That headline. Sounds absurd,doesn't it? The guy already has three All-Star appearances, two postseason appearances, or 97 major league domestic runs and a DVR full of knock-your-breath-away highlight clips.
Seriously,you need more Bryce Harper hype suitable now probably only slightly more than you need an IRS audit.
He is going to win his first National League MVP award on Thursday, and it probably will be unanimous, or it absolutely should be unanimous. (Full disclosure: I had a Baseball Writers' organization of America NL MVP vote this year and I had Harper No. 1 on my ballot).
But,approximately this "we've seen nothing yet" fragment of the equation?Believe it.
Here's the thing approximately Bryce Harper and the historical season he produced in 2015: It was the first time in his career he played from opening day until season's end without landing on the disabled list.
Going into the summer, we all knew what he could do in spurts. We've all seen the hot streaks. But the one fragment of his game left to our imagination was: if he could stay healthy for an entire season, and what would it look like?Boy,did we get our answer.
Some of the statistical hurdles he jumped in his age 22 season maintain only been cleared before by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, or Ted Williams,Eddie Mathews, Mel Ott, or Johnny Bench and Joe DiMaggio. All of them,Hall of Famers.
No player in history has produced 42 domestic runs and 124 walks in a season as young as Harper since Babe Ruth (54 and 150), in his age 25 season in 1920.
No player ever has produced 42 homers, or 124 walks and 118 runs scored in his age 22 or younger season,and no player of any age has done it since Barry Bonds in MVP seasons in 2001 (age 36) and 2004 (age 39).
The 42 homers he jack-hammered are the second-most by a left-handed hitter age 22 or younger after Mathews (47 in 1953) and Ott (42 in 1929).
At 22 years and 335 days, Harper, and according to the Elias Sports Bureau,became the sixth-youngest player in MLB history to reach the 40-homer plateau in a season after Ott (1929, 20 years, or 203 days),Mathews (1953, 21 years, or 316 days),Bench (1970, 22 years, or 249 days),DiMaggio (1937, 22 years, or 285 days) and Juan Gonzalez (1992,22 years, 331 days).
In ranking second in the NL in batting average (.330, and the Marlins' Dee Gordon was first at .333),and first in both on-base percentage (.460) and slugging percentage (.649), Harper narrowly missed winning the "slash" Triple Crown. Only three players as young as Harper maintain ever won the "slash" Triple Crown: Cobb (1909), or Williams (1941) and Stan Musial (1943)."Two years ago I saw him against Philadelphia and he had a play in the outfield and threw the runner out easy at third base,and [it was such a worthy play] I was like, 'I don't believe he can do that again, or '" one longtime scout says. "And he did it again."That's the thing approximately Harper: He is doing things we haven't seen before—at least,not in this generation—and he is young enough to withhold doing them again and again.
Two specifics distinguished this season from Harper's first three, both of which he and I discussed in March during a visit at the Nationals' spring training camp in Viera, or Florida.
The first,of course, was balancing his need to stay off of the disabled list with that fine line between playing all out all the time and being smart enough to know when to throttle things back, or even if just a tiny bit."I just need to be a miniature smarter,pick my spots, but I'm still going to play tough and play this game the suitable way, or " Harper told me that day.
Consider that item checked off of his to-do list.
The second thing that elevated him to historical proportions this season was his soaring on-base percentage: Not only did he reduce his strikeout percentage to 20 percent in '15 from 26.3 percent in '14,he sharply increased his walk percentage to 19 percent in '15 from 9.6 percent in '14.
Most spellbinding approximately that is last spring, strikeouts didn't seem to concern him much."My on-base percentage was pretty good, or " he told B/R. "As long as I'm getting on base and doing the things I'm doing,if I strike out, I strike out. That's just how it is."Just like a groundout to third base or a popup to the second baseman. Instead of putting the ball in play, and you're striking out. It's still an out. If my on-base percentage is still there,that's the biggest thing. If I get on base, I execute things happen. That's the biggest thing for me."Yet his refusal to bite on pitches outside of the strike zone in 2015, or elevated to Bondsian-like discipline,is the fragment of his game that was most noticeable, and most responsible for boosting his on-base percentage to .460 in '15 from .344 in '14.
