It was not until Devin Mesoraco made the short trek from the home to the visiting clubhouse at Great American Ball Park on Tuesday that the Mets' hopes became reality. The Mets dealt Harvey for Mesoraco and cash, acquiring catching help for a player they determined was not one of their 25 best.
CINCINNATI -- Like most around baseball, the Mets had little idea if they would be able to trade Matt Harvey when they designated him for assignment last weekend. Considering the act manufactured urgency for teams seeking pitching help, the Mets suspected more than a few would be tempted to take their chances with a former All-Star starter. But acquiring a usable piece, let alone at a position of utmost need, was no guarantee.
CINCINNATI -- Like most around baseball, the Mets had little idea if they would be able to trade Matt Harvey when they designated him for assignment last weekend. Considering the act manufactured urgency for teams seeking pitching help, the Mets suspected more than a few would be tempted to take their chances with a former All-Star starter. But acquiring a usable piece, let alone at a position of utmost need, was no guarantee.
It was not until Devin Mesoraco made the short trek from the home to the visiting clubhouse at Great American Ball Park on Tuesday that the Mets' hopes became reality. The Mets dealt Harvey for Mesoraco and cash, acquiring catching help for a player they determined was not one of their 25 best.
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"I don't think we're surprised. I think we're fortunate that it happened to work out the way it did," Mets special assistant to the general manager J.P. Ricciardi said. "To be able to address one of our needs was something we were looking to do. Being able to do it, we were pretty happy about that."
Video: MLB Tonight discusses Harvey being traded to Reds
Healthy this season after missing much of the past three due to injuries, Mesoraco hit .220 with one home run in 18 games for the Reds. In New York, he gives the Mets a measure of catching depth with their top two backstops, Travis d'Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki, injured. d'Arnaud, who underwent Tommy John surgery last month, is out for the season. Plawecki has been slow to recover from a fractured bone in his left hand, and is still several weeks away from a return.
Enter Mesoraco, who hit .273 with 25 home runs and an .893 OPS during his best year with Cincinnati in 2014. Overall in eight seasons, Mesoraco was a .234 hitter with a .715 OPS. He is making $13.1 million this season, which is why the Reds also sent cash to offset the difference in salaries. Harvey is making $5.6 million. (To clear roster space for Mesoraco, the Mets placed third baseman Todd Frazier on the 10-day disabled list with a left hamstring strain, and shifted reliever Anthony Swarzak to the 60-day DL.)
Yet those salaries are hardly the only disparity between the two players. Whereas Harvey became a tabloid regular during six seasons in New York, Mesoraco earned a reputation as a model citizen in Cincinnati. Before making the deal, Mets officials discussed it with former Reds Jay Bruce and Frazier, and both spoke glowingly of Mesoraco.
"I told them he's an outstanding person," Frazier said.
Video: NYM@CIN: Mesoraco gets standing ovation from fans
"He's an excellent teammate," added Reds general manager Dick Williams. "He's handled all the injuries and the setbacks so well. And the role this year, he's handled very well, being in a supporting role. The conversation was bittersweet, but he was professional, he was thankful, he's happy for the opportunity."
Following that conversation, Mesoraco changed from his Reds clothes into a more generic pair of pants, then walked a few hundred feet to the Mets' clubhouse through a service corridor. Mesoraco joked that he considered -- but thought better of -- lugging his Cincinnati equipment bag from one dugout to the other, in front of several hundred fans who had already settled into their seats.
Once Mesoraco arrived, he greeted Frazier, Bruce, Mets manager Mickey Callaway and others, before settling onto the bench to watch his old teammates play his new ones. A greater role will come soon for Mesoraco, who could become the Mets' primary catcher in short order -- an increase in playing time and a jump up the standings he did not see coming when he reported to work on Tuesday afternoon.
Mesoraco even had his first Mets at-bat Tuesday night, striking out in a ninth-inning pinch-hit appearance against reliever Austin Brice, who had been his teammate a few hours earlier.
"It was super weird," Mesoraco said. "It was just kind of surreal. It's a whirlwind. It's a lot to have happen in 15 minutes, being with a whole new club when you've been [with the other one] for 10 years. So it's definitely a whirlwind. But I'm thankful that the Mets showed some faith and are going to give me an opportunity."
