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If at first you don’t succeed.... The Angels have seemingly been “in” on nearly every free agent starter this off season, and they finally nabbed one. Most recently, the Angels missed out on signing JA Happ after offering him 28 million over 2 years.
Matt Harvey agreed to a one-year deal worth 11 million - and potentially as much as 14 million dollars based on incentives.
Matt Harvey’s Angels deal for the 11M guarantee has the 3M incentives based on games started between 15 and 26 gs. @Feinsand 1st with agreement
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 19, 2018
Interestingly enough, this is a bit of a homecoming for Matt Harvey who nearly started his career in Anaheim:
Harvey turned down a chance to sign with the angels out of high school 11 years ago. Was picked in 3rd round and offered $1M bonus. Went to UNC instead.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 19, 2018
Harvey was a force for the Mets back in 2015 when he started 29 games and put up a 2.71 ERA with a 1.019 WHIP and 188 Ks over 189.1 innings. Since that year, Harvey has struggled with injuries and performance and had a pretty lackluster year for the Mets and Reds in 2018 when he threw 155 innings with a 4.94 ERA and 1.303 WHIP - still a far cry from his early years with the Mets.
While he has lost some velocity over the years, Harvey can still top out near 98 MPH on his fastball that averages in the mid 90s.
The Angels are likely hoping for a better year out of Harvey in 2019, but he’s no long an ace and should slot in near the bottom of the rotation, but at least they did something - right???