Everything's Harvey

[batmagadanleadoff]

From Grantland's Bake Shop Mailbag:

The prospect of Matt Harvey's bright future combined with young talent like Zack Wheeler and Travis d'Arnaud seems too good to be true, so when will Harvey have his serious injury and subsequent decline in production? Does it happen this season and leave Mets' fans wondering about what could have been or is it after we give him a huge contract in a few years, basically throwing the money down the drain? Not sure which one I would rather have, but I just know that it's happening. � Kirk M. I'm not sure what was more depressing about this e-mail: that I found myself nodding grimly while reading it, or that Kirk M.'s school e-mail address made it apparent that he was, by my math, still in diapers the year the Mets last made the World Series. Anyway, this is the type of question that calls for some Expert Input, so I polled a few of my favorite Mets enthusiasts. Their answers may surprise you. Jason Fry, among many other things one of the men behind the blog Faith and Fear in Flushing, opted to stick with the "faith" part of the equation: Kirk, man, you're way too young to be mainlining despair. It'll be all that's left to you by your forties, so don't start now. OK, yeah, the biggest danger to pitchers' health is pitching, and the Mets have operated under a little black cloud since the last day of 2007. But better days are ahead, I promise. And in the meantime, there will be sunshine and baseball talk and cold beer. (Though not for you just yet.) So enjoy today � particularly if Matt Harvey's on the hill. Adam Mirchin, the person whose Twitter account I probably favorite most frequently (and even though I'm pretty slutty with my Twitter favoriting, that really means something), got a little riled up by the question: As anyone familiar with my Twitter feed knows, I steadfastly maintain that Mets fans are more embarrassing than the Mets organization. It basically goes like this: any fan base that has experienced a semblance of prolonged heartache immediately tries to corner the market on "being so freakin' unlucky and/or beaten down, man." Somehow, it's worse in New York. These are the fans that are always whining about "what is the plan?" as if it's actually reasonable to expect the front office to take to the airwaves with 75 detailed bullet points outlining, step-by-step, the exact blueprint � WHERE IS WHEELER? HE'S READY! SURE, I CAN'T PICK HIM OUT OF A POLICE LINEUP, BUT I KNOW: HE'S READY FOR NEW YORK. SANDY ALDERSON IS SUCH AN IDIOT � (His e-mail went on like that for another four or five paragraphs, in which he somehow managed to touch on both Darrelle Revis and the start times for World Series games, and quite frankly I'm a little worried he might be wandering around Manhattan in a catcher's mask and fugue state right now.) David Roth of the Classical had a similar take: New Yorkers have a tendency to exaggerate the magnitude and significance of their experience, which along with totally justified envy of our excellent delicatessens is why so many people dislike us. All true. Still, my own reaction to the question probably syncs up most closely with Sports on Earth's Emma Span: First things first: It's never what you expect. Something terrible will happen, yes, but never the terrible thing you are prepared for. You don't get mugged when you're worried about getting mugged; that's when you get hit by a car. I'm embroidering that last line on a pillow. An orange-and-blue pillow, of course. Let's go Mets!

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9203748/the-bake-shop-mailbag

[Ceetar]

You don't get mugged when you're worried about getting mugged; that's when you get hit by a car.

words to live by.

[Vic Sage]

These are the fans that are always whining about "what is the plan?"

Ambler!

[Edgy MD]

Ambler is no longer a dude, but the voice of a movement.

Is this going to be the "Matt Harvey Deserves His Own Thread" thread?

[metirish]

It might well be true that Mets fans are embarrassing, the whining about the whining Mets fans is annoying too.

[Ceetar]

metirish wrote: It might well be true that Mets fans are embarrassing, the whining about the whining Mets fans is annoying too.

That's why I stick to whining about the people whining about the Mets fans whining. it's recursive enough to just be confusing.

