Mets vs. Marlins recap: The 4th overall pick is in play

If your favorite baseball team is going to have a lost season, it might as well get as far off the intended path as possible. And given the circumstances of the Mets’ 2017 season, the fact that the team has a legitimate shot at the fourth-worst record—and therefore the fourth overall pick in the 2018 amateur draft—feels like something of a victory.

Perhaps that’s a far too optimistic take to have after the team opened its series in Miami by getting blown out. But if a team is going to tank, or at least make an effort to shed itself of the notion of competitive baseball games at the trade deadline, it might as well go all out. Matt Harvey and the rest of the Mets did just that on Monday night in Miami.

Harvey’s start went much like the rest of his season has so far this year. In this one, he went four innings and gave up seven runs—all earned—on twelve hits in just four innings of work. He struck out two and walked two, and he fueled the fire on the once-unthinkable idea that he could be non-tendered after the season comes to an end, one full year before he was originally slated to hit free agency. That entire topic is worth of a discussion of its own, but even a non-zero chance of a non-tender of Harvey sounds pretty insane less than two years after the performance he gave the Mets in the World Series.

Once Harvey had departed, the Mets’ bullpen didn’t do much to help the team’s remote chance of coming back. Tommy Milone gave up two runs in one-third of an inning and was followed up by Hansel Robles, who did him one better and gave up three runs in one-third of an inning.

Since the season has mostly been reduced to prospect-watching, it’s worth noting that Dominic Smith went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, and Amed Rosario was slated to start the game but turned out to be a late scratch with an upset stomach. Maybe he had just finished watching a Mets game.

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Box scores

ESPN
MLB

Win Probability Added

FanGraphs

What’s WPA?

Big winners: none
Big losers: Matt Harvey, -31.6% WPA, Dominic Smith, -10.8% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Gavin Cecchini singles to score the Mets’ lone run of the game in the fourth, +9.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Giancarlo Stanton hits a three-run home run in the fourth, -14.7% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -35.8% WPA
Total batter WPA: -14.2% WPA
GWRBI!: none (Giancarlo Stanton scores on a wild pitch)