We’re a little early for Dave Cameron’s annual must-read Trade Value series, but I suspect Matt Harvey won’t be appearing in it this year. I feel quite certain about that prognostication — even if Harvey avoids exile to the minor leagues and returns instead to his vintage 2013 form over the next few weeks.

Harvey met with the media Tuesday afternoon at Citi Field and tried to begin taking some accountability for his recent actions.

More from Matt Harvey pic.twitter.com/AgoCgZLdDi

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 9, 2017

While Harvey initially claimed that an innocent headache prevented him from showing up at the ballpark on Saturday, the New York Post later reported that Harvey’s headache was perhaps a product of self-inflicted dehydration.

The “Dark Knight” was celebrating a late Cinco de Mayo at 1Oak until 4 a.m. Saturday — just hours before he failed to show up for a game at Citi Field, reportedly because of a “migraine,” sources said.

If true, it’s remarkable that folks still believe they can escape truth in an era of smart phones and social media.

A day earlier, Jon Heyman reported that Harvey and his agent Scott Boras planned to file a grievance over the suspension. It was suggested that the Harvey camp was displeased with the Mets’ decision to send team officials over to Harvey’s apartment for a check-in. Whatever the case, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of trust here.

The Mets’ 2017 season has become quite the soap opera, and it stars Harvey.

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The Mets, of course, were dealt a significant setback with the news on Noah Syndergaard earlier this week. Steven Matz is on the DL and has a long injury history. Robert Gsellman has some ominous velocity and spin-rate trends. That represents the majority of the starting-rotation arms upon which the Mets were counting this season.

Then there’s Matt Harvey.

The Mets — along with the entirety of baseball — had no idea what to expect from Harvey entering this season. There were plenty of concerns this spring, certainly, when Harvey was sitting at 92 mph with his fastball. The concerns have continued into the regular season.

Harvey struggled again on Tuesday in Atlanta. A month into the season, the right-hander now owns a 5.14 ERA and even worse 5.75 FIP. He’s striking out a paltry 13.5% of batters while walking 8.8% — not even a five-point difference. Here, the sake of context, are Harvey’s K-BB% marks over the last four seasons: 23.2% (2013), 20% (2015), 12.7% (2016) and 4.7% (2017).

The 2013 and 2015 versions of Harvey seem less and less likely to reappear.

Said Mets manager Terry Collins to reporters present:

“You’re talking about a guy that did not pitch very much last year. He’s coming back from a surgery that not a lot of guys have really come back to be 100 percent again. Especially when you’ve lost the feeling in your fingers and you’ve got to regain the feel of the seams.”

That’s not encouraging. That sounds like the description of a pitcher who has a long way back if he’s ever going to return to something near to what he was, which was a legit ace. Harvey had surgery in July for thoracic outlet syndrome. (Some PITCHf/x forensics on the issue were conducted here by Mike Sonne.)

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When Noah Syndergaard showed up to spring training having indulged in “Bowls of Doom” to gain 17 pounds with a view towards throwing even harder — this, after a season in which his fastball averaged 98 mph — alarm bells began clanging around the country. Among those waving red flags was the present author.

Here’s what I wrote on Feb. 13, 2017:

As exciting as all this [added strength] sounds, perhaps someone should pump the breaks. For a pitcher who threw harder than any other starter, who threw a variant of a fastball on 60% of his offerings, more velocity might not be such a great development. While we don’t have a full understanding of why so many pitchers are breaking down, perhaps the body is being pushed beyond its physical limits with the strength and velocity increases in the game. No one, among starter pitchers, is pushing limits like Syndergaard.

After pushing the limits in 2016, Syndergaard was attempting to push even harder against them this year. Perhaps he pushed too hard, flew too close to the sun, etc. Pitchers’ ligaments and soft tissue aren’t unlike wax wings; velocity, not unlike the sun. Record pitch speeds have wrought a record numbers of injuries. That Syndergaard is on the DL is, sadly, one of the least surprising developments early this season.

Worst Final Jeopardy ever. https://t.co/hLDik6IqT3

— Zachary Levine (@zacharylevine) May 1, 2017

Sports-injury expert Will Carroll told FanGraphs on Monday that Syndergaard’s offseason work was likely unhelpful.

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Last year, Robert Gsellman came up to the big leagues and helped stabilize an injury-plagued Mets rotation. With a power sinker that had added velocity, the unheralded Gsellman missed bats and generated grounders at an elite level. And after another Steven Matz injury put the lefty’s dependability into question this past spring training, Gsellman was given a prime opportunity to grab a 2017 rotation spot and run with it. To date, however, he hasn’t returned to top form.

