Matt Harvey Could Make History, and Not In a Good Way

Looks like an Unhappy Harvey Day.  (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Matt Harvey's fall from All-Star Game starting pitcher to oft-injured, in-game batting practice pitcher has been well documented.  A year after going 4-10 with a 4.86 ERA and 1.468 WHIP, Harvey has somehow gotten worse.  Much, much worse.  In fact, if he doesn't show any kind of progress in his final few starts, he stands to make Mets history, and it's not the kind of history any pitcher would ever want to be associated with.

In 16 starts this season, Harvey has seen his ERA and WHIP go up to 6.14 and 1.574, respectively.  Should Harvey fail to lower his ERA under 6.00 before the end of the campaign, he would join an exclusive club.  How exclusive would it be?  Let's just say no one has been allowed to enter it yet.

Thanks to the baseball-reference.com Play Index, Pete Schourek and Matt Harvey can be mentioned in the same sentence.

Prior to Harvey's 2017 campaign, Pete Schourek was the Mets pitcher who came closest to posting an ERA north of 6.00 with at least 16 starts.  But Schourek's 5.96 ERA in 1993 was crafted as both a starter and reliever.  In Schourek's eighteen starts, he posted a 5.47 ERA, compared to the embarrassing 7.86 ERA he had in 23 relief appearances for the last Mets team to reach triple digits in losses.

Now if we only consider those Mets hurlers who made all of their appearances in a starting role, the closest one to Harvey is a another former ace whose career in New York was beleaguered by injuries.

What is it with guys named Pete or the Spanish equivalent of Pete and high ERAs?  Is Harvey secretly a Pete in disguise?

Harvey is not the only Mets starter this season to suffer from injuries, poor performance or a combination of the two.  Zack Wheeler had a 5.21 ERA in 17 starts before injuries curtailed his season.  Robert Gsellman is the owner of an unsightly 5.58 ERA in 19 starts and three relief appearances.  And had Steven Matz's season not come to a close after just 13 starts, he'd be in line to join Harvey in the Mile High ERA club (Matz finished the year with a 6.08 ERA).

But as awful as Mets pitchers have been this year, no pitcher in the 56-year history of the franchise who made as many as 16 starts has ever finished a season with an ERA higher than 6.00.  That may change when the curtain falls on the 2017 baseball season in a couple of weeks.  And a former Dark Knight could be facing some dark nights of his own during the off-season as he reflects upon his historically bad campaign.

 

Pitching Wins Don't Matter ... Tell That to Bartolo Colón

It's been very difficult to cool down Bartolo Colón recently.  (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

Decades ago, pitching victories were viewed as the standard by which to judge a pitcher's success.  If he won a lot of games, he was considered to be a good pitcher.  That was then, this is now.  And wins don't mean what they used to.  Just ask Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2010 despite finishing the season with a mediocre 13-12 won-loss record.

In the days of yore, the man known as King Felix wouldn't have been considered a candidate for the ultimate pitching honor with that record, but Hernandez led the American League during the 2010 campaign in innings pitched, ERA and fewest hits per nine innings, while also finishing high among the league leaders in the new stats of the day, like ERA+ (174; 2nd in A.L.), FIP (3.04; 4th in A.L.) and WAR for pitchers (7.1; 1st in A.L.).

Not only did Hernandez win the Cy Young over 19-game winner David Price and 21-game winner CC Sabathia, but the voting wasn't particularly close, as Hernandez earned 21 of the 28 first-place votes cast for the award in 2010.

Voters for regular season awards already know that there is more to determine the value of a pitcher than pitching wins.  But Mets pitcher Bartolo Colón doesn't have time for that talk.  He's too busy helping the Mets inch closer to an unlikely postseason berth by racking up win after win.  And in doing so, he finds himself just one victory away from joining an exclusive Mets pitching club.

Most of the time, when a player becomes "one of only so-and-so players to do something in club history", he's joined by a hodgepodge of players.  Some of these players are usually among the better players to suit up for the team, while others can sometimes be of the "what's he doing on this list?" variety.

