University of North Carolina Athletics
Amato: No Regrets For Harvey
March 11, 2010 | Baseball
March 11, 2010
by Neil Amato, TarHeelBlue.com
Matt Harvey will take the mound as North Carolina's starting pitcher Friday night against Duke at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Not long ago, it would have made sense to Harvey that, at the age of 20, as part of his natural progression, he'd make a start in a Triple-A ballpark in early spring. But in his original plan, he wouldn't have been wearing a college uniform.
The right-handed pitcher from Mystic, Conn., had pro dreams. His goal, he once said, was to be pitching in the majors by age 21. He followed the pro game, focused on big-leaguers named Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux. "Omaha" was not part of his vocabulary, even though his father played in the 1972 College World Series.
"I didn't really follow college baseball," Harvey said earlier this week. "I thought, pretty much, if you were a good player, you'd get drafted and play pro."
Harvey doesn't feel that way anymore; a few weeks shy of his 21st birthday, he knows better. When he came south, his life and his speech patterns slowed down. Major-league dreams remain, but the timetable is different.
Harvey was one of the nation's best high school prospects. So many of the colleges who blitzed his home and cell phone the first day they were allowed to contact him - the first call came at 4 a.m. - backed off, figuring he was a goner, headed to a high draft position and signing bonus that he couldn't refuse. North Carolina stuck with him, just in case.
Harvey knew if he was going to college, he was going to North Carolina. He entered the spring of 2007 as a top pitching prospect along with Rick Porcello, another highly rated UNC signee. Scouts, and the observers at Durham-based Baseball America magazine, constantly had the debate: Harvey or Porcello?
The draft, like a great pitcher, mixes in a few curveballs every now and then. Harvey fell to the third round; Porcello was picked late in the first but signed with the Tigers for a reported $3.5 million. Both prospects were advised by Scott Boras. That is important for several reasons.
Harvey won't say what amount the family was seeking or how much of a signing bonus he turned down from the Angels, but given Harvey's talent and Boras' reputation as a ruthless negotiator, it's safe to say it wasn't "slot money."
The highest bonus in the third round that year was $366,000; the lowest was $240,000. So slot money would have been somewhere in that range. Boras' clients sometimes drop in the draft because teams fear his negotiating so much. That likely contributed to Harvey falling to the 118th pick, but he also didn't have a senior season that lived up to expectations, which could have been to the benefit of the Tar Heels - and Harvey, even if he didn't know it at the time.
The Aug. 15 deadline for signing passed, and Harvey and his family headed off to Chapel Hill the next day. "Everything was just a whirlwind," his mother, Jackie said. So there was Harvey, an 18-year-old figuring he'd have cash to spare suddenly a college kid like everyone else.
"About two or three months my freshman year, that was rough," he said. "I had trouble sleeping because I felt I made the wrong decision. Once I started getting used to things here and starting to figure it out a little bit, on and off the field, that's when I developed a big love for this area and the school. I really take pride in that, you know, every day wearing the North Carolina uniform."
Harvey went 7-2 in each of his first two seasons, stepping right into the weekend rotation and helping Coach Mike Fox's Tar Heels extend their streak of College World Series appearances to four. Harvey, however, said he put too much pressure on himself as a sophomore, and though the record was the same as his freshman season, he took a step back. He had a 5.40 ERA, and opponents hit .293 against him.
"Both years, there were flashes of brilliance," said Aaron Fitt, national writer for Baseball America. "He can be really overpowering at times. But he's inefficient with his pitch count."
This season, the 6-4, 225-pounder feels that a better mental approach, combined with offseason work on his delivery, is making a difference. He's not the only one who's noticed.
"He's always been a guy who could be a Friday night guy from a stuff standpoint, and he's worked hard to get there and he's gotten there," pitching coach Scott Forbes said.
"He's gonna attack you, go after you. This year, the difference in his mentality is, `I may not have the best stuff, but I'm coming after you. You're going to have to beat me. I'm not going to beat myself.'"
Forbes and catcher Jacob Stallings have seen Harvey embrace a leadership role for the 11-2 Tar Heels. Though he's eligible to be drafted again after this season and so far has put up numbers that would justify a high pick, Harvey is "a big-time team guy," Forbes said.
On the mound, Harvey is 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA, 23 strikeouts and six walks. The opponent's batting average is .167.
"I really changed," Harvey said. "The biggest thing was my approach to each game. That's something I worked on not only myself and with Coach Forbes, but it's something I talked about with my dad and former pitchers about really trying to get into a rhythm before a game where it would really translate into what I would do on the mound.
"Last year, it was almost like, I would come in and my attitude would be completely different the day I was pitching from all other days, instead of just staying at a steady pace. Last year, I would go out and pretty much just throw and not think about it.
"I kind of let my mechanics go. Really paying attention to them in the offseason and finding that place that I needed to be before the game, ... I would bring that into the game. I found that this year, and it's obviously helping."
He knows it's early, very early in the season, especially for a team that has made June baseball a habit. Stallings said Harvey has what it takes to be the Tar Heels' ace, especially if Harvey believes it.
"So far, it's because we've lived off his fastball, and he has the confidence he should have in it," Stallings said. "He's really overpowered guys so far. I'm interested to see if he can continue doing that. That's the key, the confidence in himself."
