Finally somebody agrees with me about the vulnerability of young pitchers.

Best Arms in Baseball Have No Bargaining Power
SEPT. 25, 2015
On Baseball
By HARVEY ARATON The New York Times

Is it time for the once-militant Major League Baseball Players Association to better protect its players — especially its pitchers? ...

Baseball’s current arbitration system keeps major league players from exerting meaningful control over their careers until they have been in the league for six years...

... ultimately about a player’s race to maximize earning potential before the onset of body betrayal. Hackneyed news media coverage too often harps on aging players whose performance is no longer commensurate with the back end of a contract while being too accepting of the bargain-basement prices teams pay for their precocious stars...

(Matt Harvey) salary this season is $614,125, considerably less than some high-end journalists and commentators gleefully taking critical measure of his character.

Those who write and talk for a living can count on a career lasting decades. Harvey will probably be taking up bowling or fly-fishing by his mid- to late 30s. Such is the baseball life span of a hard-throwing pitcher...

For pitchers, the system is fraught with unreasonable risk on the way to potential reward...

Harvey and the Mets ... mess has needlessly cast Harvey as a pariah in his own clubhouse and hardly been an endorsement for the much-hyped integrity of the game.
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Luis Severino: are the Yankees jeopardizing his career to hide their incompetence? Sunday, September 27, 2015

To put it in Matt Harvey terms, would Luis Severino already be shut down if the Yankees were not so desperate to have Severino save this season of Yankee mediocrity?
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Should Mets and Yanks shut down starting pitchers Harvey, Syndergaard, deGrom, Severino? Friday, September 18, 2015

So, what to do?  Nothing is the easiest and that's probably what both teams will do, especially since the fans could care less about any long term impact or the well being of the players either physically or financially.  Matt Harvey is finally on the verge of being paid big bucks.  For 2015 the Mets are paying Harvey $614,125, good money for normal people but peanuts for a baseball player in his position.  If Mets management wanted to ensure that Harvey go all out this season, they should have offered him a multi-year contract.  Let's say it was for five years at $20 million per year.  Harvey would then have the financial security to risk injury and possibly a second "Tommy John" surgery.  But even the Mets fans would balk at that and figure it was the motive of Harvey's despised agent all along.  Maybe.  But that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

So we'll sit back and enjoy the games as the players risk all for their enrichment and our entertainment.  And the glory of qualifying for the tournament and possibly even advancing past the first round.
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Mark Fidrych (The Bird)

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W	Awards
1976 ★	21	DET	AL	19	9	.679	2.34	31	29	2	24	4	0	250.1	217	76	65	12	53	3	97	3	0	6	996	159	3.15	1.079	7.8	0.4	1.9	3.5	1.83	AS,CYA-2,MVP-11,RoY-1
1977 ★	22	DET	AL	6	4	.600	2.89	11	11	0	7	1	0	81.0	82	29	26	2	12	2	42	1	0	1	326	149	2.50	1.160	9.1	0.2	1.3	4.7	3.50	AS
1978	23	DET	AL	2	0	1.000	2.45	3	3	0	2	0	0	22.0	17	6	6	1	5	0	10	0	0	0	85	160	2.95	1.000	7.0	0.4	2.0	4.1	2.00
1979	24	DET	AL	0	3	.000	10.43	4	4	0	0	0	0	14.2	23	17	17	3	9	2	5	1	0	0	73	43	6.75	2.182	14.1	1.8	5.5	3.1	0.56
1980	25	DET	AL	2	3	.400	5.68	9	9	0	1	0	0	44.1	58	35	28	5	20	2	16	1	0	3	215	73	4.92	1.759	11.8	1.0	4.1	3.2	0.80
5 Yrs				29	19	.604	3.10	58	56	2	34	5	0	412.1	397	163	142	23	99	9	170	6	0	10	1695	126	3.33	1.203	8.7	0.5	2.2	3.7	1.72
162 Game Avg.				17	11	.604	3.10	35	33	1	20	3	0	246	237	97	85	14	59	5	101	4	0	6	1011	126	3.33	1.203	8.7	0.5	2.2	3.7	1.72

Year	Age	Team	Salary	ServTm(OpnDay)	Sources	Notes/Other Sources
1976	21	Detroit Tigers	$60,000	?	4/9/77 TSN	$19,000 minimum plus $41,000 bonuses
1977	22	Detroit Tigers	$55,000	?	4/9/77 TSN	10/30/76 TSN: $50,000
1978	23	Detroit Tigers	$90,000	?	4/9/77 TSN
1979	24	Detroit Tigers	$125,000	?	4/9/77 TSN
Career to date (may be incomplete)			$330,000