Should Matt Harvey Be Allowed to Go Full-Bore When 2015 Season Begins?

Fellow fans of power pitching, rejoice! For Matt Harvey will be back in 2015.

Sort of, anyway. Because the New York Mets don't want to push their luck in his first year back from Tommy John surgery, Harvey will only be pitching in carefully measured doses, starting right away and continuing through the rest of the season.

Is this something that could cost them in the long run?

First, let's be clear on what the Mets' plan is. Though they've been broadcasting for months that their 25-year-old fireballer would be limited in 2015, general manager Sandy Alderson just recently provided an outline to MLB.com's Anthony DiComo:

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Though Alderson would not divulge specifics of what he described as a soft innings cap for Harvey, he indicated the team would be comfortable allowing him to throw over 200 in total -- including the playoffs, if the Mets make it. The club plans to achieve that in a number of ways, potentially (but not definitely) including holding Harvey back at the start of the season, skipping him strategically throughout the summer and/or giving him an extended rest around the All-Star break.

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If the bar is at 200 innings including the playoffs, it figures the Mets will try to keep Harvey's regular-season innings in the 160-180 range. Not exactly the duty of a workhorse, to be sure.

Where Harvey's concerned, this would appear to go against some his recent comments about not wanting to ease into the season. Overall, however, he's said he's on board with the plan.

"Whatever they decide, obviously that's what we're going to go with, and we'll see what happens throughout spring training," he said last month, according to The Associated Press, via Fox Sports. "My goal is to be ready for opening day."

With both interested parties backing it, it doesn't appear there will be any deviating from The Harvey Plan in 2015. But with the Mets trying to snap a string of eight straight October-less seasons, you certainly can't help wondering if it's in their interest to get as many innings out of Harvey as possible.

There's an argument for that and against it. Let's weigh both.

Let's get this out of the way: The Mets look pretty good.

Good enough to improve on last year's 79-83 record, anyway. Beyond Harvey's return, they have the addition of Michael Cuddyer and the continued developments of guys like Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud and Juan Lagares going for them.

But at the same time, the Mets don't look good enough to challenge the Washington Nationals and their freakishly talented roster for the National League East crown. They're better off hoping for a wild-card berth, and one problem there is that the race should be pretty crowded in 2015.

Another problem is that the projections don't think the Mets are good enough to be called wild-card favorites. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections anticipate 82 wins, and FanGraphs projects them for 80. Neither projection puts them among the top five NL clubs.

Part of this has to do with how the projections aren't expecting too much from Harvey, as they call for:

System	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	WAR
PECOTA	151	9.1	2.6	2.91	2.4
FanGraphs	151	9.1	2.7	3.06	2.5

Though a 3.00-ish ERA would be far from the 2.27 ERA Harvey authored in 2013, it's a fair expectation. Research by Jeff Zimmerman of Hardball Times found that pitchers coming back from Tommy John generally see their ERA increase.

But more to the point, those 151 innings aren't too far off from the lower end (i.e. the one the Mets probably prefer) of the 160-180 range New York appears to be aiming for. So, based on the projections, limiting Harvey's innings likely won't help the Mets keep pace in the National League wild-card race. For them to have their best chance at October, they'll need to give him more innings.

Not that you really need projections to make this argument, of course. It boils down to a practical idea: If you want to make it to the postseason, you should want your best players on the field as much as possible. Simple as that.

But...

The least you can say about the Mets' plan is that their head is in the right place. Rather than working toward an inevitable shutdown date, they're trying to make sure Harvey has enough gas to last the season. This is to say they're Adam Wainwright-ing him, not Stephen Strasburg-ing him.

And you know who approves of that idea? Adam Wainwright.

Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

Much like the Mets are planning to do with Harvey, one thing the St. Louis Cardinals did with Wainwright in 2012 was limit him early on. He told Adam Rubin of ESPN New York that this proved to be a good idea.

"There was definitely an adjustment period to get that feel back," he said. "One day it would be one way. Another day it would feel a different way."

If there's a counterpoint here, it's that Harvey is younger than Wainwright was when he had his surgery, and also that he's had longer to recover. Whereas Wainwright had his surgery in spring 2011, Harvey's happened all the way back in October 2013.

However, Wainwright had one thing then that Harvey doesn't have now: a workhorse track record.

Wainwright already had two 230-inning seasons under his belt when he went in for surgery. Harvey's personal best is 178.1 innings in 2013. And if we use Brooks Baseball to look at his velocity progression, we see a steady upward progression through late July before he seemingly ran out of gas:

Image courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net (h/t Baseball Prospectus)

Taking these things into consideration, Harvey actually looks like an even better candidate for the conservative treatment than Wainwright was. Between his limited workload history and the apparent wall he hit in 2013, trying to save his bullets is a wise plan.

This isn't the only incentive the Mets have to save Harvey's bullets. If that were to result in finishing the season stronger than he started it, they would be getting his best when they could need it the most.

Focusing specifically on road games and what PECOTA projects for their opponents' records, the Mets' 2015 schedule breaks down like so:

• First half: 49 percent road games, .495 opponent winning percentage
• Second half: 51 percent road games, .498 opponent winning percentage

At the least, the Mets will play road games more frequently in the second half. If the PECOTA projections end up being accurate, they'll also be dealing with a tougher schedule. Having vintage Harvey for that stretch would definitely help.

Perhaps the most convincing argument in favor of playing it safe with Harvey, however, is this one: The Mets shouldn't need him to carry their rotation in 2015.

After all, deGrom just won Rookie of the Year. Wheeler figured some things out in a strong second half. Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese should at least eat innings. If not, Noah Syndergaard isn't too far off from adding his own power stuff next to that of Harvey, deGrom and Wheeler.

This could be a good rotation, alright—good enough to make it difficult to argue with ESPN.com's Buster Olney's opinion that the Mets have the fifth-best rotation in baseball. Heck, he even has a point in saying it "has a chance to develop into the best in the majors."

And as much as we love the projections, this is something they may be foolishly missing on. FanGraphs has Mets starters finishing 16th in WAR. PECOTA doesn't think anyone other than Harvey will beat 1.0 WAR in 2015. 

If the projections are indeed underestimating the Mets rotation, then they're underestimating the Mets. If their rotation were to live up to its potential, they should be more of a wild-card contender than the projections are anticipating. Even if it means getting well below 200 innings out of Harvey.

Let it be said that there's no right way for the Mets to handle Harvey this year. That would mean they have the answer for how to handle pitchers coming back from Tommy John surgery. And as far as we know, no such solution exists.

But playing it safe with Harvey looks like the best choice they could have possibly made. It may fly in the face of the idea of letting your best players lead you to the postseason, but he's a good candidate for the conservative treatment, and such treatment won't necessarily bar the Mets from October.

In other words, it seems the Mets have done their homework.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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