“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
So goes a quote from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, a story about a young man who suddenly comes into a large fortune and despite initial success in acclimating to high society struggles for years to attain what he truly desires, a love from when he was young. Great Expectations in merely name alone begins to tell the story of Bryce Harper; once called “Baseball’s LeBron” in a Sports Illustrated cover story when he was just 16, Harper’s true five-tool potential made him one of the hottest prospects in the history of the sport.
The actual story of that Dickens novel, however, could very well serve as an allegory to Harper’s entire career thus far. Harper was blessed with raw baseball talent the likes of which only a handful of humans ever have had, and with that found himself in the top level of American professional baseball at just 19. While he blossomed early, his one true goal has continued to elude him all these years-- a championship.
But after a decade in the Major Leagues, Bryce Harper has finally found himself playing for a World Series title. And he’s not just been playing well this postseason to propel a plucky Philadelphia team into the Fall Classic-- he’s been playing some of the best playoff baseball the game has ever seen. At long last, he has the chance to realize his own dream and live up to the impossible expectations set upon him all those years ago in one fell swoop; all that’s standing in his way is a best-of-seven series against the Houston Astros.
Bryce Harper’s two-run home run propelled Philadelphia into their first World Series since 2009. Photo from: Matt Slocum/AP.
Like most other players selected in the MLB Draft, Harper spent a couple years in the minor leagues under his organization, the Washington Nationals, before making his MLB debut proper. When he did get the call-up to the majors, however, he hit the ground running. All he accomplished in his rookie year was becoming the youngest player to hit a home run since 1998, the youngest position player to ever make an All-Star Game roster, and the second-youngest Rookie of the Year winner in MLB history. He finished his freshman season in the big leagues slashing .270/.340/.477, good for a .817 OPS-- far better than the league average of .724 that year.
Harper put together solid seasons in the two seasons following, including another All-Star Game appearance in 2013, but he really put the baseball world on notice in 2015 when he slashed a positively ludicrous .330/.460/.649 en route to his first MVP trophy. He led the NL in home runs and runs scored, led the entire MLB in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+, and became the third-youngest MVP winner in the history of the MLB behind the likes of Johnny Bench and Stan Musial (rather good company to be in).
Among the five youngest MVP winners ever, a list which also includes Cal Ripken Jr. and Mike Trout, Harper’s season blew all of theirs out of the water as he sported better OPS+, wRC+, and WAR figures, and by sizable amounts, too.
Everything was coming up aces for Harper. He seemed like he’d easily reach his potential as one of the best to ever play the game, and would probably snag a few championships along the way just for kicks. The best-laid plans however, often go at least a little awry.
Bryce Harper was unable to win a World Series in seven years with Washington. Photo from: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo.
In truth, Bryce Harper never really “fell off” at any point in his career. He’s either been an All-Star or won the MVP award in eight of his eleven seasons in the majors, has only twice ever had a season batting below .250 (and was still an All-Star both years), and has only posted an OPS below .814 once, in an injury-plagued 2014 season. But for a period of time after his historic 2015 MVP campaign, people began to wonder just how high Harper’s ceiling was. Would he continue to be just another really good player in this league for a while, or could he ascend to be the multi-MVP, game-wrecking, championship-earning baseball behemoth he was always meant to be?
Looking back on his numbers from the five years following his first MVP season, a period which included three All-Star nods, only one appearance on the MVP voting ballot (a twelfth-place finish in 2017), and no other hardware to his name, one can see how the narratives began to build against Harper. He was still playing stellar baseball, no doubt, but was unable to either recapture his magic from 2015 or win a championship with the Nationals.
Harper finally departed from a Washington ballclub that seemed to be stuck in neutral in 2019, ditching the team that drafted him for a division rival in the Philadelphia Phillies. He then became a meme by professing his desire to bring a title back to D.C. -- whoops, he means Philadelphia! -- and finally the sparks of the simmering anti-Harper narratives were well and truly set ablaze when the Nationals went on a shock run to win the World Series in their first season without Harper, while Harper posted the third-worst batting average of his career, wasn’t an All-Star, and failed to make the playoffs with a .500 Phillies team.
Harper was voted MLB’s “most overrated” player in both 2018 and 2019. Photo from: New York Post.
From a poll conducted by The Athletic, Bryce Harper was reportedly voted the “most overrated” player in baseball in back-to-back years in 2018 and 2019 by his peers. In that 2019 poll, Harper allegedly received 48.6% of all votes, with the second-place Chris Davis getting just 10.8%. Although Harper continued to play quality baseball, he just couldn’t seem to shake that dreaded “overrated” tag-- that is, until he bounced back with his second MVP season.
Admittedly, I was among the loudmouthed crowd decrying the overratedness of Bryce Harper for a few years, but as a great quote attributed to Confucius reads, “the expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools''. Harper took his licks and quietly set out to improve back to his 2015 level, and eventually did just that. In 2021, he posted the second-best OPS of his career with an again-staggering 1.044 figure, and for the second time in his career led the entire MLB in SLG%, OPS, and OPS+. Those numbers won him the NL MVP award once again, and although the Phillies again failed to reach the playoffs, Harper finally began to ever so slowly turn his narratives around.