[Edgy MD]

I don't know. Objecting to folks who act like entitled children, ruin the ballpark experience, and bring disrepute by association upon us all is OK by me, compared to complaining about not winning enough.

Nobody wins enough. (Well, maybe the Marlins. Actually, they win too much.)

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Is this going to be the "Matt Harvey Deserves His Own Thread" thread?

[Vic Sage]

With regard to that letter, and the responses to it: On one hand, i think they're right that fans tend to overstate their own suffering. They romanticize it, so it becomes a badge of honor. If a team is not just bad, but historically bad, then to be a fan of said team shows the depth of your character. Now, Met suffering cannot be the equal of Cubs, Red Sox, or even Cleveland, in that department. There are franchises without ANY championships to their credit. There are franchises which are grotesquely under-supported by its own fanbase even when they're successful. There have been teams that have suffered actual tragedies.

The Mets are none of these things. They've either won or been to a NLCS or WS every decade of their existence (the current decade excepted, but so far incomplete). They've made a lot of bad trades, but some good ones. Have their been devastating injuries? sure. every team has them. but not disproportionately. What we do have is our early history. We started so bad, so HISTORICALLY bad, that our badness has still not been equaled. And after 7 years of that badness, we won a WS, thus creating the "miracle mets". But that's a history of triumph over adversity, not awfulness.

Yeah, i'm as guilty of the "oh woe is me, i'm a met fan" shtick, but i'm aware that it's shtick. I wouldn't switch places with a Cleveland Indians fan for all the combustible sludge in the Cuyahoga River.

I think, aside from the 120 losses in 1962 and a few bad trades and injuries, the team suffers mostly from being in the same city as the NY "27 rings" Yankees. If your yardstick is the winningest franchise in all of sports, of course you're going to look bad. We're like the hot chick's younger sister, stuck with glasses and braces. She's actually kind of cute, and when she gets the braces off and switches to contacts, she's pretty hot, too, but nobody notices and folks still think of her as hot girl's dorky sister.

But dorky girls need love too, and as i was told by an upperclassman in college, ugly girls give the best blow jobs.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Is this going to be the "Matt Harvey Deserves His Own Thread" thread?

Matt Harvey leads* all major leaguers, including position players, in WAR.


* Tied with Clay Buchholz

[Edgy MD]

I'll take that as a yes.

[TransMonk]

http://espn.go.com/mlb/features/cyyoung

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: Yeah, i'm as guilty of the "oh woe is me, i'm a met fan" shtick, but i'm aware that it's shtick. I wouldn't switch places with a Cleveland Indians fan for all the combustible sludge in the Cuyahoga River.

But what an offer!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

This thread is less "Harvey Deserves His Own Thread" than it is "Pithy Ways To Describe How Much Met Fans Suck/Being A Met Fan Sucks, w/Zing."

[metsmarathon]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: "Pithy Ways To Describe How Much Met Fans Suck"

that's, like, our motto around here, isn't it?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Continuing the unintended trend of this thread, where we (sorta) shit on all things Mets through the prism of Matt Harvey:


