Mayday Matt Harvey

[Guest d'Kong76]

God the Citation was one embarrassingly ugly vehicle.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: In 2013, Matt Harvey walked 1.6 per nine innings, when the league averaged 3.0. That was good for 5th place among ERA title qualifiers. In 2015, Matt Harvey walked 1.8 per nine innings, when the league averaged 2.9. That was good for 7th place among ERA title qualifiers.

Big deal. That doesn't mean the pitches hit the spot. He was striking guys out then ,getting ahead in counts, throwing strikes.

those same strikes get smacked now. Even the ones out of the zone. His pitches, slower, get hit. He wasn't getting guys out by nipping corners, he was blowing them away.

Centerfield wrote: If he already is focusing on control and movement and this is the best he can do, well then I guess he's fucked.

the movement honestly isn't much different. It doesn't really seem like he's throwing the ball any differently, to any different spots. Batters just are swinging less, and making much better contact when they do.

theoretically he COULD learned something about placement and mixing up pitches, hell Darling has even questioned choices on the air, but he hasn't actually shown any ability to do it. Bartolo changes speed with his fastball and can mix up his spots. Harvey has little deception, he throws the slider to one spot, the fastball to another spot, and relies on classic change of speed stuff that happens in your brain to get him by, with plus-plus velocity. the velocity is gone and batters are simply waiting until they guess right from a limited subset, and crushing it.

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: Edgy MD wrote: In 2013, Matt Harvey walked 1.6 per nine innings, when the league averaged 3.0. That was good for 5th place among ERA title qualifiers. In 2015, Matt Harvey walked 1.8 per nine innings, when the league averaged 2.9. That was good for 7th place among ERA title qualifiers. Big deal.

Please don't ask for any more facts.

[Guest 41Forever]

Edgy MD wrote: In 2013, Matt Harvey walked 1.6 per nine innings, when the league averaged 3.0. That was good for 5th place among ERA title qualifiers. In 2015, Matt Harvey walked 1.8 per nine innings, when the league averaged 2.9. That was good for 7th place among ERA title qualifiers. Big deal. That doesn't mean the pitches hit the spot. He was striking guys out then ,getting ahead in counts, throwing strikes. those same strikes get smacked now. Even the ones out of the zone. His pitches, slower, get hit. He wasn't getting guys out by nipping corners, he was blowing them away.

Wouldn't low walk rates be an indicator of hitting his spots?

Sometimes it seems like you decide a guy is a bum -- Bruce, Harvey -- then play Twister with logic to justify a position that others have proven inaccurate. If you just don't like a guy, there's nothing wrong with just saying it.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Edgy MD wrote: In 2013, Matt Harvey walked 1.6 per nine innings, when the league averaged 3.0. That was good for 5th place among ERA title qualifiers. In 2015, Matt Harvey walked 1.8 per nine innings, when the league averaged 2.9. That was good for 7th place among ERA title qualifiers. Big deal. Please don't ask for any more facts.

please stop providing ones that don't answer the question.

[Edgy MD]

Really?

What would satisfy you?

[nymr83]

Edgy MD wrote: Really? What would satisfy you?

Video analysis of every pitch showing where the catcher set up and the distance his glove moved to actually catch the pitch. Nothing else will prove where he intended the pitches to end up vs where they did.

[Edgy MD]

That's a beefy burden of proof. A lot of pitches!

Maybe I should talk about Qualcomm.

[Ceetar]

you don't need his intention, you can just look at scatter plots, movement, etc. It's all in the graphs and the data. There doesn't seem to be any indication he's throwing to different spots, or being more erratic, than in 2013 or 2015. I'm far from an expert though, so if you're seeing something i'm not, that's what I'm asking for. The best I could find was maybe he's leaving his changeup up in the zone more.

Show me where he's missing spots he's was hitting in 2015. Show me something that suggests it wasn't just the velocity.

[Centerfield]

Ceetar wrote: you don't need his intention, you can just look at scatter plots, movement, etc. It's all in the graphs and the data. There doesn't seem to be any indication he's throwing to different spots, or being more erratic, than in 2013 or 2015. I'm far from an expert though, so if you're seeing something i'm not, that's what I'm asking for. The best I could find was maybe he's leaving his changeup up in the zone more. Show me where he's missing spots he's was hitting in 2015. Show me something that suggests it wasn't just the velocity.

This is such a maddening method of argument. You come in with the statement that Matt Harvey never spotted his pitches. Arguably the best pitcher on the planet in 2013, and still elite in 2015 never spotted his pitches.

Then you demand to be proven wrong.

This is not how argument works. This is not how burden of proof works.

I'll demonstrate.

of course, ceetar has never been toilet trained. Can he learn? I hope so. But it might just be one of those skills that he just doesn't have.

[Edgy MD]

Qualcomm has been called dreamers, inventors, rebels, risk takers, pioneers and geeks. They embrace those labels because, in many ways, they’re true. They dream big. They invent bigger. And most importantly, they often do what many thought was impossible.