For one thing, the results have been ugly. By RA9-WAR, Gsellman has been one of MLB’s worst starters. That once-great sinker whiff rate has been halved. But beyond outcome-level stats, his pitch data indicates worsened stuff. Overall, Gsellman’s sinker is down 0.71 mph, and especially striking are his in-game velocity declines.

Below are LOESS-smoothed curves plotting the difference between the given two-seam fastball velocity and its initial “baseline” in that game — represented, in this case, by the average velocity of the pitcher’s first five two-seamers. By restating velocities like this, each start becomes its own “universe” and we mitigate pitch-tracking biases on the game and park level.

Out of the gate of his 2017 starts, Gsellman’s velocity is dropping. By the 40-pitch mark, he has typically lost 1 mph from his starting speed. As he approaches 80 pitches, his two-seamers are nearly 1.75 mph slower. The orange curve does rebound near its end, but a widened 95% confidence interval reflects a smaller sample of pitches and less certainty that he’ll continue to gain velocity back. Regardless, Gsellman is ending his starts at 1.5 mph off his opening speed. Compared to the dark gray curve for the league — which indicates starts this April in which pitchers threw 20-plus two-seamers/sinkers and 90-plus total pitches — Gsellman’s velocity has tumbled much more steeply.

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The Washington Nationals are the best team in the NL East. The second best team in the NL East might be the Mets Disabled List. Already consisting of Yoenis Cespedes, Steven Matz, Lucas Duda, David Wright, Wilmer Flores, Seth Lugo, and Brandon Nimmo, the injured Mets are now going to add Noah Syndergaard to the list, as the Mets announced his MRI this morning revealed a torn lat muscle.

Update on Noah Syndergaard. #Mets pic.twitter.com/n8JVxIBBid

— New York Mets (@Mets) May 1, 2017

While there’s no official timetable, this isn’t going to be a short DL stint. Matz missed two months with a similar injury back in 2015, and that was diagnosed as the lowest grade lat tear. At this point, it’s probably unlikely that Syndergaard is back before the All-Star break.

While the Mets theoretically had a lot of pitching depth before the season started, no team can really sustain the loss of three starting pitchers that easily, and there’s no replacing Syndergaard. This probably costs the Mets a win or two even if Syndergaard gets back in July, and if this lingers beyond that, it could be closer to three or four wins. This is a huge blow, on par with the Giants loss of Madison Bumgarner, and puts the Mets 2017 season in some legitimate jeopardy.

The NL Wild Card race might really end up being first-to-87-wins-gets-it. This doesn’t end the Mets chances of making the postseason, but they’re going to need some things to turn around in short order. They can only dig so big a hole before it becomes overwhelming.

A variety of maladies were already plaguing the Mets before they met with the media on Thursday morning. Things would soon get worse, however. Reporters soon learned, for example, that in addition to the six Mets currently on the disabled list, Noah Syndergaard would not be making his start due to a bicep issue. Matt Harvey would be getting the ball that day instead. Before the day was out, Yoenis Cespedes would leave the game after further injuring a balky hamstring, and Harvey would fail to make it out of the fifth inning. They’ve now lost six straight games, and added further insults and injuries to an already large pile of both. Less than a month into the season, their playoff odds are starting to get ugly.

The Mets likely can’t be blamed for every single issue currently plaguing them. They can be blamed, however, for some of them. Too many of them, perhaps.

Prior to the start of the season, a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ union was put into place. Among the new provisions within the document was a new 10-day disabled list, shortened from 15 days. It was created with the idea that teams could have more flexibility in giving time off to banged-up players. Clubs, in turn, would have more freedom to call up replacements and to avoin playing with an understaffed roster. Some teams, including the Mets, had gotten into a habit of playing a man or two down while players nursed injuries deemed too minor to merit a full 15 days on the DL. Now, teams can theoretically get players back five days earlier, and play with 25 men. Everybody wins, no?

The Mets have failed to fully embrace the possibilities afforded by a 10-day DL. Cespedes originally injured his hamstring on the 20th. He didn’t play again until Wednesday, partially due to an off day and a rainout, although he did come out on deck for a possible pinch-hitting appearance on Sunday before the Mets lost. The Mets and their training staff had decided that Cespedes didn’t need a full DL stint, just a few days off, with potentially a plate appearance off the bench mixed in.

Cespedes came up slightly lame when he hurt himself on the 20th. He needed help getting off the field yesterday. It’s not an ideal situation for a man who’s still dealing with the vestiges of a quad injury that sidelined him for part of the 2016 campaign and never really released him from its grip down the stretch.

