The definitive case for Bryce Harper

People have lost their minds about the Philadelphia Phillies' star player

Instagram’s algorithm made me see the following post this week and I started dry weaving:

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A post shared by @padreshighlights

The post was inspired by Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski recently making eyebrowski-raising comments about Phillies star Bryce Harper:

I don’t think he’s content with the year that he had. And again, it wasn’t a bad year. But when you think of Bryce Harper, you think of elite, right? You think of one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don’t think it fit into that category. But again, a very good player. I’ve seen guys at his age — again, he’s not old — that level off. Or I’ve seen guys rise again.

It’s the baseball equivalent of a romantic partner saying, “I don’t even know who you are anymore,” and Dombrowski’s criticism formalized the sentiments of a grouchy faction of the Phillies’ fandom.

Referring to Harper’s legendary home run in Game 5 of the 2022 National League Championship Series, D. Julius Goodman wrote this week, “It was the first of what everyone thought would be many, many highlight worthy postseason hits from Harper over the next decade. The problem is that unfortunately ‘Bedlam at the Bank’ may be as good as it gets.”

It's Time for Bryce Harper to Put Up or Shut Up

Counterpoint: Bryce Harper is awesome, he’s going to enter baseball’s Hall of Fame as a Phillie, and everyone who wants him to “put up or shut” is not only deluded, but also doing the bidding of billionaires.

Below are five reasons why.

Bryce Harper is a consistently great hitter.

(Steven M. Falk / Philadelphia Inquirer)

The anti-Harper hysteria forced me to mine the depths of Harper’s Baseball Reference page, as well FanGraphs, StatMuse, and Spotrac. It’s a disgrace that I had to do it to defend him against his own boss and fans. These statistical tidbits are dedicated to everyone who nods along to WIP:

• Harper’s only season with an OPS¹ below .800 was over a decade ago, in 2014, when he was 21-years-old.

• Using OPS+,² Harper has never had a below-average season. His “worst” season came in 2016, when he hit 24 home runs, posted an 116 OPS+, and was selected as an all-star.

• His OPS for the Phillies has never dipped below .844, and Harper has a higher career OPS+ with the Phillies—during his senior citizen years, according to Dombrowski—than he did with the Washington Nationals.

• His bWAR³ in seven seasons with the Nats: 27.6. His bWAR in seven seasons with the Phillies: 26.4. The 1.2 difference can probably be attributed to injury (but more on that later). Harper has more or less been the same, consistently great player with the Phillies as he was with the Nats.

It is true that, this year, Harper had his worst hitting performance since 2016, but the guy was playing with one functioning wrist for half the season and was still productive. Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber just had a career year with 56 home runs, and it capped off a wildly successful four-year contract. Many fans want the Phillies to re-sign Schwarber. I want Schwarber back. But using bWAR, who has been more valuable the last four years: Harper or Schwarber? I will give you a hint. It is not Schwarber.

Harper is going to end his career with at least two MVPs and around 500 home runs and he’s going to wear Phillie Phanatic cleats to his Hall of Fame induction speech. What more could any fan want from a single player?

Harper is a playoff performer

The answer to the rhetorical question above is to win a championship. It is not because of Bryce Harper that the Phillies have not done that recently.

• 2019 - In Harper’s first season, when he hit 35 home runs and posted a 4.5 bWAR, the Phillies finished 81-81 and missed the playoffs. That is because they hated playing for manager Gabe Kapler and because two-thirds of their lineup and pitching staff belonged in Double-A.

• 2020 - Harper was incredible in the Covid-shortened season, and the Phillies missed the expanded playoffs because they somehow featured eight position players with zero or negative value.

• 2021 - Harper’s second-greatest season earned him his second MVP, and the 82-80 Phillies missed the playoffs because they hated playing for manager Joe Girardi.

• 2022 - I mean, like:

• 2023 - The three worst days of my life were the three days I spent in Phoenix, Arizona, watching the Phillies’ best hope for a World Series championship collapse at the hands of the Diamondbacks. But in a Game 5 victory, Harper went 2-3 with a home run. Overall, he hit .286 that postseason, with five home runs, eight RBI and 14 runs.

• 2024 - The Phillies were sputtering by the end of the regular season, and they washed out quickly against the New York Mets in the National League Division Series. Harper had his second-best season with the Phillies, and in the NLDS he hit .333 with a homer and three runs scored. But yeah, it’s Harper’s fault they didn’t make a deeper run.

• 2025 - Okay, fine, Harper stunk this postseason, but did you see what the Los Angeles Dodgers’ starter pitchers did to the rest of the Phillies? And, in the next series, to the Milwaukee Brewers? And, in the World Series, to the Blue Jays? (Shoutout Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who’s World Series statline defies comprehension: three wins, 1.02 ERA, 15 strikeouts, and 17.2 innings pitch, with 2.2 of them coming on zero days rest in Game 7.)

It’s incorrect to assert Harper is falling off in the regular season, and it’s lazy to blame him for the Phillies’ recent playoff struggles. Over his entire career in the playoffs, which includes a few series in Washington, Harper is batting .274, with 57 hits, 17 home runs, 34 RBIs and 42 runs. That makes for an elite .986 OPS.

