Phillies: Is Bryce Harper on a Hall of Fame track at this point?

Harper versus Murray

Eddie Murray hit 504 home runs in his 21-year career. Bryce Harper has hit 223 thus far in his 9-year career in an era of “enhanced home-run hitting” driven not by PEDs, but by computers. In other words, Murray averaged 24 home runs a year, while Harper is working to improve on his 25.7 a year, whether a full season or not.

Never mind that home runs are, while not exactly meaningless as a measure of greatness, far less important than they have been considered since Babe Ruth first belted far too many in one season oh-so-long-ago – that means 54, exactly 100 years ago. The ball was allegedly more tightly wound in 1920.

Home runs do sell tickets, and Bryce Harper’s aggressive swing on nearly every pitch he challenges recognizes that fact. However, Murray’s play exhibited a better contribution to the offensive game, arguably.

In his first nine years in MLB, Murray drove in 931 runs to Harper’s 668, a difference of 16 RBI per 162-game stretch. Five times in his first nine seasons Murray drove in 110 runs or more, including a massive 124 in 1985. Harper drove in 100 runs or more twice in his first nine seasons.

In terms of home runs, Harper has the top figure of the 18 for these two players’ first nine campaigns – 42 in 2015, when he won the MVP. He also had two other seasons of more than 30 HRs. Murray had more than 30 HRs in four of his first nine seasons.

Say what you will about home runs and RBI as imperfect measures of a player’s worth, but there is no denying they add runs to a team’s line score. They are the most tangible baseball statistics.

One of Murray’s career records points to his worth to his teams in scoring – sacrifice flies. In 21 years, he accumulated 128, the all-time record. Bryce Harper’s mid-career years will sit smack in the middle of the launch-angle era, and yet the best player ever at hitting the ball in the air when it counted, Eddie Murray, stopped playing in 1997.

Still, Harper has the more impressive OBP and OPS figures for his opening nine years.

As fielders, Harper and Murray are somewhat similar. Both have lifetime fielding averages near the league averages for their times – Harper’s is three points above the average, Murray’s finished his career one point below the average. However, Murray won three Gold Gloves. Harper has none thus far although as he hits his mid-career stride, the consensus is that he is an always-hustling outfielder with a very strong arm.

Moving into a largely intangible area, one might consider that against Harper’s singular MVP award and some votes in two other years, Murray can point to receiving MVP votes in every year of his first nine except his rookie campaign, and that, in a remarkable five of those years, he was in the top five.

Bryce Harper has a way to go to catch Eddie Murray – 12 years, perhaps – and even if he passes him in, say, home runs or RBI, he will not be able to erase Murray’s more impressive opening decade.