Is Matt Harvey ready?

Mike Pelfrey is out for the year and clearly Chris Shwinden can't be allowed to pitch again so the question is going to start to come up about Matt Harvey getting called up. Obviously the best solution would be Chris Young but reports indicate he is still a ways off. Chris Young is really an excellent pitcher, when healthy he is always pretty dominant. Unfortunately he is basically made of glass and can't ever seem to stay healthy for any extended period of time.

Which brings us too young Mr.Harvey. Matt is entering his age 23 season, the same age that Stephen Strasburg, Justin Verlander, Tim Lincecum and many others started pitching in the bigs. We looked at his and judged that he could be ready by this year. Let's take a look at his 2012 AAA numbers. So far he has six starts and pitched 30 innings. He has an ERA of 4.80 and is giving up a lot of hits, over 1 per inning pitched. He is however striking out a lot of batters with an 8.1 k/9.

The numbers don't look great right now. He is clearly catching up to AAA level pitching and we don't want to screw him up by bringing him up too early. That being said, sometimes it helps to get thrown in the pool. The only way he is going to be an MLB pitcher is by pitching to MLB batters. We are in a rebuilding year, this is the time to work out kinks. I want Matt Harvey to be a lights out pitcher at a time when the Mets are in contention for a championship. Letting him pitch soon is a step towards making that happen.