The Phillies collectively are a minus-30.9 in that stat, which ranks 17th and is not half bad for a team that’s started Ronald Torreyes in more than half its games. And despite missing 21 games, he’s in the top three in both fWAR and WARP among position players.įanGraphs rates Harper’s offense as being worth 49.2 runs this year, second in baseball behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The 28-year-old right fielder is currently tied for the league lead in wRC+ among qualified hitters, and leads outright in slugging percentage. Peak Barry Bonds–level production, in other words, albeit in a small sample.Īnyone who’s followed Mike Trout’s career knows that there are limits to how much one baseball player-particularly a position player-can do to help his team win.
In that time, he’s hit 11 home runs and posted an OBP of. Harper has reached base in 15 consecutive games, and in 27 out of 28 games in the past month.
He put the Phillies up with a double in the sixth and iced the game with a mammoth homer an inning later.īryce to extend the lead! /y6GL9CU7wc- NBC Sports Philadelphia September 17, 2021 When they turned a 7-0 deficit into a 17-8 win over the Cubs last Thursday, Harper went 3-for-4 with two walks. And Harper has been instrumental in that effort. Since last week, the Phillies-a team most charitably described as streaky-have cut their deficit in the NL East in half.
But as much of the rest of the team has been struck down by injury or maintained a frustratingly fleeting relationship with competence, Harper has pulled everyone’s weight. Perhaps this metaphor is unkind to a few of Harper’s teammates: Jean Segura, Cy Young contender Zack Wheeler, or surprising 26-year-old Ranger Suárez, who’s having the 2012 Kris Medlen season, only left-handed. It was then that Bryce Harper carried the Phillies. A trench plowed out by one man, dragging a fully laden and beached cargo barge across the desolate shore. Imagine, then, on a similar allegorical beach, finding one set of footprints that stretch for only a few paces, after which they’re engulfed by a humongous slash riven through the dirt. It’s usually found hanging in a cutesy little frame above the hand towels-the story about God and footprints in the sand: “Where you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” Harper reportedly rejected late pushes by the Dodgers and Giants in order to sign with the Phillies instead.If you’ve ever peed in a suburban powder room, you know the line. The signing means that Nick Williams will slide into a fourth outfielder role - or perhaps even head to Triple-A Lehigh Valley since he has options remaining - with two out-of-options guys, Aaron Altherr and Roman Quinn, facing tougher odds to make the major-league roster, and Dylan Cozens almost certainly headed back to the minors to serve as extra depth. Harper will join Andrew McCutchen and Odubel Herrera as part of Philadelphia’s everyday outfield. He had an atrocious -3.2 defensive WAR and was rated by WAA (a metric similar to WAR, but that measures a player’s value compared to the average player, rather than a random Triple-A player) as -0.8 wins below average. In 695 plate appearances, he got on base at an extremely impressive rate but struggled to make contact and was a liability in the field, hitting. That’ll be important in case Harper is more like the player he was in 2018 - and really has been for the majority of his career. But by giving him more years (paying him through his age-38 season) and a $25.3 million average annual value (lower than the ones Machado and Nolan Arenado received in recent weeks), the Phillies give themselves a bit more wiggle room from an annual budget/luxury tax standpoint. Obviously, the Phillies will hope that he’s able to bounce back to his MVP form of 2015, when he hit. Though he’s only hit more than 30 homers in a season twice over seven years in the big leagues, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him hit 40-plus on an annual basis with the Phillies. Harper, 26, will have the ability to fully showcase his best skill - his power - at hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park. Realmuto, Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen, David Robertson, Juan Nicasio, and James Pazos this offseason. The signing of Harper - which seems likely to conclude their offseason spending - completes a very busy offseason of upgrades for Philadelphia, which also added J.T. The addition of Harper doesn’t make the Phillies clear favorites for the NL East title, but it does give them a very real shot at winning the division for the first time since 2011. Harper didn’t want one.”- Ken Rosenthal February 28, 2019
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