It’s September and the New York Mets stand alone atop the NL East standings. It should be a time of excitement for fans as their team seeks its first postseason berth since 2006, but instead the Mets have become the talk of baseball for all the wrong reasons.
Agent Scott Boras lit the match that set off a firestorm last Friday when he told CBS Sports that he wants his client, Mets ace Matt Harvey, to be shut down for the season after he reaches 180 innings pitched for the year. Harvey is coming off Tommy John surgery that robbed him of his entire 2014 season, and Boras argued that the team would be putting his client’s long-term health in jeopardy by pitching him past 180 innings.
However, Harvey was already at 166 1/3 innings pitched on the year when his agent spoke out, which would have left him with just two more starts and likely out of commission for the playoffs. Predictably, a wave of controversy quickly ensued, sweeping in and disrupting the state of bliss that had pervaded throughout Queens since the Mets supplanted the Washington Nationals in the NL East standings in early August.
Harvey initially avoided giving a straight answer to whether or not he wanted to be shut down when asked about it Saturday, which only stoked the flames of controversy surrounding him. He finally gave his answer the following day, publishing a piece titled “I Will Pitch in the Playoffs” on The Players’ Tribune.
In the piece, Harvey pledged to work with Mets brass on a plan to keep him pitching through the playoffs, but the damage to him in the court of public opinion may already be done.
To many fans, Harvey came off as self-centered and weak, putting himself above his teammates as they push for the playoffs and beyond. However, sports fandom can often be a fickle beast.
Winning championships is the number one priority of every fan base and almost nothing can supersede that. This is especially true for supporters of the Mets, a franchise that has made just four playoff appearances since its last World Series title in 1986 and has become almost synonymous with perpetual disappointment.
For some fans, the short-term benefits and state of euphoria that comes with a championship far outweighs the potential for long-term consequences for their team’s ace.
If Harvey truly feels that it’s in his best interest to abide by the innings limit set by Boras and his doctors, it’s well within his rights to raise this concern and look out for his long-term health. That being said, his handling of this entire situation leaves a lot to be desired.
During his relatively brief MLB career, Harvey has cultivated a reputation for toughness and a desire to play at any cost. While rehabbing from his Tommy John surgery, he expressed interest in returning to the mound last September, but general manager Sandy Alderson put the kibosh on that idea.
Combine that with Harvey’s vocal criticism of the six-man rotation utilized by the Mets earlier in the year to limit the innings of their young pitching staff, and it’s easy to see why someone could view Harvey as a hypocrite.
Ultimately, nobody is coming out of this controversy looking good. Boras, who already would probably have a lower public approval rating than root canals and colonoscopies, looks bad for his public comments, which put his client in the crosshairs of both fans and the media. Harvey comes off as a hypocrite and selfish. And fair or not, the failure to be on the same page as its ace and the lack of a concrete plan regarding his usage beyond the soft 200-inning cap it had in place will be viewed as the latest in a long line of blunders by the Mets front office.
The controversy surrounding Harvey, or at least the magnitude it has reached, could have easily been avoided if everyone was on the same page and laid out a clear plan to manage his innings much earlier. Because of the lack of communication of all involved, the Mets have had their push for the postseason needlessly overshadowed and a September that should be filled with elation for Mets fans has instead been clouded with uncertainty.
Think the Mets should shut Matt Harvey down? Email Zach your thoughts at zach.rastall@dailycardinal.com
