In 2018, the Mets and Matt Harvey finally split. After another rocky start to the season, Matt Harvey was traded to the Reds for Mesoraco and now is heading out west to start for the Angels.
Harvey’s 2017 was terrible, 6.70 ERA, 1.694 WHIP over 92.7 innings. With that computers between Baseball Prospectus, ZiPS, Steamer, ESPN, MLB.com and Baseball Reference put out this combined average projection line. Let’s compare it to Harvey’s actual 2018 line:
2018 Average Projection: 115.8 IP, 4.66 ERA, 4.54 FIP, 1.402 WHIP, 7.47 K/9
2018 Mets: 27.0 IP, 7.00 ERA, 5.68 FIP, 1.556 WHIP, 6.7 K/9
2018 Reds: 128.0 IP, 4.50 ERA, 4.33 FIP, 1.250 WHIP, 7.8 K/9
2018 Total: 155.0 IP, 4.94 ERA, 4.57 FIP, 1.303 WHIP. 7.6 K/9
It’s impossible to look at Harvey’s numbers and not ruminate on how bad he was with the Mets, and how much he turned it around with the Reds. Granted, he wasn’t an ace with the Reds but his 4.50 ERA with them is his best season posting since 2015.
It is also hard to claim that any particular outlet was successful in predicting Harvey’s season. They all had him way under for season innings (Steamer was the closest at 135, Baseball reference the next at 115). The closest ERA was ESPN at 4.88, but that feels wrong because Harvey really had two different seasons based on what team he was on.
We knew last year it was going to be hard to predict Harvey’s year. He once an amazing ace. Had a horrific injury. That’s a recipe to be hard to predict.
