The Mets will be faced with an upcoming roster move soon as Gee is about to go on the DL till at least September. You can read about that story everywhere, it’s not the focus here.
What are the Mets supposed to do? Do they trade for another pitcher? Do they rely on Batista? Do they rush Harvey?
Harvey says he’s ready, and his last several starts have shown improvement but Mets officials still want him to get more seasoning. Earlier on twitter, I alluded to Harvey as a green (now editing that to green-yellow) banana. He’s almost ripe. He’s almost ready. It’s tempting because you don’t want him to overripe, which here would mean waste quality starts that he could be producing at the major league level.
Because he’s almost ripe, the Mets could reach for him and just deal with the problems that come with impatience (he’s not mushy yet!). There may be another way.
First off, Gee will probably be replaced with Edgin. The Mets could look at Edgin for the four days leading up to Gee’s start, and see if he is worth to keep around (or if the GM is going to need to acquire a new arm for the pen).
I propose, regrettably, that the Mets send down Edgin on Gee’s start and call up Hefner and then do a duel start, similar to Colorado-ish. Have Hefner start, but limit him to 75 pitches. Then have Batista do the same. Maybe even more limits on each, like 60-65 pitches. It takes the pressure off, but will keep them fresh. More importantly, it will limit the amount of exposure they have. When teams get around to these guys the second or third time, they crush them, so let’s prevent that from happening.
After 3 weeks to a month of this, hopefully Harvey will be ready to go, and the Mets can have a perfectly ripened banana.