Of course, Cespedes isn’t the only Met who has been carried along for the ride in such a fashion. Both Asdrubal Cabrera and Travis d’Arnaud were in similar states of limbo in the past week. The clubs has done this quite a bit over the last few seasons. It now appears to have cost Cespedes at least a few weeks of action.

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Last Thursday, baseball got weird and the Mets and Marlins played past midnight. After Travis d’Arnaud hit the go-ahead homer in the 16th, the catcher slowly trotted around the bases, admitting afterwards that he needed the invigorating effects of that moment just to complete the task. “The emotions of the home run helped lift my legs a little bit,” he said to James Wagner after the game regarding his tired knees. After the dust had settled and all the exhausted quotes were collected, though, the teams had to play another game later that day. What sort of effect would the marathon game have on that game?

Intuitively, you might expect the teams to have trouble scoring runs the next day. Tired legs, tired minds, tired bats, you’d think. Turns out that instinct is accurate… sort of.

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Mets fans know the dilemma well. Despite already possessing probably the club’s second-best bat after Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto might have a tenuous grasp on a roster spot.

Conforto isn’t a natural center fielder. Juan Lagares is a natural center fielder and is also nearing a return from a rehab stint to serve as the club’s fourth outfielder, a role which Conforto is currently filling.

Conforto is a more natural fit at a corner-outfield spot, but Cespedes has a solid grasp of left field and the Mets owe Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce $15 million and $13 million, respectively, this year. Granderson and Bruce are atop the depth chart at center and right field.

Conforto is well aware of his situation. He’s well aware he has minor-league options remaining and a relatively paltry salary. Said the 24-year-old to Newsday earlier this week: “My situation is a day-to-day thing.”

Despite doing this on Wednesday night…

Michael Conforto got some extension on that home run. He crushed it a projected 422 feet, off the bat at 108.1 mph. #Mets pic.twitter.com/ElRj8AlVUX

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) April 13, 2017

Despite demonstrating a compact, powerful swing that produced results on Sunday…

Regardless of the quality of contact he’s produced, his pedigree as a first-round pick, and the intriguing track record, Conforto isn’t a lock to stick in the lineup regularly or on the 25-man roster at all.

There’s the old adage that if you can hit they will find a place for you in the field. Will the Mets?

This is a player who posted a 133 wRC+ of as a rookie in 2015 over 194 plate appearances, when Conforto’s average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives was 96.1 mph, ranking him 22nd among hitters with at least 100 batted-ball events (just behind Cespedes). After an excellent start to 2016, a wrist issue and inconsistent playing time contributed to a lackluster sophomore campaign.

Still, despite 2016, Conforto was projected by ZiPS to be the Mets’ second-best position player in 2017. From our ZiPS post back in February:

Only four Mets field players recorded a WAR figure of 2.0 or greater in 2016. According to Dan Szymborski’s computer, six different Mets might be expected to reach that mark in 2017. Yoenis Cespedes (596 PA, 4.1 zWAR) receives the club’s top projection by a full win — and three of the club’s top-four forecasts overall belong to outfielders. One of those additional outfielders is Curtis Granderson (538, 2.3). The other isn’t presumptive right-field starter Jay Bruce (583, 1.2) but rather Michael Conforto (558, 3.0). Conforto, in other words, appears to be a markedly superior option.

And all Conforto has done this spring is hit like Kyle Schwarber Lite. He’s making life difficult on Mets officials tasked with setting the roster and lineup card.

Last year, Eno Sarris wrote about the development of power and how Conforto’s best contact hadn’t been ideal. Well, Conforto is making strides there early this spring. His home run on Sunday left his bat at 108 mph and landed 430 feet away in right-center field.

Conforto can hit. He might be the Mets’ second-best hitter and yet the Mets continue to struggle to find a place for his bat, giving him only two starts so far this season.

The Mets might have initially regretted picking up Bruce’s option, insurance in case Cespedes signed elsewhere this offseason. But Bruce has been productive to date this year, and might be benefiting from an attempt to launch more balls in the air. Bruce has hit four home runs in the season’s first week and is slashing .273/.385/.667 — in part, fueled by a 0.40 GB/FB ratio.

So what to do with Conforto?

A modest proposal: platoon Conforto with Lagares in center (which is how the Mets began last season), hope for the best defensively, and let him hit.

For starters, outfield defense is a bit less important behind the Mets, whose pitching staff finished ninth in strikeouts in baseball a season ago and ninth in ground-ball rate (46.5%). The Mets’ power rotation is again expected to miss many a bat and produce a better-than-average ground-ball rate.