Why Matt Harvey Is Not Dwight Gooden
By TIM MARCHMAN

There are times when it seems like Matt Harvey would be even better than he is if he were less of a pitcher and more of a thrower. The man can reel off 98 mile-per-hour fastballs at the letters at will when he's in a tight spot, and so watching him nick corners and change speeds is like watching Carmelo Anthony pass and set picks: not what you're paying for and totally beside the point. Harvey is a strikeout artist, already one of the best ever when going by the raw numbers. Among all starting pitchers who have pitched at least as many innings as he has, only three have bettered his 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings, and just four did so through age 24. Since K-rate is usually considered the single best predictor of how well a pitcher will age, from this angle the inevitable comparisons to past Mets greats like Dwight Gooden, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver make sense. What this ignores, though, is that Harvey is pitching at a time when strikeouts mean less than they ever have. He is obviously brilliant, but the expectations may already be unfair. Over the last two years, strikeouts are at a historic high, reaching 7.7 this year, a rather abrupt rise of 10% above what they were in 2009. There are a lot of explanations for why this has happened�sabermetric theory negating the stigma of the strikeout, new batting philosophies that prize sitting on a given pitch, the increased use of short relievers�but the result is that whiffs have doubled since the heyday of Stan Musial and Jackie Robinson. The increase isn't unprecedented�the major league K-rate rose by around 33% between 1951 and 1960�but it is disorienting. For most of the time I've been watching baseball, a strikeout rate of 6.9 would have indicated a reasonably hard-throwing starter. Over the last two years it's the mark hit by Paul Maholm, a classic junkballer. What this means is that Harvey's historic strikeout numbers are, in all, a bit less historic than they seem. His K-rate of 10.0 per game is, on its own, the sixth-best such mark by a 24-year-old in major-league history. If you divide individual rate by league rate, though, it comes out that he's striking out a third more hitters than average�impressive, but no better than what Brett Myers did with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2005, and nothing close to what Gooden did at 19, when his K-rate was more than twice as high as the league's. This is no kind of bad thing. Along with Myers, Harvey's strikeout rate at his age puts him in the company of Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez, who all went on to have pretty good careers. But in context, he isn't quite the peerless machine he may seem. The paradox is that this may mean he has room to grow. Much of Harvey's success so far has been driven by an absurd and unsustainably low batting average on balls in play of .230. It's just in the nature of things that this is going to rise and consequently lead to speculation about whether the league is figuring him out and so on. His strikeout rate, though, could also rise. Leaving aside what he's done statistically, he's a classic power pitcher, with that high, riding fastball and a set of breaking pitches that dive down and in just under the hands. There's no obvious reason why Harvey, with a little more experience, shouldn't strike out as many batters relative to the league as Tim Lincecum did in 2008 or Mark Prior did in 2005. Some of what he loses as hitters do better when they make contact, then, could be offset by him simply allowing even fewer of them to do so. This would leave him an even more effective pitcher than he already is�not necessarily the peer of a young Gooden or Seaver, but quite comparable to David Cone, the last pitcher who made this kind of impact on his first run as a Mets starter, and one whose development in his mid-20s tracked this exact pattern. Cone isn't necessarily the first name that comes to mind when dreaming on a young pitcher, but he was a Cy Young Award winner and five-time All-Star who at various times led the league in wins, strikeouts and innings, played for five World Series champions and had a better claim to being a Hall of Famer than he ever got credit for. He was a thrower who became the pitcher of all pitchers. If Harvey has half his career, he'll have done incredibly well. Whatever happens, it will be worth the watching.

A version of this article appeared April 29, 2013, on page A25 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Why Matt Harvey Is Not Dwight Gooden.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323982704578450970122629446.html?mod=WSJ_NY_Sports_LEFT_LEADNewsCollection

[Benjamin Grimm]

There are a number of reasons to hope that Matt Harvey is not Dwight Gooden.

[Zvon]

Vic Sage wrote: What we do have is our early history. We started so bad, so HISTORICALLY bad, that our badness has still not been equaled. And after 7 years of that badness, we won a WS, thus creating the "miracle mets". But that's a history of triumph over adversity, not awfulness.

This is a great observation and has a lot to do with me becoming a Met fan. And when I am really down on the current state of affairs with the Mets, I just think about some of the rich history we have in such a relatively short time. And I'm not just talking about winning. People jump on the bandwagon when a team wins and then go back into the woodworks when things go bad. I've been riding this wagon come hell or high water. We all have. Anyone who remains a Met fan thru these lean and mismanaged years has every right to whine if that's the way they choose to express themselves.

Whats this thread about again? Oh, Harvey. Yea, he's something else, huh?

[Frayed Knot]

The main difference between his start and Gooden's is the age. That said, and as Grimm notes, I don't want him to be Dwight Gooden.

