Healthier Harvey provided late-inning stability for Nats

PLAYER REVIEW: HUNTER HARVEY

Age on Opening Day 2024: 29

How acquired: Claimed off waivers from Giants, March 2022

MLB service time: 4 years, 47 days

2023 salary: $870,000

Contract status: Arbitration-eligible, free agent in 2026

2023 stats: 4-4, 2.82 ERA, 57 G, 10 SV, 60 2/3 IP, 44 H, 21 R, 19 ER, 7 HR, 13 BB, 67 SO, 2 HBP, 0.940 WHIP, 153 ERA+, 3.29 FIP, 1.9 bWAR, 1.3 fWAR

Quotable: “I wish I could’ve taken those 21 days away and stayed healthy the whole time. That would’ve been a big thing. But I’m happy with how everything went. Only missing 20 days this year is nice, compared with getting 60-day’d. It’s been fun.” – Hunter Harvey

2023 analysis: The Nationals entered the season wanting Harvey to be a big part of their bullpen but given his history they couldn’t just count on that happening. The hard-throwing right-hander had never made it through an entire season without injury, leaving him with a mere 64 big-league appearances and 63 innings pitched over the previous four years.

Harvey wasted little time this season showing everyone he was ready to shed that longstanding image. He opened the year as Davey Martinez’s setup man, and by May (with Kyle Finnegan in a little bit of a rut) he took over as closer, earning his long-awaited first career save May 7 in Arizona.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Harvey in the closer’s role, though. Between May 7 and July 14, he made 13 appearances in the ninth inning with the Nats either leading or tied. He gave up runs in five of those games, suffering some ugly blown saves along the way. Then coming out of the All-Star break, he reported elbow soreness and the team immediately placed him on the 15-day IL.

Harvey’s willingness to report the injury right away – he admits he would usually try to pitch through it in the past – probably saved his season. He wound up missing one month, then was back on the mound Aug. 15 and was outstanding the rest of the way. Over his final 18 games, he delivered a 2.21 ERA and 0.836 WHIP with a sparkling 22-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And he finished the year healthy, ultimately making nearly as many appearances and totaling as many innings in 2023 as he had the previous four seasons combined.

2024 outlook: Injuries are always going to be on the back of everyone’s mind as it relates to Harvey, because there’s simply too much track record there to ignore. But he really does believe he has made major strides in keeping himself healthy and on the mound since joining the Nationals, and his goal for 2024 surely will involve staying on the active roster for the full 162 games.

The Nats will stay optimistic and make plans for Harvey to join Finnegan and a now-healthy Tanner Rainey as a potentially solid three-man punch at the back of their bullpen. They already know how effective he can be when he’s out there on a regular basis, but there are ways he can be even more consistently effective.

Harvey is nearly untouchable when he doesn’t fall behind in the count. Opponents hits a measly .151 and slugged .186 when down in the count, and an only slightly better .181 and .265 when the count was even. When Harvey fell behind, though, they hit .333 and slugged .708 off him, accounting for most of the damage he suffered all year long.

Harvey’s fastball (average velocity: 98.3 mph) and splitter (89.5 mph) are tough for anyone to hit. But his most effective pitches actually are his lesser-utilized breaking balls. Opponents went just 2-for-23 off his slider and 1-for-10 off his curveball this season, nobody recording an extra-base hit. As much as he wants to overpower batters with hard stuff, he has the ability to really keep them off-balance with a little more dose of breaking stuff.

In the end, there’s not that much to nitpick about Harvey’s pitching repertoire. The biggest key with him, as it’s been throughout his career, is finding a way to stay healthy. If he really has taken that critical step forward since coming to D.C., the Nationals have themselves an elite late-inning reliever for another two seasons.