Matt Harvey

Baseball season starts in 6 days and I’m pumped. While I love college basketball after the first weekend of the tourney my excitement goes down. Luckily this year the tourney was very good but now baseball season is starting Sunday. College and high school baseball has been going on for a little bit now. It’s 10 weeks away from the draft. So I will be looking at players that I think the Yankees could draft
Usually the Yankees get in the first round players who struggled because of injuries or other concerns. But one guy who I think is rising to the Yankees is Matt Harvey of UNC.

Matt Harvey was drafted in 07 by the Angels in the 3rd round. He was considered a 1st round talent but because of signability concerns he dropped in the draft. With Scott Boras as his agent/advisor he ended up following up on his commitment to UNC.

When he went to UNC most draft experts thought that he would be a top 5 pick easily in this draft. Some thought that he would be the #1 pick if he pitched to his ability at UNC. His freshman year helped him keep those thoughts there. Pitching mostly out of the starting rotation Harvey started 16 games with 3 games out of the pen. He pitched to a total of 67.2 innings with a 6.9 H/9, 6.3 BB/9 and 10.6 K/p. He backed those stats up with a 1.46 WHIP and a 2.79 ERA. All of those numbers were great except the walks but that is something that can be improved on.

On the way to being a top 5 a big problem happened, it’s called sophomore year. Harvey got into 21 total games with 13 of them coming in the starting fashion. In those starts and games Harvey got 75 innings problem is he wasn’t very good in those innings. 10.6 H/9, 5.0 BB/9 and 9.7 K/9. Those stats gave Harvey a 1.73 WHIP and a 5.40 ERA. The only improvement was in BB/9 but he did keep his K/9 almost at 10.
Coming into this year most draft experts thought Harvey would need a HUGE year to get higher than a late 2nd round pick. So far he hasn’t disappointed. 39 innings in over 6 starts Harvey has put up some dominating #’s. He has struck out 48 batters for an 11 K/9 to go along with a 1.85 ERA. His walk rate has lowered to 4.6 per 9 while still bad has improved.

Stuff wise Harvey has been flashing a mid 90’s fastball sitting in the low 90’s along with a plus curveball and an average change up. His height and weight are good for a starting pitcher being 6’4” weighting in as 225 lbs. I haven’t seen any video of Harvey pitch so I can’t give an opinion on his mechanics but guys who flash those pitches are nice to have.

The Boras factor is going to up his price but Harvey is the type of guy the Yankees don’t normally get in the draft. He struggled and those are the type of players that the Yanks go after. Legit top 5 guys don’t fall to the Yankees unless they have a big injury concern or have other concerns. The concern with Harvey is that he won’t ever be able to keep his stuff on check. His walk rate is a big concern but I have faith in the Yankees staff to fix that.

If the Yankees could get Harvey it would be a big boom to their farm system. While he would be a college pitcher I think he would need more time than other college pitchers because they would be working on his command. Harvey definitely is name to keep an eye on over the next 10 weeks.