Orioles lose Hunter Harvey on waiver claim (updated)

The Orioles made another roster move this afternoon and it eliminated a former first-round draft pick whose attempts at becoming a high-leverage reliever in the back end of the bullpen will continue in another organization.

Multiple sources confirmed that the Giants claimed Hunter Harvey off waivers. He was on the 60-day injured list, which didn't count against a 40-man roster that holds at 30, but the Orioles were approaching the date to reinstate him.

Harvey was the 22nd overall pick in the 2013 draft out of Bandys High School in North Carolina and the Orioles envisioned him as the future ace of their rotation. However, a litany of injuries kept sidetracking him, the most serious to his elbow that required Tommy John surgery in 2016.

The decision was made to move Harvey to the bullpen and he debuted in the majors in August 2019 at Fenway Park, but more health setbacks limited him to 26 games and 23 2/3 innings over the last three seasons.

It's an unfortunate outcome for Harvey and the Orioles, a one-time top prospect with an upper 90s fastball who had a 3.18 ERA and 1.129 WHIP in 17 starts with Single-A Delmarva in 2014, with 106 strikeouts in 87 2/3 innings. He missed the entire 2015 season and never regained his luster.

There was some encouragement born from the 1.42 ERA, 1.105 WHIP and 11 strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings in nine games with the Orioles in 2019, but Harvey never reached his potential.

"I know I can do it," Harvey said in an October interview with MASNsports.com. "It's just a matter of staying healthy. That's the biggest thing for me. We've been talking about this for how many years now? But I know I can do it, I can pitch there. It's just a matter of being able to stay healthy and pitch for a full season. It's just a matter of getting my body to hold up long enough to achieve that.

"We'll keep trying it until no teams want to try it anymore or until I figure out how to stay healthy. That's my two options."

Harvey began the 2021 season on the injured list with a strained left oblique, which occurred while he threw a pitch in an exhibition game, and he returned to it in late June after straining his right latissimus dorsi on his final warmup toss in Houston. He didn't pitch for the Orioles after June 28, his chances of a call-up ruined by a strained right triceps at Triple-A Norfolk.

"I threw some live BPs in Florida," Harvey said last month. "I threw one live BP down there and I was 94-97 (mph) on a back field, and then I threw a game in Charlotte and I was 96-99, so everything was feeling great. I threw another one in Charlotte and it (triceps) kind of came up. It wasn't super painful, but it felt like something was kind of nagging a little bit.

"I went in and got it worked on just to try to see if we could get it out of there. I pitched with it and it kind of stayed, wouldn't go away. My velo, I wouldn't say it really dropped, but instead of being 96-99, I was 94-97, so it maybe affected it a little bit. And it wasn't as much that the stuff was getting affected as I thought about it more and it's like I would lose focus a little bit."

The Tommy John surgery came after Harvey was diagnosed with a strained flexor mass, and the line drive in a minor league spring training game that fractured his shin. In 2018, Harvey dislocated his right shoulder with Double-A Bowie while trying to avoid a line drive headed toward in him in the dugout - the Orioles describing the injury as "posterior shoulder instability."

Harvey, the son of former major league All-Star closer Bryan Harvey, was shut down later in the summer with right forearm stiffness.

The Orioles waited until June 4 for Harvey to make his debut this season and he appeared in nine games, allowing four runs and eight hits in 8 2/3 innings. He's 1-2 with a 3.42 ERA and 1.183 WHIP in the majors.

Twenty-eight teams passed on Harvey before the Giants made the waiver claim. They've had success with a few other former Orioles, including outfielder Mike Yastrzemski and starter Kevin Gausman.

The Orioles are down to four players on the 60-day injured list after Matt Harvey became a free agent and Hunter Harvey hit the waiver wire: pitchers Keegan Akin and Jorge López, infielder Jorge Mateo and outfielder DJ Stewart.

Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias has to decide which minor leaguers to protect in the Rule 5 draft, with at least four appearing to be locks in pitchers DL Hall, Kyle Bradish and Kevin Smith, and infielder Terrin Vavra.

Elias also will probably want the flexibility to make two selections in the Rule 5 draft.

Robert Murray of FanSided.com first reported the waiver claim.

Update: The Orioles announced the Harvey news, along with a few other moves that lowered their 40-man roster to 27 players.

Catcher Nick Ciuffo and pitcher Spenser Watkins cleared outright waivers and were assigned to Norfolk. Pitcher Chris Ellis, who had a 2.49 ERA in six starts, cleared outright waivers and elected free agency.

There are no catchers on the 40-man roster.

As previously reported, catcher Pedro Severino and pitchers Conner Greene and Marcos Diplán cleared outright waivers and became free agents.