But Conforto might actually be a superior defensive option to Granderson in center right now. In limited defensive work in center field, covering 48 innings, Conforto has been worth 1 defensive run save (DRS). In 952 innings in left, he’s been posted 9 DRS, exceeding expectations of his defense. Granderson, meanwhile, has declined as a defender and is already rated as being worth -2 DRS this season in center. In his last full season in center, in New York in 2012, Granderson was worth -7 DRS.

Conforto is the better offensive option going forward.

As for Lagares, he’s an excellent defensive center fielder, having tallied 62 DRS from 2013 to -16, but he’s posted well below-average offensive seasons in back-to-back years, including a 79 wRC+ mark in 2015 and an 84 wRC+ last season. However, for his career, Lagares has a wRC+ of 105 versus lefties versus a 76 mark against righties. Given what we know about platoon splits, that might actually be a fair representation of his true talent. There’s a place for Lagares’ glove as a defensive replacement, or perhaps with a fly-ball pitcher on the mound. And Lagares’ right-handed bat could serve as a platoon partner for Conforto who has struggled to hit lefties (.129 average in 62 at-bats) early in his big-league career.

Every win matters for the Mets in what figures to be a competitive NL East. While their lineup is off to a productive start, it would be more productive, more often, with their second-most-capable hitter in the lineup.

We’ve always heard that if you can hit a team will find a place for you. For much of this spring it seemed the Mets were thinking that place was Triple-A for Conforto, but perhaps Conforto’s strong spring and torrid start to open the season in limited chances could force some more creative thinking.

The sooner they find a way to make a consistent lineup home for Conforto, the better off they will be.

How does one define stardom in baseball? How does one identify a star? Well, firstly, it probably doesn’t require knowing a guy’s WAR. It’s more intuitive than that. You can feel your lips curling into a grin when a certain player does something exceptional. When that happens again and again, that’s when you know: there’s something special about that one guy. He can do it all, and he does it more often than everyone else. What’s a star? A star is someone capable of evoking an almost childlike sense of joy and wonder.

Yoenis Cespedes has sentimental value for Mets fans beyond his capacity to do just that. It was Cespedes who strode in and muscled the Mets to the World Series a couple years ago. He may not serve as a daily one-man wrecking crew with the sort of frequency that he did during the 2015 stretch drive, but he’s still pretty damn good, and pretty damn watchable to boot. He’s a near-ideal mixture of talent and swagger, a man with monstrous power and a magnetic presence off the field. It was that monstrous power, and the Phillies, which helped him launch three home runs last night.

Homer #1

Look, I don’t know whether we’ll ever be able to say for sure if Clay Buchholz is (was?) good. His career has been a roller coaster without safety harnesses. There have been years where he’s looked brilliant, and there have been years where he’s looked disastrous. Both varieties of seasons are prone to being curtailed by injuries. And, speaking of which, Buchholz did wind up leaving last night’s game with the dreaded “right forearm tightness,” so he may not have been at his best when Cespedes did this to him.

Now, yes, the Phillies do indeed play in a bandbox. But hitting a ball out to dead center is impressive no matter where you’re playing, and Cespedes cleared the wall with room to spare. It’s easy to do that when you’re built like Cespedes and you’ve just been thrown a big-league meatball, but you’ve still got to actually hit the thing. Cespedes, true to form, did in fact hit the thing. Thus began a game that would see the Mets score 14 runs and hit seven bombs in total. It seems Mets hitters really do trust the process.

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Jay Bruce is not going to win any popularity contests in New York’s largest borough when the season opens next month.

Through no fault of his own, the Mets exercised his $13 million option this winter, ostensibly as insurance in case Yoenis Cespedes fled elsewhere. With the return of Cespedes, though, Bruce is now regarded primarily as an impediment to promising young outfielder Michael Conforto’s ability to receive more playing time. This is not a post arguing that Confroto shouldn’t be the recipient of more playing time. I would like to see a full season from Conforto, too. This is a post about Bruce independent of playing-time issues in New York.

This is a post, in part, about a player using batted-ball data to rethink his ideas about lifting the ball, a subject we’ve detailed exhaustively at FanGraphs this offseason and spring. This is also a post about a player who’s running out of time to live up to his lofty prospect pedigree. While Bruce’s 111 wRC+ last season and 107 mark for his career continues to render him employable, his declining defense has him pushed him near replacement-level the last two seasons, when he has combined for one unit of WAR. This is a player who must get more out of his bat to secure another lucrative contract, and to secure steady playing time.

But what’s a little different about this story is that Bruce already hits more fly balls than ground balls. This is a fly-ball hitter who wants to become an extreme fly-ball hitter, as James Wagner details in a recent, excellent New York Times feature.

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