Subway Series Game 3: Imagine if Yoenis Cespedes wanted to come out after five innings

Matt Harvey has every right to prioritize his future health and earning potential. But he can't negotiate a departure after 77 pitches of one-hit ball and claim that all he wants to do is pitch.

From Newsday's Anthony Rieber:

"More than anything, I wanted to be out there," Harvey said. "The way things were going, the tight game, the last thing I wanted to do was come out."
It was The Dark Knight at his worst. Saying things that could not possibly be further from the truth:

It may seem unfair to hold Harvey responsible for last night's 11-2 loss when he was the only Met who did his job well. If the bullpen and the defense had done their jobs, today's headlines might proclaim that the Boras/Harvey part-time pitcher plan had passed its first test.

But this plan required four innings from a Mets bullpen that has trouble handling more than two innings, and that's when Tyler Clippard is not missing time with back problems. This is the time when the starting pitcher is supposed to figuratively put the team on his back.

And that's just what Harvey did for the first five innings. On national TV, against the hated Yankees, on a day when the Met bats continued their recent quiet. If the skies had opened up after the fifth inning, Harvey would not have been brought back after a long rain delay under normal circumstances. And his quotes might not have earned Rieber's response below:

"For me, I know where I want to be and that's on the mound and in a Mets uniform."

"The last thing I want to do is not play and not pitch, especially if we get into the postseason."

For not accepting responsibility, for putting his manager and teammates in the unenviable position of having to live within the limits that Harvey and Boras put in motion, and for saying he wants to be out there when he engineered the exact opposite situation, Harvey should be nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
 
Only no one in the Mets clubhouse is laughing.

Yoenis Cespedes offered to play centerfield when he came to the Mets, even though that was not his regular position. He's stopped hitting since he was hit by a pitch last Tuesday but refuses to use that as an excuse. Cespedes may end up getting some votes for National League MVP despite only joining the Mets in August. Harvey's been around all year and has had a pretty good year. But nobody is using "Harvey" and "MVP" in the same sentence.

Harvey showed last night that he can produce after a long layoff. Going forward, the Mets should just shut him down until the playoffs (or until the season-ending series with the Nats if the Mets have not yet cliinched), then only use him in games in which he announces beforehand that he wants to pitch as much as he can.

Superhero movies are box-office gold these days. But nobody wants to see "The Dark Knight Takes Himself Out of the Game."

Subway Series Game 2 and Game 3 Preview: Babying Matt Harvey

Sunday night will be the latest regular-season Mets-Yankee matchup ever, but Matt Harvey will be treated as if it's spring training. Various reports having him getting pulled after 70 pitches or six innings. Or perhaps he will be pulled if he and Scott Boras get colicky again.

Boras will doubtless want to monitor Harvey closely tonight, and it just so happens that Amazon's Deal of the Day is the iBaby Monitor M6 HD Wi-Fi Wireless Digital Baby Camera.

At $139.95 down from $199.95, the Mets could even spring for the device as a peace offering toward Harvey's helicopter agent. After all, the promotional copy promises: "no more endless phone calls from the office to check on your little bundle of joy."

As for Game 2, not much good to say about the 5-0 Met loss. Yoenis Cespedes is 0 for his last 17, but his overall Met numbers remain sensational. What's more concerning, however, is that the Mets have been shut out twice and have scored only eight runs total in their last four games while Cespedes has gone cold.

The Mets now have enough good hitters that others should be able to pick up the slack when Cespedes inevitably cools off.  Lucas Duda hit nine homers in eight games in late July and early August, then failed to hit another one until Friday night. Yet it was when Duda stopped producing that the Mets' offense took off.  Can the Mets now similarly thrive without Cespedes' daily heroics, or is it that, as Cespedes goes, so goes the team? If it's the latter, Cespedes' free-agent price just got higher.

If Harvey does well tonight against the Yankees and shows he is in good form for the postseason, much will be forgiven.  It shouldn't be too much to ask, considering that he is going on ten days rest. As Squawker Lisa would say, sounds like my blogging schedule!

Boras client Scherzer fails vs. Mets

Last winter, Scott Boras client Max Scherzer signed a seven-year, $210 million contract with Washington. But now the most expensive free-agent pitcher ever is a key reason why the Nationals are five games behind the Mets.

In yesterday's game, with Washington's playoff hopes on the line, Scherzer gave up five earned runs, just as many as Mets starter Jon Niese.  Scherzer now has a 5.12 ERA and 1.38 WHIP after the All-Star break, with a 1-4 record in 10 starts.

If Scherzer had been pitching anywhere close to his great first half - 2.11 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 150 strikeouts in 132 innings, and a 10-7 record - Washington would be closer in the standings. Even with all their injuries, the Nationals ended the first half two games up on the Mets when Scherzer was on his game.

As good as he has been, Scherzer is not in the same league as superstar pitchers such as Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez.  Kershaw has three Cy Youngs and was runnerup another year. King Felix has a Cy Young, two second-place finishes, a fourth place and and eighth place. Scherzer has one Cy Young but only one other year in which he received votes, finishing fifth.

Scherzer does not appear to be injured and presumably has many good years of pitching ahead of him. But he is also 31 years old  and will be making $30 million per year until he is 38. 

In three years, Boras client Matt Harvey is eligible for free agency. If Harvey leads the Mets to a World Series victory, I won't care how much money Boras's binders say Harvey is worth.

But it's hard to lead your team to a championship when you're shut down in October.

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In other news, Squawker Lisa is now New York City Bureau Chief for Subway Squawkers.  As New York Metropolitan Area Bureau Chief for Subway Squawkers,  I am pleased to have Lisa as a valuable member of my team.

Mets don't need advice from Scott Boras

Good times for Met fans - the Yankees and Phillies are off and running, Roy Halladay pitches the second postseason no-hitter ever, K-Rod is back in court and now Scott Boras has weighed in on what the Mets need in a new GM:

"The GM has to establish his control," Boras said. "In 30 years of doing this, the best and most successful general managers have the biggest rubber bands and know when to flex them and when to retract and rebuild. If a GM doesn't have the ability to sign an impact player, it can impact a club for years."

Boras neglected to mention that when a GM has the ability to sign a Boras client like Oliver Perez, that will also impact a club for years.

And if Boras has ever actually praised a GM for knowing "when to retract and rebuild" instant of signing one of his high-priced clients, I have yet to see it.

I'm not even sure what Boras means when he talks about "flexing" and "rebuilding" with "the biggest rubber bands." Is he suggesting that the Mets create the world's biggest rubber band ball?

Boras ignores all those empty seats at Citi Field to praise "success" in "operating revenue issues":

"The New York Mets are probably in the top five in baseball as a model of what can be done," Boras said. "The business and infrastructure is run very well by the Wilpons. The issue is transferring the success they enjoy in business and operating revenue issues and getting it to the field.

Uh, I think even the Mets would concede that the last year has not exactly been top five business model material.

If Boras really wanted to help the Mets find success, he would encourage Perez to do what another Boras client, Alex Rodriguez, did three years ago and opt out of his contract.

Photo from Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Does Scott Boras need to get his groove back?

I'm on a roll. I just wrote something for The Faster Times about Scott Boras, and how he didn't exactly have a postseason to remember. Please check out my article.

In other news, the snow continues - again - on Staten Island. It's been snowing since late last night. I've had enough of winter, thank you very much!

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