Bryce Harper just wants to hit | Baseball prospectus

Translated by José M. Hernández Lagunes

I admire the idea of ​​shooters shooting. There’s something about the idea of ​​striking out swinging, even if it increases the chance of being knocked out, that is and can always be appealing. Even if it’s reckless, it’s hard not to keep the promise. It’s bad not to enjoy it.

But what I really like to see is that the players are flourishing, and I’m not sure about that Bryce Harper blooms exactly the last two years. His grades were good, but not excellent. If he wasn’t playing first base, where the offense has been quietly declining for years, you wouldn’t think about him as much. His process has been similar, with his DRC+ falling sharply over the past two years: after reaching 142 and 145 in 2022 and 2023, it fell to 133 in 2024 and 120 this year. He’s also just coming off his age-32 season, crippled for the second time in the last three years, and you might think now is just the time for him to leave his elite skills behind and slowly ease into the second half of his career.

That’s how it felt anecdotally this season, as it seemed like he was just swinging and missing a ton of fastballs. However, the data does not confirm this. He basically performed at the same above-average rate against fast fastballs as always. His average swing speed this year was virtually the same (74.2 mph) as last year (74). He even hit that A-swing more often. Average bat speed has its drawbacks, but for now it’s a good indicator of understanding whether a player still has an important skill. Understanding how a player like Harper deliberately hits the ball in the opposite direction to avoid defensive adjustments provides context that makes it more useful. Overall, his swing speed has dropped significantly since 2023, but that means he’s hitting faster than 81% of his teammates instead of 90%. It’s not that drastic of a drop.

What Bryce Harper being an aggressive hitter is not news, let alone interesting. I’m not going to spend the next seven hundred words telling you something that has been true for as long as we’ve known him. However, it is surprising to see how the “aggressiveness” is maintained in this case, for both Harper and the League, and for how long it has remained so.

I’ve mentioned before that I often think of these components as parts of a pulley system. In this case, few players are generally hitting more and chasing as much or less than before. For Harper, being aggressive means hitting more than 80% of qualified hitters in a given year and chasing them at the same rate. But the troubling thing is that no one ever wants to pitch to him. Since 2008, the longest year in which plate discipline data has been recorded, no other qualified hitter has recorded the lowest zone rate in three consecutive seasons. The only ones that came close were the mid-career declines Pablo Sandoval (2013-14) and the decline of Vladimir Guerrero chaplain (2007-08).

Harper also had the lowest pitch percentage in the zone on three other occasions (2020, 2018, 2015) and finished in the top three in two other seasons (2019, 2016). Pitchers have almost never wanted to give him anything to hit. For a player of his temperament – ​​who doesn’t exactly prioritize heroic play over helping, but who definitely wants to make his mark – he essentially had to chase at a high pace to give himself that opportunity. He has just completed his fourteenth year in the major league. In nine of them, the prosecution rate is more than 30%. But with five seasons well shy of that goal, including his two MVP seasons, his ability to control himself has also been evident.

Here’s Harper’s chase trick: He’s not exactly good at it. Some can stretch the zone and get away with it thanks to the way they manipulate the bat’s body. Others can mess up pitches and force pitchers to return to the zone. And a few may tone down their rushing strategy for a season here or there and spread those pitches across the field to take walks. Especially in recent years, Harper has never been above the 31st percentile in making contact on pitches outside the zone. In terms of generating offense, he has been solid, consistently ranking just above the 70th percentile. However, that is not enough to disrupt the opponent’s plan.

So what if Harper simply committed to, say, taking four bad throws and hitting his base 20% of the time instead of the 12% he has achieved in each of the past two seasons? It would have meant 116 walks this year, compared to the 70 he actually had. He also reportedly increased his on-base percentage by almost 50 points. Maybe he’ll score another 10 or 12 runs and steal a few more bases. Maybe even harass some pitchers and make them make mistakes and score on someone who can catch.

He may not suddenly spit on everything outside the zone, but he still spits more than he has and only runs four percent. That would have given him 93 walks instead of 70, which would have increased his OBP by almost 25 points. We still see a handful of runs and maybe a stolen base or two.

There are a lot of hypotheses to throw around, but one thing is clear to me. Even if none of these options materialize, Bryce Harper will still be a very valuable player. But he still has at least one more feat to accomplish as he approaches his thirties. He still has elite core abilities and can deal damage against just about anything. You simply cannot confuse ‘all’ with ‘always’ in the same way. The Phillies will be limited in improving their lineup this winter. It’s unlikely they’ll have a better hitter behind them in 2026. But whoever is available will still be good enough to help pay opposing pitchers and raise Harper’s profile if he decides to get on base more because of the free pass.