For example, when you think of the top home run hitters in Mets history, your thoughts usually turn to guys like Darryl Strawberry, Mike Piazza and Dave Kingman - three guys who were known for their prodigious power.  But rounding out the top ten on the team's all-time home run list is Ed Kranepool, who never hit more than 16 home runs in any season and averaged a long ball every 50.8 plate appearances in his career.  Longevity had more to do with him appearing on this list than anything else.

Similarly, when one thinks of the top strikeout pitchers to put on the orange and blue, immediately visions of the Seavers, Koosmans and Goodens of the Mets universe come to mind.  No one would ever think of including a player like Jonathon Niese in the conversation, but there he is, sitting at No. 9 among the top strikeout pitchers in team history.  That's more a testament to how few great strikeout pitchers have managed to stick around with the Mets than it is of Niese's ability to throw strike three by an opposing batter.

That brings us back to Bartolo Colón, who currently sports a 13-7 won-loss record.  His excellent 2016 campaign comes on the heels of a 14-win season in 2015 and a 15-victory campaign in his inaugural season as a Met in 2014.  A win on Saturday against the Atlanta Braves would give him his third consecutive year with 14 or more victories and would put him on the short list of players who have accomplished that feat in a Mets uniform.  And believe me when I say that the players he'd be joining are not of the Ed Kranepool and Jonathon Niese ilk.

Steve Trachsel (Getty Images)

Entering 2016, a total of 27 pitchers (including Colón) had won 14 or more games for the Mets in a single season.  By accomplishing the feat in each of his first two seasons with the team, Colón had become one of ten Mets hurlers to post multiple seasons of 14+ victories.  However, one of the other nine was Steve Trachsel, which suggests that the company wasn't really that exclusive.  But should Colón win his 14th game of the season tonight or in any of his subsequent starts over the final three weeks of the season, he'd join pitchers like Jon Matlack, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez and Al Leiter as three-time 14-game winners.  It's a slightly more impressive list, but none of those guys would ever appear on the Mount Rushmore of Mets starting pitchers.

Matlack, Darling, Fernandez and Leiter all had varying degrees of success with the Mets, but none of them put together at least three consecutive seasons of 14 or more victories while they were on the team.  Only four pitchers have ever done that.  You may have heard of them.  Those players are:

• Tom Seaver (1967-73)
• Jerry Koosman (1973-76)
• Dwight Gooden (1984-88)
• David Cone (1988-91)

If you were going to sculpt a Mets-style Mount Rushmore using the top four starting pitchers in Mets history, the noggins of those four players would more than likely be permanently chiseled in granite.  Basically, any positive pitching records in team history will feature most, if not all of those pitchers.  Their constant success from year to year made them aces or co-aces of the staffs they pitched for and resulted in lots of wins for the team and themselves.

And to think, Bartolo Colón is just one victory away from joining them.

Over the years, the importance of the pitching victory has been lessened.  A leaky pen can cost a starting pitcher a well-deserved win just as easily as an explosive offense can help a starter earn an ugly "W".  But a win is a win is a win, and pitchers still love getting them.  (Just ask Rick Porcello.)

Bartolo Colón has been in baseball long enough that he remembers when pitching victories were still used to determine how valuable a pitcher was.  But you don't have to tell anyone in this day and age just how valuable Colón has been to the Mets.  And should he earn a victory tonight over the Braves, his value as a winning pitcher will elevate him into the pantheon that includes the best starting pitchers in the history of the franchise.

Yeah, wins for pitchers don't matter as much as they used to.  But I don't think anyone is complaining  that Bartolo Colón is still racking up that "meaningless stat" for the Mets.

With A Win Today, Matt Harvey Makes Mets History

Could Matt Harvey be staring down another Mets record?  (Photo by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

Matt Harvey is already considered to be one of the better pitchers in the league, despite owning just 15 major league victories in 39 starts entering this afternoon's game against the New York Yankees.  What makes Harvey so special is his ability to dominate a game.  Hitters rarely touch him, as evidenced by their .210 batting average against him and his lifetime 10.0 strikeouts per nine innings against them.  But another thing that has endeared him to Mets fans has been his ability to start each season with "W" after "W".

