have gotten bad enough recently that some wondered whether the Mets would even tender the pitcher a contract for next season, preferring to instead simply cut ties with a player who may never fulfill his earlier potential. That’s not the case, says Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. The Mets plan to bring Harvey back for 2018, when he’s expected to make about the same as this season’s $5.12 million salary in arbitration.
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If you’re looking for signs of hope in the former All-Star, they’ve been hard to come by. Harvey owns a bloated 6.60 ERA and 1.66 WHIP in 18 games (17 starts) this year. His 65 ERA+ is by far the lowest of his career, falling well below even last season’s mark of 83. In his last five outings since returning from a right scapula injury, Harvey has been especially putrid, pitching to a ghastly 11.78 ERA and allowing opponents a beefy .424/.490/.635 slash line.
Despite the grim current state of affairs, the Mets were never going to let Harvey just go while still under team control. He has one more season before hitting free agency. While it’s become unlikely that the Mets have any designs of locking Harvey up long-term, it’s still worth it to see if he can somehow rebound in 2018.
Harvey will turn 29 in March; perhaps a winter of rest and time to decompress will do him some good heading into next spring. If the Mets find themselves struggling again next season and Harvey is performing capably, they can at least explore his value on the trade market and get something in return for him before he skips town.
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The precipitous trajectory of Matt Harvey in the last two seasons has in a way mirrored the Mets’ misfortunes as a whole. After falling to the Royals in the 2015 World Series, the club expected to be right back there and continue to contend for the foreseeable future. Instead, a cavalcade of injuries concentrated in their starting rotation has left them wondering how it all went awry.
It’s been a similar story with Harvey. Both parties will look to change the narrative in 2018.