There was wide anger in 2015 when Scott Boras insisted that Matt Harvey should be restrained at 180 innings after missing all of the previous season following Tommy John surgery.
But the Mets’ desires and Harvey’s competitive spirit led to him blowing beyond that figure to reach 216 innings, including the postseason — right up to him backing down his manager, Terry Collins, to go back out for the ninth inning in Game 5 of the World Series.
That inning and that game did not end well for Harvey, and neither did the rest of this career. Was it because he just asked his arm to do too much too soon after surgery? It sure feels like, at minimum, a significant contributing factor.
So, I understand the stance that Garrett Crochet and his representatives at CAA are taking while, conversely, hoping ultimately that every athlete tempted by a championship, like Harvey, will choose to accept elevated risk to go for a ring.
CC Sabathia, on the brink of free agency, demanded to pitch on three days’ rest late in the 2008 season for a Brewers team he had just joined and knew almost certainly would not pay to keep him.
That will burnish his Hall-of-Fame candidacy this winter.
Crochet, the White Sox’s ace and arguably the most desirable piece available in the trade market, has let it be known (as The Post’s Jon Heyman first reported), that he only wants to start the rest of the season.
He believed that by sticking to a routine, he has his best chance to stay healthy rather than perhaps slow down his innings by going into a pen now and start again next year.
And he let it be known that he will not pitch in the postseason without a contract extension.
Crochet not only missed all of 2022 and pitched just 25 innings last year (12 ²/₃ in the majors) following Tommy John surgery, but had thrown a total of 85 ¹/₃ pro innings since being drafted 11th overall in 2020.
And until this year not one of those pro innings was as a starter.
Crochet, who is next scheduled to start Sunday, already has 21 starts and 111 ¹/₃ innings in what has been an All-Star season.
CAA also represents Josh Hader and established rules limiting him to exclusively one-inning outings by the Brewers and Padres to protect him for free agency, where he scored a five-year, $95 million pact with the Astros.
This all has made it way less doubtful that a Crochet deal gets done and way more likely that the team best positioned to do this — if they choose — is the Dodgers. Because:
1. The Dodgers did this kind of a deal already with another oft-injured starter, when they acquired Tyler Glasnow and gave him a five-year contract extension simultaneously. I don’t think this could be done as quickly, but the Dodgers could acquire Crochet and potentially over the coming weeks work out an extension if they like what they see.
2. Only the Dodgers and the Phillies have no pressure to either try to make the playoffs or win a division. Thus, all of Los Angeles’ moves will be designed to improve its October chances. And remember the Dodgers were swept in the Division Series by Arizona last year because their starters — Clayton Kershaw, Lance Lynn and Bobby Miller — permitted 13 runs in 4 ²/₃ innings. To try to make themselves more bulletproof, the Dodgers acquired and signed Glasnow, plus signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million contract without him ever throwing an MLB pitch. Thus, with both of those deals, Los Angeles exemplified that it will take huge risks to get the kind of high-end stuff starters teams crave for the playoffs.
Would the Dodgers take another risk to try to line up a postseason trio of Crochet, Glasnow and Yamamoto? Crochet leads major league qualifiers with a 35.4 strikeout percentage, Glasnow is next at 33 percent and Yamamoto (27.9) would be 11th if he had enough innings.
3. By knowing they are in the playoffs already, the Dodgers could let Crochet even start once a week to not skyrocket his innings. For example, without the duress of having to win daily, the Dodgers put Glasnow on the IL when that wasn’t a must, as a way to preserve a righty who already was within six innings of his career-high. They will slow play the rehabs of Yamamoto and Mookie Betts to make sure they are 100 percent for October.
4. The Dodgers can just acquire Crochet and not extend him and hope that — like Harvey/Sabathia — the competitive juices take over and he wants to perform in the playoffs. And if he doesn’t, then the downside is they have two control years still moving forward at low prices for him to team in 2025-26 in a rotation that also would add Shohei Ohtani to Glasnow and Yamamoto. It would further enable the Dodgers to use their teeming pitching pipeline to acquire other needs.
Forgive me for including Harvey in another item, but obtaining Randy Arozarena has to be just a first offensive step for the Mariners. Because they are built on their rotation and that is a bit like being built on sand — just look at the Mets of the past decade. They went to the World Series in 2015 behind their young starters Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard, with Zack Wheeler healing in the wings. The health of the group deteriorated and the Mets have gone to the playoffs twice since and won one game.
The Mariners already have had fortune by, for a second straight year, basically being able to go round and round with Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo.
And the only one making significant money is Castillo, and even he is on a team-friendly deal. None of this will last forever — who would bet on it even for all of 2025?
The Mariners are the lone of 30 teams to never reach the World Series.
They have made the playoffs once since 2001.
They already have blown a 10-game division lead this year.
They have a historically bad offense — their .214 average would be the second-lowest in a 162-game season behind the 1968 Yankees while their 28 percent strikeout rate is the worst in the Live Ball era (since 1920); and Seattle’s moves in the offseason were designed to lower its strikeout rate.
To get Arozarena from the Rays on Thursday night, Seattle traded a player to be named, plus its 2023 fourth- (outfielder Aidan Smith) and sixth-round (pitcher Brody Hopkins) picks — both praised by outside scouts as talented, but unrefined prospects — to the Rays for Arozarena, who has hit much better since early May and has 11 homers in 33 playoff games.
But with an offense averaging 3.75 runs (second worst), but a pitching staff that can win in October and acquired reliever Yimi Garcia from Toronto on Friday, the Mariners have to do more than just Arozarena to maximize their rotation.
More and more every trade deadline season, I hear executives from contenders bemoan the lack of available inventory, the prices and/or the number of teams indecisive about whether to sell or not as the deadline nears and they insist that this will be the year in which contenders begin trading with each other more frequently.
And then that doesn’t happen because, as one frustrated executive said to me, “The easy trade is I will give you something that helps you later if you give me something that helps me now. It is harder for two contenders at this time of year to match up on now pieces.”
But even this executive said he has heard more than ever contenders talking to contenders.
And, perhaps, the door is now open because the Orioles used their surplus of outfielders to send the right-swinging one the Phillies hungered for to acquire a reliever Baltimore wanted in Seranthony Dominguez, plus defensive ace center fielder Cristian Pache.
It is possible the Mets with some pitching and the Yankees with relievers (if they believe Scott Effross and Lou Trivino can help soon) and/or Trent Grisham can use major league assets to acquire major league pieces.
In fact, I suspect the Mets will be able to trade Adrian Houser, designated for assignment on Friday, to a team willing to see if he can revive him as an innings-eating starter.