So far I'm liking him as Matt Harvey quite nicely and, as Curt Schilling and others have pondered, is there one current pitcher you'd trade him for straight up right now?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Off-day Harvey:

Harvelous picks up a tenth of a bbRef WAR point on an off day, and now leads all major leaguers in the category, even Clay Bucholz.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2013-batting-leaders.shtml

[TransMonk]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Off-day Harvey: Harvelous picks up a tenth of a bbRef WAR point on an off day, and now leads all major leaguers in the category, even Clay Bucholz. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2013-batting-leaders.shtml

I'm almost as impressed by our old friend Car-Go sitting there at #2. Dang.

[batmagadanleadoff]

TransMonk wrote: Off-day Harvey: Harvelous picks up a tenth of a bbRef WAR point on an off day, and now leads all major leaguers in the category, even Clay Bucholz. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2013-batting-leaders.shtml I'm almost as impressed by our old friend Car-Go sitting there at #2. Dang.

It's his D. (0.8 dWAR)

[Edgy MD]

His .616 slugging percentage is nice too.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Today in the world of Harvelous Harv Harvey, our hero, the 15th seed, squares off against San Francisco 49er quarterback prodigy Colin Kaepernick, the #2 seed, in the Battle of the Future Stars. Future?, asks I.

From bloggers in their pajamas in their momma's basements:

"Futures" Stars: Bracket Competition Round 1: #2 Colin Kapernick v #15 Matt Harvey VOTE

Our next matchup in the "future starts [sic] bracket competition" is between the 2nd seed Colin Kaepernick, and the 15 seed Matt Harvey. This is an interesting matchup because of the hype of Matt Harvey thus far in the season and because Colin Kaepernick almost hoisted up the Lombardi trophy in his first season as a starter. Reason to pick Colin Kaepernick (2 seed): Kapernick [sic] led the San Francisco 49ers to the superbowl [siccer] in his first year as a starter. In 2012, Kaepernick threw for over 1,800 yards, 10 touchdowns, and had a QBR of 76.8. He was drafted by the 49ers, out of the University of Nevada, in the second round of the 2011 draft. He sat his first year behind Alex Smith, but in year two after Smith got injured, Kaepernick came in and took over the team. His first start as an NFL quarterback came on monday night football against the Chicago Bears. kapernick threw for 243 yards, two touchdowns, and had a QBR of 97.5. In the superbowl, kaepernick was reciliant [siccest] when his team faced a 22 point deficit after a kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half. Kaepernick has a bright future on a team that will be good for years. Reasons to pick Matt Harvey (15 seed): Matt Harvey is very new to the national stage. This year he has deifintely made a name for himself, with major sports analysists saying he and Steven Strasburg will be fighting for the games next big pitcher. Harvey has the size of a star athlete, standing at 6' 4", 225 Lbs. So far this year, Harvey is 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA, 46 strikeouts, and a 0.82 WHIP over 6 starts. He has decent speed on his fastball but a killer slider that keeps batters guessing.

http://thecolumn.sportsblog.com/post/41512/future_starts_bracket_competition_round.html

[Valadius]

[Ceetar]

That's NL Pitcher of the Month to you.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Matt Harvey loses perfect game but accomplishes even rarer feat

