Matt Harvey’s Innings Limit Dilemma
Matt Harvey, according to several reports, was supposed to be on an innings limitation this season, as requested by his agent, the notorious Scott Boras. No matter what happened to the Mets this season, Harvey was not supposed to pitch more than 180 innings, according to Boras. However, Harvey is going to pitch way more than that number when he makes his appearances in the playoffs for the Mets.
According to the Mets, that number was never meant to be a hard limit, meaning that they felt as if they had the ability to treat it flexibly and have him pitch above it as needed. Since the innings limit was never written into his contract, that’s exactly the case and the Mets plan to use him in the playoffs even as he approaches that outlined limit of 180 innings.
Matt Harvey To Sit Out
New York Mets management has agreed to a compromise of sorts with Boras and, by extension, Harvey. Instead of having him continue to pitch on his regular schedule for the duration of the regular season and postseason, Harvey will sit out his upcoming scheduled starts, and will resume pitching during the final series of the season against the Washington Nationals, but only if that is completely necessary to ensuring the Mets qualify for the playoffs.
If it turns out that a playoff spot has already been guaranteed for the Mets, Harvey will sit that start out as well, and return only for the postseason. While Boras still won’t be happy about his star client pitching over 180 innings, this is a decent enough compromise to make both the team and the agent happy, and baseball tipsters will be able to evaluate the Mets at full strength come October.
New York Mets Need Matt Harvey
What makes this debate so important is just how important Matt Harvey is to the success of the New York Mets. Harvey has long been the ace of the Mets’ pitching staff, which has become even more important now that he has help in the rotation in the form of young stars such as Jacob deGrom. Without Harvey’s leadership by example, though, they wouldn’t have a chance at making a run at the National League and World Series championships this postseason.
Going forward, agents such as Boras need to do a better job of effectively communicating innings limits into their players’ contracts, while the team needs to either fully accept those terms or openly reject them. Until then, though, Harvey will be pitching for the Mets in big games this October.
By: Jason M. Sanin]]>