Less than an hour before first pitch against the Mets on Tuesday, the Reds agreed to trade catcher Devin Mesoraco to the Mets for right-hander Matt Harvey. The Reds also sent cash to offset the salaries between Mesoraco ($13.1 million) and Harvey ($5.6 million).
CINCINNATI -- The Reds are bolstering their rotation with a former All-Star, and they didn't have to look far to find a trade partner.
CINCINNATI -- The Reds are bolstering their rotation with a former All-Star, and they didn't have to look far to find a trade partner.
Less than an hour before first pitch against the Mets on Tuesday, the Reds agreed to trade catcher Devin Mesoraco to the Mets for right-hander Matt Harvey. The Reds also sent cash to offset the salaries between Mesoraco ($13.1 million) and Harvey ($5.6 million).
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Harvey, 29, was designated for assignment on Saturday after refusing a Minor League assignment, capping off a disappointing end to a once-promising career with the Mets. He will join the Reds later this week in Los Angeles, the club announced.
Harvey had recently lost his rotation spot in New York, but Reds general manager Dick Williams says the club envisions him taking a starting role soon after he joins the team. Although Harvey last started on April 19, he has been throwing extended bullpen sessions and is stretched out.
"Suffice to say that [our coaches] were optimistic that there were things that we could tweak," Williams said. "Certainly it's not like the stuff has disappeared. There is stuff there. The velocity's been good and we really like the changeup. It may be more of a pitch mix and approach than a big mechanical change, I think is what we're looking at."
Video: Reds GM Dick Williams on acquiring Matt Harvey
The Mets had high hopes for Harvey when they drafted him seventh overall in 2010, and he quickly ascended to the Majors by '12. Harvey was an All-Star in '13 and finished fourth in the National League Cy Young Award voting. After losing a season to Tommy John surgery, Harvey posted his third consecutive season with a sub-3.00 ERA and helped the Mets to a World Series appearance.
But Harvey has not been the same since. He held a 4.86 ERA over 92 2/3 innings in 2016, and a 6.70 ERA over 92 2/3 innings in '17 after facing various maladies, including thoracic outlet syndrome. He has a 7.00 ERA over 27 innings this season.
Harvey will represent a reclamation project for the rebuilding Reds, whose young rotation has had its fair share of struggles. Their 5.58 rotation ERA ranked second to last in baseball entering Tuesday, while their pitching staff as a whole (5.26 ERA) was last.
Mesoraco, 29, will also get a fresh start after losing his role due to injuries and poor play. Another former first-round Draft selection, Mesoraco hit 25 home runs while slashing .273/.359/.534 in 2014, but hasn't returned to that level of production.
Video: MLB Tonight discusses Harvey being traded to Reds
Mesoraco has just 316 plate appearances over the past four seasons while facing hip, shoulder and foot injuries. During that stretch, he's hit .195/.291/.318, including a .220/.289/.341 line in 45 plate appearances this season. However, Mesoraco was well-regarded in the clubhouse and had been with the club since he was drafted in 2007.
"Those conversations are never easy," Williams said. "I was in the Sarasota clubhouse the day Devin arrived after we drafted him. He came in and got his equipment, so his first day as a Red, I remember him walking through those doors. So I've been there since Day 1. It was a bittersweet conversation. I think you've got to look at it from the positive side. It's giving him an opportunity."
In the meantime, Tucker Barnhart has emerged as a quality starting option, making Mesoraco expendable. Backup catcher Tony Cruz was recalled from Triple-A Louisville on Tuesday to fill the hole left by Mesoraco.
CINCINNATI — For Matt Harvey, this is a good-news, bad-news, worse-news scenario. The good: The Reds are an awful team with an abysmal starting rotation. There will be plenty of opportunity here. There are plenty of innings available for a starting pitcher trying to prove he’s still a starting pitcher.
The bad: The 2018 Reds are worse, far worse, than even the 2012 and 2013 Mets teams in which Harvey cut his teeth, and they play in a stadium, Great American Ball Park, which is a hitter’s paradise. And for a guy who had grown so vulnerable to the long ball, this isn’t exactly ideal office space.
The worse: Have you ever tried to find a good time after midnight in Cincinnati?
(Actually, upon further review, maybe that’s one you can file into the “win” column for Harvey, who could probably use more nights at home.)
