The Lunacy of Innings Limits and the Hypocrisy of the Mets’ Handling of Harvey

From Metsblog
Matt Harvey

There is an absolute battle of wills going on in Mets-land, and no one seems to be on the same page.

A little over a week ago, Matt Harvey and his super-agent Scott Boras made headlines regarding an innings limit cap of 180 innings that now seems to be a soft cap? Who knows.

At that point, Harvey was 14 innings from this mark, and prior to his 5 and 1/3 inning performance (or lack thereof) against Washington leaving him a little less than 9 innings short of the 180 ‘magic number’.

However, a plan was crafted to allow Harvey to pitch into the postseason, apparently involving shorter outings that will inevitably tax a bullpen that was already and will already be taxed down the stretch and into the playoffs should the Mets qualify.

The infuriating part of all this is that there is no evidence to support nor dispute this magical 180 inning number, and it of course doesn’t take into consideration the types of innings being thrown.

I pitched baseball, albeit not anywhere close to the level of Matt Harvey, but at a competitive level.

There were some games I threw 2 innings and thought my arm would fall off and others where I went 7 or 8 and could have gone 7 or 8 more – and the same is true for any major league pitcher or any pitcher for that matter at any level.

Matt Harvey could go out against the Yankees this weekend and battle his way through 5 innings or cruise through 8 and the net result would be the same? Worse? Would it still leave 3 innings left?

No one can answer these questions.

Credit to Jayson Stark who provided the stat that Matt Harvey has only thrown three (3) 30-plus-pitchcount innings this season.

To me those innings are worth more than one inning in terms of taxing an arm.

And all season, we stare at pitch counts to see how far a pitcher can go in a game and now, it’s innings.  It’s apples and oranges and it’s infuriating and frustrating.