Before Matt Harvey injured his elbow two years ago, he averaged nearly 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings over his first 36 career starts, striking out 261 batters in his first 237 1/3 innings between 2012-2013.
But since injuring his elbow and coming back from Tommy John Surgery, the Mets have tried to get Harvey to strategize a little differently in order to preserve his energy and reduce the risk on his elbow.
Simply put, they want Harvey to pitch to more contact in certain situations, Dan Warthen told Marc Carig of Newsday.
It would seem a little odd the Mets would want that from their power-armed ace, considering his trademark is in fact to power his way through the opposition with an upper-90s fastball and a devastating, low-90s slider.
But Warthen’s logic is sound.
“The conversation is more like why do you want to use all of that energy when there’s nobody on base?” Warthen explained to Carig. “When you’ve got a man on third base and you’ve got an extra gear, use it then.”
The fear in the strategy is that it will change Harvey’s identity on the mound, and would keep him from being the pitcher he’s comfortable being and limit his success.
But so far, the strategy is working without much compromise.
Harvey is still striking out 9.2 batters per nine innings so far in 2015, but he has reduced his average of 15.1 pitches per inning in 2013 to 13.9 pitches per inning in 2015.
The entire goal between this, limiting Harvey pitch counts, and affording him extra rest in between starts is to ensure what happened to him in 2013 does not happen again, and to protect him from what can be a very fragile year in his first season back after Tommy John Surgery. He has expressed some frustration in public over a lot of these limitations – including the idea of a six-man rotation and spot starter – but he’s also shown the maturity to respect and understand the reasons behind it. They’re going to go through it again when Zack Wheeler gets back in a year too, so this program isn’t necessarily going away for this club anytime soon.
In the end, when it comes time for the big pay day, Harvey might be able to thank the Mets for this if he manages to stay healthy through this process.
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