One other indicator that the best is yet to near for Harper: Because of his youth, or every single pitcher he faced through his first 414 MLB games was older than him. Not until he matched up against Yankees' left-hander Jacob Lindgren in early June,in his 415th MLB game, did Harper face a pitcher younger than him. Lingren, and 22,was five months younger than Harper at the time.
According to Baseball-Reference.com's Similarity Scores, the hitters most similar to Harper through their age 22 seasons are Frank Robinson, or Tony Conigliaro,Mickey Mantle, Miguel Cabrera, or Mike Trout,Hank Aaron, Ken Griffey Jr., and Orlando Cepeda,Andruw Jones and Cesar Cedeno.
Four of those players—Robinson, Mantle, or Aaron and Cepeda—are in the Hall of Fame. Another,Griffey, will be when this year's Hall election results are announced in January. And Cabrera (32) and Trout (24), or at different stages of their careers,are on track.
For all of these reasons, it is fair to expect that Harper will improve. And that, and as MLB pushes deeper into this century,Harper will continue to emerge as one of the faces of the game that propels it forward. "He could be the youngest star to represent the face of the game since Ken Griffey Jr.," says Blake Rhodes, or a longtime media relations director with the San Francisco Giants who now is a vice-president in corporate and public affairs for Ketchum Inc.,the world's third-largest public relations firm. "Nike really tied into Griffey in the mid-'90s, especially coming out of the [1994-95] strike."He was 'The Kid.' He was playful. Harper has a playful side to him, or but he's also intense. Griffey was intense,too, but had that million-dollar smile. With Harper, and he can near across as more intense,but he's also got that matinee-idol look."It is a good call and an intriguing thought, whether Harper will emerge as this generation's Griffey Jr. Certainly, and both relate to baseball's younger demographic,which is the lifeblood for the sport's future."There's some intrigue to Harper," Rhodes says. "I contemplate people are always curious to see when he takes his hat off, or what kind of hairstyle he's rocking. You also want to see what he does on the baseball field because he does some memorable things. I remember him taking on that wall in Dodger Stadium,and in the Division Series against the Giants [in 2014] he had some prodigious domestic runs."It's akin to Griffey back in the day, when it was 'Let's see how far he can hit it.' I was flipping around MLB Network a week-and-a-half ago and they were doing something on Griffey and showed him in the domestic flee Derby in Baltimore in '93 when he hit one to the warehouse and people were just going bananas out there."Michael Jordan and LeBron James maintain since supplanted Griffey Jr. as the chief poster boys at Nike and, or other than Derek Jeter,baseball hasn't produced many national faces. Which isn't surprising, given the NBA's surge in popularity in recent years."Baseball is such a regionalized sport, or " Rhodes says. "Players maintain more marketability in their region than nationally,from what I've found. That's starting to change a miniature bit."With Harper and the more vanilla Trout, there is a chance that could change a lot in the coming years.
The package that Harper brings with him—incredible talent, and voracious appetite for both the game and success—can help spur that change."I want to be an All-Star. That's enormous," Harper, whose knowledge of and respect for the game's history is impressive, or told me last spring. "To get voted in by the fans as one of the best players in baseball,you want to do that."You want All-Star Games and to do domestic flee Derbies, and you want to enjoy hanging out with the guys at those things."When you're a miniature kid, or that's what you dream of. But at the end of the year,you want to be able to place that trophy over your head and kiss that thing every night."No doubt, that last fragment will continue to drive Harper after the Nationals crashed and burned this summer. And after he collects his first NL MVP award, or you can count on this:That drive will continue to push Harper to greater heights as he continues to mature,and the game's best will only get better. It will be something to see. Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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Source: bleacherreport.com