By Cliff Corcoran

Matt Harvey�s emergence as one of the best pitchers in baseball took another leap forward Tuesday night. He flirted with a perfect game for six and two-thirds innings, retiring the first 20 White Sox batters he faced before Alex Rios beat out an infield single to short with two outs in the seventh. Rios, whose hit was a soft-hopper to just the right spot and who was safe by less than a step, was the only baserunner Harvey allowed in the entire game, which saw him complete nine innings and strike out 12. Harvey didn�t pick up the win because the Mets didn�t score until the bottom of the tenth, but the performance dropped his ERA after seven starts to 1.28, his WHIP to 0.69. He also lowered his career marks after 17 major league starts to a 2.07 ERA and 0.94 WHIP. What�s more, by game score, it was the best-pitched game of the season, besting Yu Darvish�s perfect-game bid by one point, and the best-pitched game by a Met since David Cone faced what was essentially a spring training lineup on the final day of the 1991 season and struck out 19 Phillies. As much as Johan Santana�s no-hitter meant to Mets fans last year, this was a far better performance (Rios was as close to out as Carlos Beltran�s ball in the Santana game was to foul), and is all the more impressive for coming so early in Harvey�s career. To that last point, since 1916, which is as far back as we have complete box score data, just three pitchers have posted a game score higher than the 97 Harvey registered Tuesday night in an outing of nine or fewer innings within their first 20 major league appearances. The best of those games was Kerry Wood�s 20-strikeout game in 1998, which came in his fifth major league start and resulted in a game score of 105. One of the other two also came in 1998. That was Kevin Millwood�s 15th major league appearance and 11th start, in which he bettered Harvey�s Tuesday-night line by one strikeout (9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 13 K) for a game score of 96. The third was Don Wilson�s first no-hitter, which came in the 15th major league appearance (and 12th start) by the Astros righty in June 1967. Wilson threw a second no-no in May 1969. Wilson wasn�t the only pitcher to throw a no-hitter so early in his career. It�s been done 13 times since 1916, most recently by Clay Buchholz, who threw a no-no in his second career start in 2007, tying a record set by the White Sox�s Wilson Alvarez in 1991. What�s more, the White Sox�s Charlie Robertson threw a perfect game in his fifth career appearance in 1922. However, none of those games, save for Wilson�s, resulted in a higher game score than Harvey�s on Tuesday night. Incidentally, the best game score in an outing of any length by a pitcher in his first 20 career appearances and the best game score in Mets history are one and the same, and I guarantee you�ll never guess the pitcher � It was lefty Rob Gardner*, who, in his fifth career appearance and fourth start, threw 15 scoreless innings in the second game of a double-header on the penultimate day of the 1965 season, a game that was called after 18 scoreless frames and in which Gardner�s 112 game score was the second-best in the game. Phillies starter Chris Short also threw 15 scoreless innings and struck out 18 Mets along the way for a 114 game score. As if that weren�t enough, the Mets, who lost the first game of that double-header, played another double-header the next day, the second game of that twin-set went 13 innings, and the Mets lost both games to finish the year at 112 losses. Mets fans can laugh about those teams now, not least of all because they have Matt Harvey. *Actually, Gardner is one of three pitchers to post a 112 game score in his first 20 major league appearances, but he was by far the most recent. The others were both Tigers: Les Mueller in 1945 (19 2/3 IP) and Eric Erickson in 1918 (16 IP).

http://mlb.si.com/2013/05/07/matt-harvey-loses-perfect-game/

[ashie62]

I would not have suspected such greatness from Rob Gardner...wow...

[Edgy MD]