In 2013, his first full season in the majors, Harvey was the winning pitcher in each of his first four starts.  In doing so, he became just the 11th pitcher in Mets history to start a season so perfectly, joining team legends such as Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Dwight Gooden.

Earlier this week, teammate Bartolo Colon became the 12th pitcher to join this celebrated club, as he notched his fourth win in his first four starts of the season in a 6-3 decision over the Atlanta Braves.  This afternoon, Harvey makes his fourth start since returning from Tommy John surgery, seeking to earn his fourth victory.  Should he earn the win, he'd once again have four wins in his first four starts - the second consecutive active season he would have turned the trick.  Would Harvey be the first Met to accomplish this rare early-season feat twice?

Let's take a look at all the Mets - past and present - who are on this special list.  The won-loss record in the chart below represents the number of wins each pitcher had in as many starts.  Pitchers with no-decisions sandwiched between their wins are not included on the chart.

Pitcher	Year	Won-Loss Record
Frank Viola	1990	7-0
Dwight Gooden	1985	6-0
David Cone	1988	5-0
Armando Reynoso	1998	5-0
Pedro Martinez	2006	5-0
Bob Shaw	1966	4-0
Jerry Koosman	1968	4-0
Tom Seaver	1972	4-0
Jerry Koosman	1973	4-0
Bob Ojeda	1986	4-0
Mike Pelfrey	2010	4-0
Matt Harvey	2013	4-0
Bartolo Colon	2015	4-0

Note:  In 1966, Bob Shaw began the season with the San Francisco Giants before he was purchased by the Mets in June.  He went on to earn a win in each of his first four starts following his move to New York.  Similarly, Bob Ojeda and David Cone began the 1986 and 1988 seasons, respectively, in the bullpen, but once they became starting pitchers, Ojeda won his first four starts and Cone won his first five.


Out of the dozen pitchers who earned a victory in each of his first four starts of a season, just five of them were able to continue their streaks into their fifth starts.  Three of the five (Viola, Gooden, Cone) parlayed their early season success into a 20-win season and one of them (Gooden) earned a Cy Young Award for his full season effort.

However, only one of the 12 hurlers was ever able to duplicate his four-wins-in-his-first-four-starts feat.  After beginning the 1968 campaign with a 4-0 record in his first quartet of starts, Jerry Koosman repeated the feat five years later, becoming the only Met to start the season with wins in each of his first four starts in multiple seasons.

Should Matt Harvey earn a win today against the Yankees, he would join Koosman as the only pitchers in Mets history to go 4-0 in their first four starts in more than one campaign.  But Koosman went five years between his first and second such seasons.  Harvey, who didn't pitch at all in 2014, would be accomplishing the feat for a second consecutive active season - something no other Met can claim.

Matt Harvey is already one of the most beloved and respected pitchers in recent Mets history.  And barring another career-threatening injury, he could become one of the most successful pitchers to ever put on a Mets uniform.  He has already had one season in which he did nothing but win over his first four starts.  He's now looking to become the second Mets pitcher to do it twice and the first to run the table in back-to-back active campaigns.

Don't be surprised if it's not the last time Matt Harvey etches his name in the Mets history books.
 

Bartolo Colon: The 40-Year-Old Surgeon

Bartolo Colon can afford to smile.  He now has 200 wins and a place in Mets history.  (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

On Friday, 41-year-old Bartolo Colon earned his 200th career victory by pitching eight innings of one-run ball against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.  Colon needed to sweat out a three-run rally by the Phillies in their last at-bat, but the bullpen eventually recorded the third out before allowing a fourth run to score to give Colon the milestone win.

Colon's 200th win was also his 11th victory for the Mets in 2014.  And in earning his 11th win of the year, he became just the third Mets pitcher to record as many as 11 victories in a season after his birth certificate turned 40.  See the chart below for the exclusive club joined by Colon.

Name	W ▾	Year	Age	GS	W-L%	IP	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA	FIP	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Tom Glavine	15	2006	40	32	.682	198.0	202	84	62	131	3.82	4.30	.267	.325	.421	.746
Tom Glavine	13	2007	41	34	.619	200.1	219	99	64	89	4.45	4.86	.281	.338	.438	.776
Orel Hershiser	13	1999	40	32	.520	179.0	175	91	77	89	4.58	4.63	.260	.342	.401	.742
Bartolo Colon	11	2014	41	23	.550	154.1	159	68	20	117	3.97	3.50	.261	.287	.401	.688

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/9/2014.

