Phillies: Lifting Bryce Harper after HBP the prudent move

The Emergence of a… T-R-A-T-I-O-R?

This year’s model isn’t exactly without questions, either. The Phillies made some off-season acquisitions that looked impressive enough going in . . . until they didn’t, necessarily.

As my colleague Rick Soisson notices only too vividly, the deeper spring gets the more Phillies fans fear the team made an off-season mistake ignoring starting pitching not named Zack Wheeler. Nobody among Zach Eflin, Vince Velasquez, Nick Pivetta, and Ranger Suarez has shown lower than a 1.57 walks/hits per inning pitched (WHIP) rate through the end of Tuesday’s play. Jake Arrieta may be healthy again but it’s not unreasonable to ask just how much he has left in the proverbial tank, too.

Behind Wheeler and Aaron Nola, the Phillies rotation simply doesn’t look like enough to strike fear into the hearts of National League East hitters. Not even with J.T. Realmuto the main man behind the plate to guide them. Last year’s Phillies pitchers showed a 4.62 earned run average when throwing to Realmuto, which was fifteen points above the lifetime ERA throwing to the six-year veteran.

There’s no question that the Phillies need Harper in one piece. Yes, his first Philadelphia season gave Washington Nationals fans their fodder for crowing that the Nats finally won the pennant and the World Series without him—except for one tiny detail: It actually would have been easier to do it with him.

Put aside all the dollar debates and consider the final performance papers. Who replaced Harper in right field for the Nats? A fellow named Adam Eaton. You have to like the guy, he wouldn’t harm the proverbial fly, and boy did he come up big during that insane-in-the-brain seven-run first inning in Game Four of the Nats’ National League Championship Series sweep.

Then you realize Harper, who focused himself a lot more defensively in right field last year, cutting down his periodic route and read problems, was worth nine defensive runs saved above the league average in 2019 while Eaton was worth . . . one. I’d like to know what those Nats fans who stood up in Nationals Park for Harper’s “homecoming” last April and misspelled a certain word for which they wore individually-lettered T-shirts—they spelled it T-R-A-T-I-O-R-!—think about that now.

That was quite a “homecoming” for Harper, anyway. Facing Max Scherzer for the third time in the game, after a pair of strikeouts earlier, Harper tore a one-out double to right. Facing reliever Matt Grace in the sixth, Harper shot a single up the pipe to send home a sixth Phillies run. Then, facing Jeremy Hellickson with one on and one out in the eighth, Harper caught hold of a down-and-in four-seam fastball and drove it into the second deck, performing a flip out of the box that made his bat resemble an old-time airplane propeller.

“You hit the ball that far,” said Mike Rizzo, the Nats’ general manager who’d seen more than his fair share of Harper bombs, “do whatever the hell you want.”

Bryce Harper vs Adam Eaton

Harper struggled with the strikeout most of the year but he came up roses where it really mattered. His 219 runs produced out-did Eaton’s 152. The Philadelphia Phillies finished 2019 with a team .327 OBP to the Nats’ .352. I’d submit that Harper’s 219 looks even more impressive for seeing and cashing in a lot less opportunity.

For run creation, Harper comes out above the guy who replaced him in the Nats’ right field, too. His 115 total wasn’t close to his best but it was still twenty higher than Eaton. Harper created 7.0 runs per game to Eaton’s 5.9, and he used fewer outs to do it, too: 3.8 to Eaton’s 4.5. Harper also delivered 72 of his 149 hits for extra bases overall for a .483 extra-base hit percentage, while Eaton delivered 47 ou158 for a .297 extra-base hit percentage.

That’s without accounting for Harper’s 35 home runs to Eaton’s fifteen. Want to know how each man did in the highest leverage moments, the ones that most mean runs on the scoreboard, chances to take leads, and even win with these guys at the plate?

Bryce Harper had 127 high-leverage plate appearances in 2019, delivered a 1.037 OPS, and had 35 hits—21 of which went for extra bases. Adam Eaton had 87 high-leverage plate appearances last year, delivered a .638 OPS, and had 17 hits only five of which went for extra bases. And if you were looking for the guy who’d deliver with runners on second or better, you really did want Harper far more than Eaton: Harper’s OPS hitting in that situation last year was 1.214 to Eaton’s .559.

Without once denigrating the Nats’ stupefying October run from the wild card game to the World Series trophy, and without ignoring that Eaton got better as the postseason got deeper (which is exactly what he did from series to Series), I think it’s very fair to say that Harper would have made the Nats’ pitching on the season and in the postseason breathe that much easier whether in right field or at the plate.

Why The Phils Can’t Afford to Lose Harper

Harper certainly didn’t lack for big thrills once he got himself reasonably self-repaired in Philadelphia last year. Maybe the biggest of the bunch was that August night he ruined one of Chicago Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish‘s best outings of the season, a ten-punchout performance working a 5-0 shutout after the Phillies closed the deficit to a pair in the bottom of the ninth and loaded the pads for Harper with one out against reliever Derek Holland.

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The T-R-A-T-I-O-R hit one so high over the foul line that Harper had to linger not for show but to be sure the ball would stay fair before landing in the upper deck.

It stayed fair. And as the three Phillies already on board put enough distance behind them heading home, Harper shot up the line like the Road Runner giving Wile E. Coyote his famous cork-popping razz before going beep-beep! and ripping up the ground in his backwash.

It was the 29th ultimate grand slam (hit to win the game in the final inning with the team behind when the hitter connects) in baseball history.

“I don’t think about bases loaded. I try to get a pitch I can drive and hopefully good things happen,” Harper said in a postgame interview. “I love those moments. I love those opportunities . . . These fans do expect that, and I expect to do that for them on a nightly basis. And if I don’t, they’ll let me know, and I like that too.”

Phillies fans will continue expecting such things, even if not every home run Harper hits makes you think it shouldn’t have the proverbial meal and stewardess but rather astronauts aboard. So will Girardi and his teammates. These Phillies look so far like a team that’s going to need every break it can get to survive. That shaggy fellow wearing number 3 won’t exactly shy from it.

Which is probably why Girardi lifted Harper after that first-inning foot plunk. He can’t afford to have his number one game breaker broken.