Matt Harvey Is Pretty Awesome By Joe DeLessio So last night, after taking care of a first-inning nosebleed, Matt Harvey went on to pitch about the best baseball game you�ll ever see: He allowed just one hit � an infield single � in nine innings, walked nobody, and struck out twelve. (The Mets won in ten but gave Harvey no support, leading to a historically unfair no-decision.) Harvey�s been incredible over the first month-and-change of the season: He�s second in the National League in ERA, first in WHIP, first in strikeouts, first in WAR, and third in innings pitched, just a tick behind the leaders. In the off-season, the Mets (smartly) traded R.A. Dickey, who�d been the N.L.�s best pitcher in 2012. And we�ll be damned if they don�t have the best pitcher in the league so far in 2013. Harvey isn�t the only thing Mets fans have been able to get excited about in recent years: David Wright is a bona fide star, Dickey�s 2012 season was a pleasure to watch, and then there was that time Johan Santana threw a no-hitter. But Harvey�s emergence is the biggest sign yet that the Mets� rebuilding process is actually happening on the field, and not just on depth charts and farm reports. Harvey actually pre-dates Sandy Alderson�s arrival in the organization, but he worked his way through the system since being selected seventh overall in 2010, made his debut last season, and has dazzled thus far in 2013. Mets fans have been burned by well-hyped pitchers before � Generation K, anyone? � but so far, Harvey�s been everything they could have hoped for. He appears to be the type of pitcher the team can build around � the type of young arm every team in baseball dreams of developing. As exciting as Dickey was last year, and as likable as he�s always been, he was 37 years old in 2012. His success was wonderful, but it didn�t signal anything about the team�s future (other than increasing his trade value in order to acquire young players). Harvey, on the other hand, is gonna be here for a while. It�s always dangerous to heap too much praise on a pitcher with just seventeen big-league starts, and Harvey alone won�t make the team a legitimate contender. (As we write this, the Mets are 13-16, in fourth place in the N.L. East.) But none of that should keep Mets fans from being downright giddy about Harvey. The Mets, as you might imagine, are doing what they can to capitalize on the buzz: We count at least three e-mails in our in-box from the team�s ticket office hyping Harvey starts this year. The next of those starts, by the way, is scheduled for this coming Sunday, at Citi Field.

He's awesome. John Buck punches Jordany Valdespin in the nose, and Matt Harvey bleeds for him.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Finding the pitching-development droughts for all 30 teams
By Grant Brisbee on May 15 2013, 9:01am




Matt Harvey has a chance to be the first ace developed by the Mets since Dwight Gooden. How do other teams stack up?

