Bryce Harper has been a lightning rod over his career, but there is no questioning his talent. However, is the Phillies outfielder on a Hall of Fame path?
Since so few of the MLB free agents this winter have been signed thus far, and even fewer of the highly ranked ones, it is time for all good baseball fans to distract themselves with one of their favorite pastimes – an entirely speculative argument about a current player’s chances of making the Hall of Fame. Today’s nominee is the Philadelphia Phillies outfielder, Bryce Harper.
Harper, of course, is one of the game’s highest profile players ever, a player one could find videos of when he was still an amateur teen. (The one I saw had him belting balls 500 feet in batting practice. I’d imagine it can still be found.)
And as all good fans know, Harper is currently holding the third most lucrative contract in baseball, one of six worth more than $300 million. Thus, it would seem he should be a lock for baseball’s Hall of Fame although some day, no doubt, a contract will be written for that sum or more for a player who doesn’t ultimately make it to Cooperstown.
How do we evaluate Harper’s chances? Why not compare him to two relatively recent HOF players who were, like him, Rookie of the Year awardees, power hitters, and opposed by modern pitchers.
Modern pitchers should be defined as starting pitchers who trained in arguably modern ways and who very often had to surrender the mound to multiple hard-throwing or tricky relievers in a given game.
Two players who fit our comparison needs are Eddie Murray and Mike Piazza.
But before we get to the matter of comparisons, we need to clear the deck about a still simmering debate regarding HOF-eligible players…
The Use of Performance-enhancing Drugs
Enormously talented ballplayers are not in the Hall because voters for that enshrinement (writers) won’t vote for them. You all know for these players’ names, and you all know those most shunned are reasonably thought to have really, really overdone PEDs.
However, the point is becoming moot because the writers most offended by such actions are dying off, and everybody knows that somebody who used PEDs has to be in the Hall already. It’s not just the guys who sneaked amphetamine use by the voters, but also those who used the more modern PEDs. This is not to say that Bryce Harper has been accused of PEDs use. He hasn’t been, by anybody credible.
It’s also true that one of the players under discussion here was credibly – um – observed to have admitted multiple times to taking a more than arguable PED – androstenedione: Mike Piazza. He just happened to do it before MLB banned it, and he’s now in the Hall of Fame. And once and for all, andro is what WebMD calls a “steroidhormone” (one word).
Bryce Harper is on the record as condemning PEDs use as “not good for baseball,” but again – this point is becoming moot.