On October 22, 2013, Dr. James Andrews operated on Matt Harvey. Since that time, there has been much debate on how to handle him. 

This debate is now rekindled because Scott Boras is upset with the Mets. He wants the Mets to stick with the supposedly firm doctor’s 180 innings limit. Putting aside he’s a surgeon and not a rehabilitation specialist, I’ve never heard Dr. James Andrews speak on the topic. An admittedly brief Internet search turned up no rehabilitation recommendations from him. 

There may be a multitude of reasons why he hasn’t spoken on this. The least of which is HIPAA. Another reason might be the fact that there is no real tried and true method. The Nationals shutdown Jordan Zimmermann and Steven Strasburg. The Cardinals let Adam Wainwright pitch 215 innings. The Yankees didn’t even go the surgical route with Masahiro Tanaka. All three have seemingly responded well. 

The Mets are trying a different method with extended tests and skipped starts. We don’t know yet if this will work. Frankly, we don’t know what works. We know there’s no consensus. What we do have is people who urge extreme caution.  It’s hard not to listen because when something goes wrong, everyone will point to that as the reason why something went wrong . . . even if it wasn’t. 

Regardless, what we see here is Scott Boras aggressively defending his client. Accordingly, let’s not demonize him. Even if Harvey disagrees, Boras still needs to try to protect him, even if that means protecting Harvey from himself. Chances are if you were a player you would hire him as your agent because he gets huge contracts for his clients and he defends them. He does so even if it’s unpopular. 

We see Sandy Alderson refusing to be pushed around by Boras. It’s great to see two strong willed men in a face-off. Boras is trying to do right by Harvey. Alderson is trying to do right by Harvey and the Mets. By the way, let’s not demonize Boras here. 

I just wish there was a strong consensus or an opinion from a leading physician like Dr. James Andrews so we could stop having these arguments.