CINCINNATI — When Bryce Harper was 16 years old, a Sports Illustrated cover dubbed him “Baseball’s Chosen One.” He spent the next three years becoming, almost inarguably, the sport’s most hyped prospect of all time, then graduated to the Major Leagues in 2012 and became the sport’s most hyped rookie of all time.
Harper far exceeded any reasonable expectations for a 19-year-old (and for a 20-year-old, and for a 21-year-old) in his first three big-league seasons, but the expectations for Bryce Harper were never reasonable. When his merely excellent performance fell something short of otherworldly, talk grew — among fans, media and fellow ballplayers — that young Bryce Harper was overrated.
Not anymore. At 22, Harper leads the Majors in on-base percentage, slugging and wins above replacement (WAR) by wide margins, and sits at second in the National League in all three Triple Crown categories. Every single aspect of his batting appears to have improved: Harper is chasing fewer pitches out of the zone, hitting balls harder, drawing more walks, and distributing far more souvenirs than ever before. He already boasts new career highs in home runs, runs batted in, and bases on balls.
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
Harper insists that the primary difference in 2015 is his health, and that the continuity afforded by a more consistent routine has paid dividends at the plate. Though he notes that “you can always improve,” he suggests that the only thing that prevented him from reaching this level sooner were the knee and hand injuries that sidelined him for stretches of 2013 and 2014.
“This is the player I’ve been my whole life,” Harper said Monday. “I haven’t been any different.
“When you take two months off for being hurt, you’ve got to come back and get another 100 at-bats to really feel good. Being healthy, I haven’t had to do that. I’m staying with my routine every single day.”
Harper has always been great for the standards of his age. But in 2015, he is great by the standards of any age. By OPS+, which adjusts for league and park factors, Harper will become only the seventh player since the turn of the 20th century with a mark as high as his 219 if he can maintain his torrid first-half pace for the rest of the regular season.
The complete list of players finished a season with an OPS+ of 219 or above, in alphabetical order:
Barry Bonds
Rogers Hornsby
Lou Gehrig
Mickey Mantle
Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
Decent company.
(Alex Brandon/AP Photo)
“I grew up with Bryce, and I always knew he would get to this stage,” said Cubs rookie Kris Bryant, Harper’s fellow Las Vegas native. Asked when he began to expect Harper would become this good, Bryant said: “Probably when he was eight years old. He was always a couple of steps above everybody else. He just was a mature ballplayer. He always played hard, and I would think everyone in Vegas knew the type of player he was going to be.”
“Elite talent,” said starter Max Scherzer, who joined the Nationals before the 2015 season. “I knew he played hard. But how much he competes, and the type of ailments he plays through — it’s really impressive that he can do what he does and continue to perform at the level that he is.”
In terms of on-field production, Harper’s early success from 2012-2014 existed in many ways as a footnote to the extraordinary performance of Angels superstar Mike Trout, who became a full-time Major Leaguer around the same time as Harper — and only one year older — and swiftly established himself as the game’s best all-around player and, by many standards, the best young player in baseball history.
But though Trout established outrageously high standards for contemporary players in their early 20s, Harper’s first half of 2015 exceeds even the immense heights reached by the Angels outfielder to whom he will always be compared. Trout is on pace for the best offensive season of his career and ranks second to Harper in OPS+ and WAR. But while Trout may be improving, Harper looks like he’s exploding.
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
The commitment required of following any one baseball team means the sport breeds stars far more effectively on a regional level than a national one. By the time baseball players become mega-famous — think Derek Jeter, or Alex Rodriguez, or Albert Pujols — they are often already in the decline phase of their careers.
Harper represents the exception to the rule, the rare baseball superstar who stood among its most famous players before he was among its very best. And now, at an age still younger than that of the average Class AA player, the sport’s next big thing has become simply its biggest thing. The “Chosen One” is hitting like just that.
But Harper, once frequently reviled for a brash public confidence that seems to have tempered with big-league experience, shied away from any bold, told-you-so pronouncements at his All-Star media session on Monday.
“I don’t care,” Harper said, when asked about anonymous offseason player surveys that deemed him overrated and easy to hate. “I really don’t. I had no idea until I got to spring training, really. I don’t watch TV. I don’t watch you guys. I don’t watch ESPN. I watch college football.
“It’s ‘what have you done for me lately,’” he said. “That’s how the game’s always going to be.”
And all Bryce Harper has done lately is emerge as the best hitter in baseball.
