Inside Baseball: Harvey bought arm insurance

NEW YORK — Mets ace Matt Harvey was feeling fine the day after his marvelous 7 2/3-inning outing in Game 1 of the NLCS — a 4-2 Mets victory — and he’s said to be a go for Game 5. All looks good in Harvey’s world as he inches past 200 total innings.

But just in case, agent Scott Boras has taken out insurance on Harvey to secure his future.

Boras bought the insurance right at the end of the regular season, when the innings-limit controversy was into its fourth week, at a time it was becoming fairly clear Harvey wasn’t about to put down the ball, probably not even for a moment. The insurance is a two-tiered type, with a certain payout if there’s a loss of earnings based on a slippage of performance, and a different payout if his promising career ends early.

It isn’t known how much Harvey is insured for, though suffice it to say that it couldn’t possibly cover the $200 million expectation on his talented right arm should he still be pitching like this when he makes it to free agency three years from now. The policy surely pays only a fraction of his earning potential.

Even so, it’s a worthwhile idea, if only to provide him peace of mind. The knowledge that he isn’t risking everything might even have given the pitching prodigy a little extra boost psychologically as he heads into unchartered Tommy John territory for a pitcher who never before topped 179 innings.

He is at 202 now, and counting. And the last 7 2/3 were nothing short of brilliant.

Boras says he isn’t shocked that Harvey — who had Tommy John surgery late in the 2013 season — has continued to pitch well. But Boras continues to worry, too.

Boras represented two great young pitchers, Steve Avery and Alex Fernandez, who both got to the World Series by their mid 20s, as Harvey might this year at 27. Both Avery and Fernandez threw a lot of innings, and neither had the career they envisioned early. Fernandez was done at 30. Avery ceased being a star by 24.

At the very least, this story looks like it’s going to have a happy ending in 2015. Fans chanted “Har-vey,” as he pumped pitch after pitch past the Cubs, a formidable lineup filled with talented kids. The Dark Knight rose, and the potential for a trade for one of baseball’s most talented pitchers has been all but obliterated.

Boras isn’t as much concerned about this year as future years, though. He wants to do what he can to ensure that there are plenty of those.

Naturally, Boras has had the future more in mind than the present, but the present is pretty special in the minds of Mets people, who are thrilled to be in the NLCS after posting six straight losing seasons their first six years at Citi Field. And Harvey’s been vital to their success, staking them to a one-game NLCS lead Saturday night, when he featured a brilliant changeup and just-as-brilliant breaking stuff to go with the calling card fastball.

Harvey even was hit in the back of his precious right arm by a liner. And, true to his personality, he tried to wave off the team trainer before staying in the game.

Nothing is stopping him now — not that he ever seriously considered missing the playoffs. He really had no choice in that matter.

“Anyone who’s played professional baseball understands that unless your manager or GM or owner says you’re not pitching, you are pitching in the playoffs. That’s a given. All the guys who play pro baseball know that,” Boras said.

There was, of course, the case of Stephen Strasburg, another Boras client who was told in March that he’d be shut down by his Nationals team. (Strasburg’s arm remains healthy, and from here the shutdown didn’t cost them that series vs. St. Louis though others think differently; his replacement Ross Detwiler threw well and won, and the Nats lost the series after the bullpen blew a 6-0 lead in Game 5.) The Mets did the opposite. They said, in fact, from the start that this would be “no Strasburg” situation. And so that was known.

“We were never about him not pitching in the postseason, and we never said Matt Harvey wasn’t going to pitch in the playoffs. Any question revolved around the management of innings,” Boras said. “There’s an obligation — I should say mandate — to pitch. There’s an obligation to the integrity of the game, to his teammates and the fans. At no time did the player or I ever say he wasn’t going to pitch in the postseason.

“I understand Matt Harvey has to pitch,” Boras continued. “The only way not to is to have the team take the ball away from him. And I don’t think they’re doing it anytime soon.”

Harvey’s innings issue became the controversy of the year after Boras and general manager Sandy Alderson squabbled in this space in early September over how many bullets the pitching prodigy had left. But once all the parties including surgeon James Andrews hashed things out, tempers cooled and everything improved. The Mets did strike a compromise to shave 20 or so innings off his ledger by sitting Harvey 12 days at a time in September. Today, Boras credits the Mets, especially manager Terry Collins and pitching coach Dan Warthen, for that kind of caution.

Mets co-owner Jeff Wilpon politely declined comment on Harvey, and Alderson also also declined to speak on the subject.

Noted Tommy John surgeon Neal ElAttrache, who has been consulted on this case, said that the general guideline is to hold pitchers to previous personal innings marks, though he feels a bit better about Harvey thanks to the lengthy 17-month span between surgery and first pitch. “If it was twelve months I’d be a little worried at this point,” ElAttrache said. “I think we could make a case either way.”

It’s probably not even debatable that the added September rest was a huge plus for Harvey on Saturday, when he looked unhittable at times. But Boras has a couple more theories for the brilliance the pitcher brought. One is that the cold weather fit the Connecticut kid. “Forget Batman. He’s Mr. Freeze,” the agent said. “He loves it.”

Plus, the adrenaline keeps flowing for a fellow who always loved the big stage.

Still Boras continues to worry.

The best TJ surgeon reminded Boras Harvey is in Tommy John never never land. The pitchers who have hit these innings numbers in the year following surgery have hit them previously, pitchers like John Lackey, Adam Wainwright, Jake Westbrook, Tommy John. Those pitchers all had all histories of high workloads. Matt’s surgeon has told him we’re in an area where no pitcher has ever been.

Knowing the history and what he’s been through before, Boras has dark thoughts every night.

Thus, the agent took a precaution in the way of a policy.

Matt Harvey will keep taking the ball for the Mets as long as he can this October. (USATSI)

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