[Ceetar]

I've repeatedly cited stats, throughout this thread and others, this year and last, where he has in fact NOT been doing things differently than in 2013 or 2015.

So yes, if you're going to just come out and contradict me, you need to cite _something_ meaningful to support it. Walk rate is not that. And so far is BB% this year is right up there with 2013 and 2015.

Everything point to batters making more and harder contact. And it's not because he's not hitting his spots

[Edgy MD]

Walk rates are meaningless. Got it.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Harvey 2015 v. 2018.

EDIT: I agree disappearing velocity surely plays a part in his diminished effectiveness. BUT, it also looks like he's not hitting his spots as often in 2018.

2015:
harvey-2015.png[/attachment:2gd2iaqh]

2018:
harvey-2018.png[/attachment:2gd2iaqh]

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Walk rates are meaningless. Got it.

no, clearly not.

also his walk rate is the same as 2015 so I'm not sure how that means he's not hitting his spots this year?

You're asserting he's throwing strikes. that's different than hitting his spots. I could probably throw strikes. They'd get clobbered even more than Harvey's.

Harvey's release points are also slightly different. There's really no evidence I can find that he's ever been 'crafty'. Is it something he can learn? I don't know.

Like, look at this ridiculousness. Look how similar these two pitches are until the last freaking second. Harvey does not do this.

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[nymr83]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Harvey 2015 v. 2018. EDIT: I agree disappearing velocity surely plays a part in his diminished effectiveness. BUT, it also looks like he's not hitting his spots as often in 2018.

That is one interpretation. Another would be that, as a result of decreased velocity, the spot he is trying to hit is no longer the same. You can pitch effectively much closer to the middle of the plate at 98 than you can at 92.

Hard to prove if he is "missing" his spot or not.

[Edgy MD]

Ceetar wrote: also his walk rate is the same as 2015 so I'm not sure how that means he's not hitting his spots this year?

Am I supposed to answer, only to be told again that walk rates are meaningless?

Because they're meaningful to me.

[Ceetar]

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Harvey 2015 v. 2018. EDIT: I agree disappearing velocity surely plays a part in his diminished effectiveness. BUT, it also looks like he's not hitting his spots as often in 2018. 2015: [attachment=1]harvey-2015.png[/attachment] 2018: [attachment=0]harvey-2018.png[/attachment]

At first glance you'd kinda like the 2018 heat map right? seems like he's painting corners a little more?

[seawolf17]

Ceetar wrote: At first glance you'd kinda like the 2018 heat map right? seems like he's painting corners a little more?

I read that as "he's throwing every pitch in the same spot now" vs "he used to use the whole zone."

[A Boy Named Seo]

Ceetar wrote: Harvey 2015 v. 2018. EDIT: I agree disappearing velocity surely plays a part in his diminished effectiveness. BUT, it also looks like he's not hitting his spots as often in 2018. 2015: [attachment=1]harvey-2015.png[/attachment] 2018: [attachment=0]harvey-2018.png[/attachment] At first glance you'd kinda like the 2018 heat map right? seems like he's painting corners a little more?

No, not really. 2015 Harvey seems to work both sides of the plate, and the top and the bottom, working the edges while staying in the strike zone.

2018 Harvey looks like he's missing more in to the lefty side of the plate and isn't seeming to work the high strike or the right hand side of the plate much at all. Maybe to NYMR's point, he's trying to be out of the strike zone to avoid contact. I don't know. If "his spot" in 2k18 is more low toward the lefty side of the plate, then yah, his command is great.

[Ceetar]

helps to break it out by pitch maybe. Though the slider doesn't look hugely different.

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[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm not sure what those graphics represent. It shows where the ball goes, right, but doesn't factor where the catcher set his glove?

[Ceetar]

download (3).png[/attachment:36aor477]

[Ceetar]

Definitely seems like he was too far off with it last year, and that tracks, with the walks, but otherwise this year doesn't seem that bad? a smidge high?

download (4).png[/attachment:3od76hoi]

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Oh yeah that red smear tells you all you need to know.

Sheesh

[bmfc1]

This isn't good:
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[A Boy Named Seo]

Matt Harvey is a turd. We can Shirley all agree on this.

[nymr83]

He is certainly an ass. The question is can he help the team anyway

[bmfc1]

I don't know if there are any contractual restrictions on sending Harvey to the minors but when Vargas returns on Saturday, perhaps Harvey, and not Oswalt, should go to Vegas ("you want to be a starter, then you can start in AAA and we'll call you up when we think you're ready to pitch and act like a major leaguer").

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The question is, how long has he been an ass? The answer seems to be we knew before he ever made his first start.

http://archives.thecranepool.net/18200/f1_t18261.shtml

Here's the earliest I could find of my referring to Harvey as a douchebag:

http://archives.thecranepool.net/19400/f1_t19477.shtml

"I decided it was time to give Cole Hamels a run for his money in the douchebag department," Harvey remarked.

It was earlier than that, tho. It had to do with the Escalade he drove to spring training in 2013 and how much Francessa admired him. Just a bad sign.