Matt Harvey is a Sports Illustrated cover star now. Part of me thinks it's a little too soon, and the other part of me is too busy checking in with alt.binaries.pictures.matt-harvey to see if any new GIFs are up. It's hard to complain about Harvey getting too much attention now because he almost didn't get any as a prospect. After years of breathlessly waiting for Fernando Martinez or Alex Ochoa to be the next Darryl Strawberry, the Mets slipped us an under-the-radar prospect. So strange. That's not the strangest thing about him, though. The strangest thing might be that he's a homegrown Mets pitcher who looks like he's approaching stardom. Tom Verducci took a look at the dearth of homegrown Mets pitchers, and found that since Dwight Gooden, there's been a whole lot of nothing. Good pitchers have come and gone (Johan Santana, Al Leiter, R.A. Dickey), but there haven't been any great homegrown pitchers developed by the Mets. Mike Pelfrey had a good season once. There's that. So how does that compare with other droughts around the league? I guess the first thing to do is define what constitutes a good pitcher or "an ace." Baseball Reference has a handy guide on every player's page to what wins above replacement usually hint at: 8+ MVP, 5+ A-S, 2+ Starter, 0-2 Sub, < 0 Repl It's probably a little too unrealistic to look for MVP-level homegrown pitchers, so let's stick with the five-win starters. Every team has developed one in their history, so let's find the last one. Still on the team Giants - Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain (Last season with 5+ WAR: 2009) Mariners - Felix Hernandez (2010) Red Sox - Jon Lester (2010) Angels - Jered Weaver (2011) Phillies - Cole Hamels (2011) Blue Jays - Ricky Romero (2011) White Sox - Chris Sale (2012) Tigers - Justin Verlander (2012) Rays - David Price (2012) Reds - Johnny Cueto (2012) Dodgers - Clayton Kershaw (2012) Romero kind of makes me sad, and if you think the courts should throw it out, note that Roy Halladay did it with the Jays for six straight years. The Giants are known for their homegrown pitching right now, but before Lincecum and Cain, their last All-Star-quality homegrown pitcher was Ed Halicki in 1977. Of course, between Jack Morris and Justin Verlander, there was Justin Thompson and only Justin Thompson. Recent past Cubs - Carlos Zambrano (2006) Padres - Jake Peavy (2007) Orioles - Erik Bedard (2007) Indians - CC Sabathia (2007) Astros - Roy Oswalt (2007) Yankees - Chien-Ming Wang (2007) Diamondbacks - Brandon Webb (2008) Royals - Zack Greinke (2009) Braves - Jair Jurrjens (2009) Marlins - Josh Johnson (2010) Rockies - Ubaldo Jimenez (2010) I was hoping the Rockies wouldn't have one, if only so there would be one freak team. But not only did I forget about Ubaldo, there was also Jason Jennings. More important, the second-best pitching year in Rockies history according to WAR? Pedro Astacio, 1999. His ERA was 5.04. The Yankees featured just one five-win pitcher in the '80s, and he (Ron Guidry) was developed in the '70s, so that sort of explains the kind of lost decade that will waste Rickey Henderson's best years. Not-so-recent past Rangers - Kenny Rogers (2002) Nationals - Javier Vazquez (2003) Pirates - Kris Benson (2004) Brewers - Ben Sheets (2004) Twins - Brad Radke (2004) Athletics - Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson (2003) Ryan Drese wasn't homegrown, and neither is Matt Harrison. C.J. Wilson came close to five wins, but never went over. And Kenny Rogers' 2002 season came on his second tour with the Rangers, so I'm not sure if it counts. Luckily, it was Rogers who did it in the first place. Benson was at five wins exactly, which makes me want to write Baseball-Reference.com and see if there's some sort of auditing process that could bump him down to 4.9 just for symmetry's sake. But before that is Francisco Cordova in 1998, so it's not like the adjustment would make that much of a difference. And for all the young pitching the A's seem to have at any given moment, most of it isn't coming from the draft or the international market. Distant, distant past Mets - Dwight Gooden (1985) So it's not just an interesting factoid to throw into a Matt Harvey feature -- the Mets have really had an unusual time developing their own pitchers. Verducci's column limited the search to drafted players only, but opening the floor to international free agents doesn't help things any. The last 20 Mets pitchers with a three-win season: Rk Player Year WAR 1 Jonathon Niese 2012 3.4 2 R.A. Dickey 2012 5.8 3 R.A. Dickey 2011 3.6 4 R.A. Dickey 2010 3.6 5 Johan Santana 2010 4.6 6 Johan Santana 2009 3.3 7 Johan Santana 2008 7.1 8 Mike Pelfrey 2008 3.2 9 Tom Glavine 2005 4.1 10 Pedro Martinez 2005 6.9 11 Jae Weong Seo 2005 3.1 12 Tom Glavine 2004 4.0 13 Al Leiter 2004 4.8 14 Al Leiter 2003 3.6 15 Jae Weong Seo 2003 3.2 16 Steve Trachsel 2003 4.4 17 Kevin Appier 2001 3.5 18 Al Leiter 2001 3.0 19 Rick Reed 2001 3.0 20 Al Leiter 2000 4.8 I cut the list off at 20 because #21 was Armando Benitez, and no one wants to see that. But the Mets don't have the worst drought when it comes to homegrown starters performing at an All-Star level. That one gets its own category � Wait, what? Cardinals - John Denny (1978) Since Denny's season, the Cardinals have won six N.L. pennants and three World Series. But they've done it with poached players, whether via trades or free agency. They've had good seasons from homegrown starters, don't get me wrong. The last three-win season came from Rick Ankiel, and there was Matt Morris and Alan Benes before that. Or Andy Benes. One of the Beni. But other than those pitchers, the real success has come mostly from other organizations. There you have it: the Cardinals are your beacon of incompetence. If only other teams could fail so magnificently. (Or succeed without rubbing everyone else's noses in it.) It figures. The Cardinals have always known that there's more than one way to skin a Kaat.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/5/15/4332004/matt-harvey-mets-pitching-development