For the Mets, who traded Harvey to the Reds for Devin Mesoraco about an hour before getting slapped around by the worst team in baseball, 7-2?
Look, they aren’t receiving the Mesoraco of 2014, when he was an All-Star, when he finished 21st in the MVP balloting, when, at age 26, he looked on the verge of becoming one of the best catchers in the game, hitting .273 with 25 homers and 80 RBIs. That was one year after he (along with Todd Frazier and Jay Bruce) helped lead the Reds to their last winning season, 90-72, and an NL play-in game loss to the Pirates.
But then, the Reds aren’t receiving the Harvey of 2013. And it’s a sad little irony, isn’t it? All those nights early in his career when Harvey lit up Citi Field and so many thought they were seeing the second coming of Tom Seaver?
Seaver wound up being traded to the Reds, too.
It’s unlikely May 8, 2018, will resonate for decades the way that June 15, 1977, still does for Mets fans, unless you’re talking about whatever lingering regret exists in the minds of those fans for what Harvey’s career in Flushing was supposed to be and how it ultimately wound up.
As much as it was clear the Harvey-Mets marriage dissolved as it should have, it does remain shocking to see it end this way. Remember, it was as recently as 2015 when there was a legitimate debate among baseball people — though it never got close to consummation between the clubs — if the Mets and Red Sox should swap Harvey for Mookie Betts.
Betts is a perennial MVP stalwart in Boston now, and he won’t be going anywhere for a decade, if ever. Instead, Harvey yields Mesoraco, and on one hand that seems like manna from heaven — the Mets are beyond desperate for a professional catcher, and the very notion that there were teams willing to bid against each other for Harvey’s services given his profound struggles does feel like an enormous win for the Mets.
Still, when you look at Mesoraco’s baseball plight since that wonderful 2014, it reads like something out of the Travis d’Arnaud Blueprint — only worse. In 2015, his season ended after only 23 games because he needed hip surgery. In 2016, he was limited to 16 games thanks to a torn labrum in his left shoulder. And in 2017, he was hit by a pitch in the left foot, ending his season at 56 games.
In truth, as popular as Mesoraco was with Reds fans, he became very much a symbol of franchise frustration — similar to Harvey, in fact — because after his breakout year in ’14, he signed a four-year, $28 million contract ($13 million of it remains, of which the Reds will pay the full freight) and his numbers for the life of that contract have been startling: 277 at-bats total, seven homers, 20 RBIs, a slash line of .197/.291/.318, an OPS+ of 63.
“When he’s healthy, he’s still a productive player,” Mets assistant GM J.P. Ricciardi said, and loosely translated, that means: Despite all of it, he’s a clear step up from the two-headed catching monster of Tomas Nido and Jose Lobaton that has helped reduce the lower third of the Mets’ lineup to a black hole for over a month.
Mesoraco looked at it a different way: “I picked up an extra 15 or 20 wins.”
Actually, after Tuesday’s grotesque loss, it’s really just nine. Though the Mets, on a day when they needed some form of good news, got some. The Harvey Era is officially over. Everyone can get on with their lives now.
It could work, perhaps. To get to a best-case scenario, you need to start with an essay prompt in a science-fiction writer’s workshop, and you’ll probably include words like “terraforming” and “spin rate,” but Matt Harvey on the Reds could work.
Here, let’s try for one of those best-case scenarios:
Humbled by his fall from grace and energized by a change of scenery, Harvey excels in the Reds’ rotation, with plus command and rejuvenated breaking balls helping him overcome his velocity dip. He’s so enamored of his time in Cincinnati, and so confident in his renaissance, that he signs a below-market deal to stay after this season. He’s a part of the next contending Reds team and an unlikely heir to the Mets-Reds throne vacated by Tom Seaver.
See, that’s not so hard? All it would take is the complete reversal of every symptom and problem that got the Reds and Harvey where they are. Now let’s look at some of the less rosy scenarios.
Computer, show us all of the bad Matt Harvey-on-the-Reds scenarios:
Hmm, yes, if you’ll just ...
Yes, just one more ...