A 40-year-old (or older) starting pitcher has posted an 11-win season for the Mets four times, with Tom Glavine accomplishing the feat twice, and Orel Hershiser and Colon turning the trick once.  But what separates Colon from Glavine and Hershiser is that Colon has won his 11 games (and counting) for a Mets team that has been struggling all season to get to .500.  Meanwhile, both Glavine and Hershiser won their games for Mets teams that qualified for the postseason.  Glavine won 15 games in 2006 for the NL East champions, while Hershiser notched 13 wins for a Mets team that fell two wins short of a World Series berth.  Glavine's 2007 squad failed to crash the postseason party, but the Mets still won 88 games that year.

Colon also has far better control than his 40-year-old brethren, as Glavine averaged nearly two walks per start in his two 11-plus win seasons and Hershiser walked nearly two-and-a-half batters per appearance.  This year, Colon has issued 20 free passes in 23 starts, an average of less than one walk per start.  Because of his surgical precision on the mound, opposing batters have a .287 on-base percentage and .688 OPS against Colon, as opposed to Glavine and Hershiser, who would've traded in their AARP cards just to have the opportunity to lower their OBP and OPS to .300 and .700, respectively, in their 11-plus win seasons.

In addition, Colon's 3.50 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is by far the best of the three forty-something hurlers, dwarfing the 4.30 FIP posted by Glavine in 2006.  Colon's FIP as a 41-year-old in 2014 in just slightly higher than the 3.45 career FIP posted by former Cy Young Award winner and MVP Justin Verlander.  It should also be noted that Verlander is ten years Colon's junior.  By contrast, the FIP posted by Glavine and Hershiser in their 11-plus win campaigns rivals that of former Met Kris Benson, who had a 4.54 FIP in his career (4.46 as a Met).

When Tom Glavine and Orel Hershiser had their high-win seasons for the Mets, both pitchers were beginning to show signs of wear, as they were allowing more opposing hitters to reach base than they had earlier in their careers.  However, they were constantly being bailed out - and therefore were afforded more opportunities to earn wins - by their explosive hitters.  The 1999 squad had John Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Mike Piazza and Robin Ventura, to name a few, while the 2006 and 2007 teams scored aplenty with Jose Reyes, David Wright and the two Carloses (Beltran and Delgado) supplying the firepower.  Bartolo Colon's offense consists of Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda and a subpar Wright.  In other words, Colon has had to truly earn his wins.

Bartolo Colon is signed for one more season - his age 42 season.  Should he remain in the Mets starting rotation in 2015 (not exactly a lock because of trade talks and the expected return of Matt Harvey), he stands to become the first 42-year-old in franchise history to earn a minimum of 11 wins.  Considering what he's done in 2014, and the fact that he's not showing any signs of his age, who's to say he can't be productive for another season?  We'll just have to wait and see if that productive season comes in a Mets uniform.

Exit Sandman - Studious Metsimus-Style

Screen shot courtesy of TBS Sports

Today at Yankee Stadium, Mariano Rivera's career was celebrated by the only team he's ever known.  The celebration included all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect for a player of Rivera's caliber, including a live performance by Metallica, whose "Enter Sandman" let opposing hitters know that Mariano was about to send them off to Never-Never Land.

As you all know, Rivera is the greatest closer in the history of the game.  His 652 regular season saves and 42 postseason saves are the most in major league history.  He also has a 2.21 ERA prior to October baseball and a 0.70 ERA during it.  Only 12 pitchers with 1,000 or more innings pitched have a lower regular season ERA than Rivera and no one has a lower postseason ERA.

To put Rivera's records in perspective, John Franco (276 saves) and Armando Benitez (160 saves) have the two highest career save totals as Mets.  The rest of the top ten (Jesse Orosco, Billy Wagner, Tug McGraw, Roger McDowell, Francisco Rodriguez, Neil Allen, Skip Lockwood, Braden Looper) have a combined 652 saves as Mets - the same number of saves Mariano Rivera had on his own as a Yankee.

