Washington Nationals OF Bryce Harper must improve clutch hitting
The 22-year-old is an exceptional talent, but in order for Bryce Harper to move from having high expectations placed upon him to meeting or surpassing those same expectations, he needs to stay healthy and he must improve his plate approach when runners are on base or in scoring position for the Washington Nationals.
Harper enters his fourth MLB season with a lot to prove. He had a fine freshman campaign in 2012 when he took home NL ROY honors. He hit 22 home runs that season. With a .270/.340/.477 slash line to go along with the powerful stroke, 59 RBI does not seem to do his long balls much justice.
But that’s exactly how many he drove in that season. Of his 22 home runs, 16 were solo shots. Harper’s base runners scored percentage (BRS%) accounts for all RBI excluding driving ones own self home via the home run. If we do that, Harper’s BRS% is only 12 percent and accounts for only 37 runs scored. He had only three sacrifice flies that season as well.
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Now, Harper was probably the Nats most timely hitter in the postseason last year, as he did hit .294 with three home runs, but drove in only four in 17 at-bats. Few players are provided the opportunity to build lasting legacies for themselves in the postseason, though. Harper needs to be a regular season warrior for the Nationals.
Though Mike Trout led the AL in strikeouts least season and hit below .300 for the first time since 2012, he was still more timely with putting the ball in play when runners were on base. Because the two young outfielders from different leagues are both viewed as the the future of baseball in many ways, it only makes sense to contrast their games.
In 2012 when Harper was 19, Trout was 20 and also was beginning his first mostly-full season in MLB. Trout’s year was outstanding and it stands out for many reasons, but as a young hitter in the league, he gave base runners the chance to score. He left 82 percent of them stranded compared to Harper’s 88. He had eight sacrifice flies as well, which immediately gives him five more RBI than Harper for the category year.
Trout also made more productive outs where he was able to advance or score a base runner(s) with one or fewer outs. His line stands at 31 percent for both 2012 and his career. Harper’s percentage of making a productive out at the plate was only 20 percent in 2012 and sits at 22 percent for his career.
Despite having a very respectable career OPS of .817 and having registered two full seasons with 20-plus home runs and 400-plus at-bats, Harper has never outdone the 59 RBI from his rookie campaign in a single season.
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In 2012 there were 34 players with a minimum of 450 plate appearances who hit 20-25 HRs. Only Minnesota’s Trevor Plouffe‘s 55 RBI were lesser than Harper’s total. In 2013 for the same filter, 41 players including Harper qualify. Only five hitters had fewer RBI. Shin-Soo Choo (54) and Will Venable (53) spent a majority of the season hitting leadoff for their respective clubs, while Dan Uggla (55), J.P. Arencibia (55) and Justin Smoak (50) had a collective batting average of .203 and a BAbip of .244 between the three of them. Harper hit .274 in 2013 with a BAbip of .306 and he had a higher BB% than only Arencibia and Venable.
It’s not as though opposing pitchers were making a case to go out of their way to pitch around Harper, either. He had zero IBB on 2012 and only four in 2013. Trout had a combined 14 IBB over those two seasons. It’s almost as though pitchers feel Harper is less effective with men on base. He is a career .230 with RISP and has never hit a home run with the bases loaded. He has only two extra base hits in 25 such career plate appearances. Even worse is his .154 lifetime batting average with two outs and the sacks saturated with runners.
Trout is .313 in his career with RISP, has two grand slams in 34 opportunities and has a strong BA of .278 with two out and the bases fully occupied.
Washington’s prized young outfield commodity still has a lot to learn about hitting at the big league level. Harper is only 22 and his ratio numbers should produce an uptick in his counting stats in future seasons. Even still, his start to 2015 epitomizes this article. He has two home runs — both of them solo shots — and currently is 0-for-17 when it comes to scoring base runners while he is at the plate. Owners of Harper in fantasy baseball leagues almost universally understand this irritating complex.
If he wants to one day become prolific and confirm he is the greatest left-handed hitting prospect of his generation since Ken Griffey Jr. as he has colloquially been called, Bryce Harper has a long way to go. About 573 HRs and 1685 RBI, to be exact. Since we’re on the topic of Griffey, his BRS% in his first three full MLB seasons was 15, 15 and 18 percent. Harper’s first three seasons look like this: 12, 14 and eight percent.