OK, we’ll just have to use our imagination, then. Because there are a lot of bad Matt-Harvey-on-the-Reds scenarios, and a lot of them can be reduced down to one blanket scenario: Harvey is yet another dinger-besotted Reds pitcher who is painful to watch, except he comes with absolutely no future payoff. With pitchers like Brandon Finnegan and even Homer Bailey, you can at least trick yourself into believing something like, “Yes, this is unwatchable right now. But there’s a chance it’s helping build a brighter future.”
With Harvey, though, there is the potential for extreme just-passin’-through suck, which is the worst kind for a rebuilding team. Mistakes were made. Lessons were not learned. Teams were not improved in the long term or short term. Future wins were not built in any concrete or abstract fashion. There’s just a lot of turning on a three-hour baseball game and turning it off long before its conclusion, upset that you chose to watch baseball on purpose.
If this seems dour, well, it is. But there are reasons for this. The best starting pitcher on the Reds last year pitched poorly enough to remain unsigned this year. The last starting pitcher to post an above-average adjusted ERA for them in a full season hasn’t pitched since 2016. Their most expensive pitcher might be their worst. Their biggest, brightest young starter has a 6.47 ERA in eight starts.
Which is all to say that every last rotational cog the Reds have touched has gone up in flames. And it’s been like this for a while: Since the start of 2016, the Reds’ rotation has combined for 4.4 WAR, according to FanGraphs. It took 28 different seasons to build up those 4.4 wins. A true average isn’t much help, considering that a pitcher who makes two starts has almost no chance to contribute to that total, but you can see the problem. The Reds have made 360 starts since the start of 2016, and they’ve pitched as well as a team of minor-league free agents would be expected to.
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If this reads like, “Newsflash: The Reds haven’t pitched well lately,” I apologize, but it’s important to know the depths of their failure for this. Consider that the Orioles’ starters have been three times as productive during this stretch. It’s easy to build a bad starting rotation. It’s hard to build a starting rotation that isn’t much better than just about every rotation in the International League. The Reds have failed with prospects. They’ve failed with veterans. They’ve failed with righties. They’ve failed with lefties. They’ve failed with power pitchers. They’ve failed with finesse pitchers. They’ve failed with pitchers who didn’t seem to have much to learn in the minors, and they’ve failed with pitchers who needed extra polishing.
They’ve failed with their starting pitchers. Over and over again.
So if you’re looking for a team to shephard along a wayward arm, a former all-star who needs help like few others, it would appear as if the Reds would be the absolute worst fit. More than that, they would be a historically awful fit. There are few teams in any era would would appear to be less equipped to fix a seafaring vessel that’s sprung several leaks. In this analogy, they’re at the airport with Elmer’s glue and a stapler, asking a vending machine for directions to the boat.
This would all be fine, though, if the potential reward were great enough. If the best-case scenario of this reclamation project were a cheap, effective pitcher for years to come, then by all means, go for it. Don’t use the failures of the past to avoid doing anything for the future, and tell people like me to shut up. But with this being close to a cash-neutral deal, it would appear that there are only two possible benefits to this move for the Reds:
Harvey has an immediate reversal of fortune, which makes him desirable at the trade deadline. Harvey learns to love the Reds organization and decides to stick around after turning his career around
Both are worthwhile shots to shoot, I suppose. The Reds aren’t getting within spitting distance of .500, so they might as well add cinnamon to the chili and see if it tastes better. It’s just incredibly unlikely to work, and it’s going to come at the expense of a pitcher who would have been much, much, much better off if he were traded to literally any other team in Major League Baseball. This isn’t to suggest that you should feel sorry for Harvey, who really had to work hard at getting designated for assignment, but that you should be scared about his prospects to improve.
Neither the Reds nor Harvey needed anyone else to pile on. I wasn’t planning to publish a “Crikey, the Reds’ rotation is awful!” piece before this trade, and I didn’t have plans for a “Matt Harvey sure looks cooked” article, either. It’s the combination of the two that’s noteworthy. Here’s an immense talent, who needs a Manhattan Project of pitching smarts to get him close to where he was. Here’s a team in the middle of one of the worst three-year pitching stretches in history, with no signs that things are getting better.
This is a science experiment, and we know what the outcome is going to be. It feels rude to watch it with this level of morbid fascination, but I can’t help myself. Matt Harvey is going to pitch at Great American Ball Park for the Cincinnati Reds.
What could possibly go right?