Mariano has also registered nine seasons of 40 or more saves.  The Mets have had three - ever.  Furthermore, no Met has recorded more than 43 saves in a single season (Benitez saved 43 games in 2001).  Rivera has surpassed that number in six seasons, including this year at the age of 43.

But Rivera hasn't been infallible, especially against the Mets.

In 34 appearances against the Mets, Mariano Rivera has a 3.53 ERA, his highest against any National League team.  The only team in the majors against whom Rivera has a higher ERA is the Los Angeles Angels (3.75 ERA).  Since 2007, Rivera has allowed more earned runs against the Mets (7) than he has saves (4).  His ERA against the Mets since 2007 is 6.10.  And let's not forget his blown save and loss to the Mets this past May, which remains the only time Rivera has blown a save in his career without recording a single out.

The Mets have also defeated Rivera four times over his storied career.  Meanwhile, the rest of the National League has pinned just five losses on No. 42.  The only teams to beat Rivera more times than the Mets are the Orioles (9 times), Red Sox (7 times) and Rays (6 times) - all of whom play in the same division as the Yankees.  But Baltimore has faced Rivera 134 times, while Boston has seen him in 115 games and Tampa Bay has squared off against him 102 times.  That's far more than the 34 times the Mets have faced the Sandman.

Mariano Rivera has had his troubles against the Mets, but most of the time he's come through with the save.  Even with their success against him over the years, there's no question the Mets will not miss Rivera when the ninth inning comes around in future Subway Series matchups.  After all, they and mostly everyone else in baseball have been shipped off to Never-Never Land far too many times.

R.A. Dickey Breaks Tom Seaver's 37-Year-Old Record

In 1975, Tom Seaver won his third and final Cy Young Award, going 22-9 for the Mets.  Seaver's 22nd victory came on the season's final day and allowed the Mets to finish the year with a winning record, albeit barely (82-80).  Seaver accounted for 26.8% of his team's victories in 1975, which was the highest percentage for any Mets pitcher in team history.  That's "was", as in he's no longer the leader in this category.

R.A. Dickey finished the 2012 campaign with a 20-6 record, becoming the first pitcher to win 20 games for a sub-.500 Mets team.  The Mets finished the year with a 74-88 mark, with Dickey getting credit for 27.0% of the team's wins, breaking Tom Seaver's 37-year-old record.

Nine times in franchise history has a pitcher accounted for at least one-quarter of the team's wins, led by Dickey's 27.0% this year.  The following is a list of those nine instances:

• 2012 Mets (74-88): R.A. Dickey goes 20-6 (27.0% of the team's victories)
• 1975 Mets (82-80): Tom Seaver goes 22-9 (26.8% of the team's victories)
• 1967 Mets (61-101): Tom Seaver goes 16-13 (26.2% of the team's victories)
• 1968 Mets (73-89): Jerry Koosman goes 19-12 (26.0% of the team's victories)
• 1963 Mets (51-111): Al Jackson goes 13-17 (25.5% of the team's victories)
• 1994 Mets (55-58): Bret Saberhagen goes 14-4 (25.5% of the team's victories)
• 1972 Mets (83-73): Tom Seaver goes 21-12 (25.3% of the team's victories)
• 1962 Mets (40-120): Roger Craig goes 10-24 (25.0% of the team's victories)
• 1969 Mets (100-62): Tom Seaver goes 25-7 (25.0% of the team's victories)

Tom Seaver received credit for 25% of his team's wins in four separate seasons.  Five other pitchers also accomplished that feat for the Mets.  But none of those pitchers ever won as many as 27% until R.A. Dickey did it in 2012.

This year was an historic campaign for the Mets' resident knuckleballer.  If back-to-back one hitters, 230 strikeouts and a 20-win season weren't enough, R.A. Dickey can now add another accolade to a season full of them.  For 37 years, Tom Seaver had the highest percentage of his team's wins in a single season.  That record now belongs to R.A. Dickey.  It couldn't have happened to a better guy.