Harper is a great first baseman

In 2023, the Phillies moved Harper from right field to first base by necessity. He had torn a ligament in his elbow, making throws from the outfield impossible, and the departure of Rhys Hoskins opened up a need at the position. He has since been one of the best at the position.

In 2024, Harper ranked third in Outs Above Average and fifth in Defensive Runs Saved, two advanced statistics that shouldn’t mean anything to a normal person except to indicate he’s really, really good in the field. This past year, he committed just two errors. Dombrowski sparked trade rumors around one of the best first baseman in baseball. It is asinine.

Harper is tough as hell

From 2018 to 2020, Harper played more or less everyday. That ended in 2021, when he got hit square in the face with a 97 m.p.h. fastball and missed several games. Harper somehow walked off the field and maintained a willingness to stand in the batter’s box again.

In April 2022, Harper tore his elbow ligament, which did not stop him from converting to designated hitter and continuing to play. In June, then-San Diego Padres pitcher Blake Snell shattered Harper’s wrist. I was sitting behind home plate at that game, and the sound of ball-on-bone made me want to vomit. (What’s with the Padres always making me sick?) Harper came back and powered the Phillies to the World Series.

Harper then had what is believed to be the fastest recovery from Tommy John surgery ever documented in Major League Baseball, playing in 2023 just 160 days after the procedure. Not long after, he dove over the railing to catch a ball in foul territory. He is a lunatic.

In the last two seasons, Harper has battled wrist and arm issues probably stemming from his 2022 elbow injury. And yet—I say again—he has been consistently one of the best all-around players in baseball.

People ignore this because they’re exasperated with the team’s playoff failures, which make them exasperated with Harper’s pandering. “Bryce Harper got a Phillie Phanatic tattoo, because of course,” read one headline this year (and the article only gets dumber from there). There are many other examples, from his aforementioned Phanatic cleats to his gushing about Philadelphia to his helping out a neighbor with a prom proposal. God forbid a male athlete earnestly expresses himself.

Harper is underpaid

Dave Dombrowski (AP/Matt Rourke)

Harper’s 13-year, $330 million deal with the Phillies broke records in 2019, but it was quickly usurped by others in the game. By average annual value, Harper is no longer one of the thirty highest paid players in the league. He’s just the third-highest paid player on his own team. It’s certain that he has outproduced his contract, and due to inflation and rising league revenues the $25 million a year he’s owed the rest of the way is a bargain.

It makes sense why there were rumors last offseason that Harper wanting to renegotiate his contract. He’s worth more to the team that what they’re paying him, and it’s probably his last opportunity to mine his career for more money. I suspect, then, that Dombrowski tried to get ahead of the narrative this offseason by publicly diminishing Harper. It was about leverage, which is to say it was about power, which is to say it was about politics.

Dombrowski is not an idiot. He has won everywhere he has worked. He was not trying on punditry for size. It was, at best, a sloppy attempt at motivating Harper. At worst, it was a conniving attempt to gain leverage. It was probably a mixture of both, but in either case it’s about money. How can we get Harper to continue to produce for a deflated salary? Bashing Harper protects the wealth of Phillies owner John Middleton, and it also highlights and perpetuates the power imbalance between management and labor.

To be fair to Dombrowski, his job is to assemble the best roster possible with the budget he is given, and dispassionately assessing his players must be a part of that. But he is provided that budget by a multibillionaire in a sport with no salary cap. For years, Dombrowski has signed useless pitchers and bad outfielders to expensive one-year deals. It is not Harper’s responsibility to atone for management’s sins. Where is the press conference questioning Dombrowski’s ineffective signings and perceived deficiencies?

There is no statistical reason to trade Bryce Harper or minimize his role in the lineup. His salary is hardly a problem. So the anti-Harper argument is essentially: He’s annoying, and he can’t pitch. I understand why Harper was so miffed. “I have given my all to Philly from the start,” Harper told The Athletic, in response to Dombrowski’s comments. “Now there is trade talk? I made every effort to avoid this. It’s all I heard in D.C. [with the Nationals]. I hated it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

He has been a marketable star. He has outperformed his contract. He plays hurt. He switched positions. He’s been consistently great. He gave Philadelphia legendary moments. He loves Philadelphia. And yet many fans and pundits are siding with his boss, the man who loves acquiring washed relievers that ruin my life.

Fans don’t have to like Harper. They don’t have to tolerate losing. I just wish we were more discerning in choosing allegiances. Bedlam at the Bank was not created by the poindexters in the suite level who deify spreadsheets and wear polo shirts under blazers. It was created by Bryce Harper, one of the best Philly athletes of all time.

1. OPS = On-base percentage plus slugging percentage. It’s a good measurement for overall hitting production.

2. OPS+ adjusts OPS for ballpark conditions and normalizes it against an average of 100. For example, an OPS+ of 130 would mean a hitter is 30% better than league average.

3. A measurement of a player’s contribution to winning.