Matt Harvey did the right thing, which when it comes to him, actually qualifies as news.
After his camp floated a bunch of stuff about migraines and grievances and his annoyance at Mets security showing up at his apartment because he saw it as lack of trust that he was even home Saturday night, Harvey publicly said Tuesday he was embarrassed by his behavior and apologetic to the Mets, his teammates and the fans.
I do wonder if The Post had not reported that he was out at a New York hotspot until at least 4 a.m., as Cinco de Mayo turned to Saturday, whether he might have tried a different, less honest tact. But caught with expensive liquor in his hand, Harvey copped to missing curfew Friday night and golfing Saturday before being a no-show at Citi Field that evening.
He did not dismiss that he could ultimately file a grievance, but it would be like a man admitting he stole a television in court and then pleading not guilty to the crime. Harvey took 100 percent responsibility and promised yet again to be on his best behavior. These were the proper terms and tone for a man pretty much conceding he had earned his now-completed three-game suspension.
This does not leave the Mets in position to gloat about an employee essentially validating their actions. Instead, team and player must try to put this rocky marriage back together at a time when you can argue they’ve never needed each other more.
There have been calls that the Mets should trade Harvey instantly, which falls between silly and ridiculous. First, there might not be a ton of teams lining up for a guy combining bad pitching with worse behavior. Those that do would be looking to buy extremely low.
It is not in the Mets’ interest to sell Harvey for 10 cents on the dollar. Especially when they need him to pitch well. The Mets – with all the uproar around them – began Tuesday second in the NL East, one game under .500. They were one game under .500 as late as Aug. 20 last year and still made a run to the wild card – without Harvey, by the way.
Since then they have spent a lot more money and gotten even older. That is not the combo that motivates a May fire sale. The Mets are going for it this year, unless they are utterly hopeless in late July.
And while they managed to get to the playoffs last year without Harvey, it is tougher to see that path in 2017.
At 5.05, the Mets have the majors’ third-worst rotation ERA five weeks into the season. That would have seemed an impossibility in, say, March, when they were trying to determine how to shoehorn seven capable starters into a five-man unit. But these days they have had to start Quadruple-A poster boy Adam Wilk in Harvey’s place and pick up Tommy Milone off waivers.
Seth Lugo and Steven Matz are on the DL and not particularly close to a return, and Noah Syndergaard is further away than that. Robert Gsellman has hardly looked like the blessing of the stretch run last year. Zack Wheeler has been as inconsistent as you would expect of a pitcher who missed two seasons after Tommy John surgery. Jacob deGrom has pitched the best, but while being a strikeout machine, he hasn’t truly been at an elite level.
This is supposed to be the strength of the Mets and, so far, well, not so much. Harvey will take a 5.14 ERA into his rescheduled start Friday. The Mets need him to find himself and join deGrom in stabilizing the rotation. But Harvey needs that just as much.
His free agency once looked like a distant beacon. But he is now less than two years away from it, and his chances to score a mega-contract – think $200 million-plus – has probably flittered away in two surgeries on his arm and questions about his makeup, notably his commitment to his career, his teammates and his employer.
The clock is ticking for him to reverse some of that to try to recoup some of those dollars. Most organizations won’t trust to sign him even if he puts on a full-court press of a New Matt Harvey, because this year was supposed to bring a New Matt Harvey, and look where we are.
But talent gets paid, perhaps not at uber-levels without other attributes, but it gets paid. The longer Harvey can sustain talent, the better for him. So this can’t just be a salary run late next year, not when his stuff has so obviously diminished. It would really behoove him to go into the mode of better pitcher/teammate/employee – and now.
The Mets, meanwhile, might have made the playoffs without Harvey last year, but he was a driving force on the 2015 NL champions, even as he was entrenched in an innings-limit controversy.
Can Harvey reclaim any of that guy? Because the Mets need that badly. But so, too, does Matt Harvey.