Harper has followed up that MVP campaign this year with a good season that could have been better if not for injuries -- he played just 99 of 162 regular season games -- but most importantly he helped Philadelphia sneak into the playoffs as the final Wild Card team in the newly-expanded MLB playoffs, the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 2011. And Harper has saved the best baseball of his career for this very moment.
To call Harper and the Phillies’ run to the World Series this October ‘incredible’ would be an incredible understatement. Philadelphia has been expected to lose each playoff series they’ve been a part of, but instead have lost just two games in total, sweeping the Cardinals in the new Wild Card series format, and dispatching the 101-win Braves and the Dodger-slaying Padres in five games each. Of course, no one player can ever win or lose entire series for their teams -- the sport is just too big and random for that to be possible -- and as such the Phillies have enjoyed stellar playoff campaigns from many of their other stars, including Zach Wheeler, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Jean Segura, Nick Castellanos, and Kyle Schwarber. But the real hero of the Fightins’ mad playoff dash has undoubtedly been Harper, who is putting up postseason numbers the likes of which we have never seen before.
Due to the MLB’s addition of a universal designated hitter, and to a thumb injury from earlier this year, Harper moved from his traditional position as an outfielder to becoming a full-time DH. Man, how that has paid off: slotting Harper at DH has allowed Philadelphia to start an outfield of Schwarber, Castellanos, and Brandon Marsh, who while not striking a ton of fear into opposing pitchers at the plate, is a stellar defensive center fielder. Most importantly, Harper himself has been a revelation this postseason as a pure DH. He’s slashing .419/.444/.907(!!) in 11 playoff games, good for an otherworldly 1.351 OPS. He leads the playoff field with 18 total hits (Manny Machado is in second with 13), has driven in 11 runs and has tallied 39 total bases including a league-leading six playoff doubles. If these metrics don’t mean much to you, here’s something to provide a little context:
Harper has mashed five home runs in these playoffs and almost all of them have seemed to come in clutch spots. He’s now hit a home run in three different series-clinching wins, becoming the first player to ever do that, and none was bigger than his most recent one-- a two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth inning while down 3-2 to deliver the pennant-clinching runs:
This is the peak of Bryce Harper’s talent, and this October version of Harper is perhaps even better than anyone ever thought he could be. And it’s coming at the most important time. Should Philadelphia go on to beat Houston in this final series, Harper’s run will likely be remembered as the greatest playoff run by a single player ever.
Some naysayers would still argue that a title this year wouldn’t yet be enough to make good on all the praise heaped upon him as a young prospect -- perhaps the “greatest talent ever” should have more than just 2 MVPs and 1 World Series on their résumé -- but it would come pretty darn close. And having only just turned 30, Harper will have plenty more chances to bolster his legacy further, especially given the way he’s played the past two years.
Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations actually has two different endings; one where the main character, Pip, remains single and the girl he agonized over remarries with someone else, and a later-rewritten one where Pip finds the love he’s yearned for all his life. It is to be determined which ending Bryce Harper will see, with regards to if we will ever attain his beloved World Series title, but one thing is for certain: he is rewriting his own legacy in real time, one glorious playoff swing of the bat after another. And in my mind, I’d say he’s finally reached his own great expectations, championship or not. ■
So goes a quote from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, a story about a young man who suddenly comes into a large fortune and despite initial success in acclimating to high society struggles for years to attain what he truly desires, a love from when he was young. Great Expectations in merely name alone begins to tell the story of Bryce Harper; once called “Baseball’s LeBron” in a Sports Illustrated cover story when he was just 16, Harper’s true five-tool potential made him one of the hottest prospects in the history of the sport.
The actual story of that Dickens novel, however, could very well serve as an allegory to Harper’s entire career thus far. Harper was blessed with raw baseball talent the likes of which only a handful of humans ever have had, and with that found himself in the top level of American professional baseball at just 19. While he blossomed early, his one true goal has continued to elude him all these years-- a championship.
But after a decade in the Major Leagues, Bryce Harper has finally found himself playing for a World Series title. And he’s not just been playing well this postseason to propel a plucky Philadelphia team into the Fall Classic-- he’s been playing some of the best playoff baseball the game has ever seen. At long last, he has the chance to realize his own dream and live up to the impossible expectations set upon him all those years ago in one fell swoop; all that’s standing in his way is a best-of-seven series against the Houston Astros.
Bryce Harper’s two-run home run propelled Philadelphia into their first World Series since 2009. Photo from: Matt Slocum/AP.
Like most other players selected in the MLB Draft, Harper spent a couple years in the minor leagues under his organization, the Washington Nationals, before making his MLB debut proper. When he did get the call-up to the majors, however, he hit the ground running. All he accomplished in his rookie year was becoming the youngest player to hit a home run since 1998, the youngest position player to ever make an All-Star Game roster, and the second-youngest Rookie of the Year winner in MLB history. He finished his freshman season in the big leagues slashing .270/.340/.477, good for a .817 OPS-- far better than the league average of .724 that year.
Harper put together solid seasons in the two seasons following, including another All-Star Game appearance in 2013, but he really put the baseball world on notice in 2015 when he slashed a positively ludicrous .330/.460/.649 en route to his first MVP trophy. He led the NL in home runs and runs scored, led the entire MLB in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+, and became the third-youngest MVP winner in the history of the MLB behind the likes of Johnny Bench and Stan Musial (rather good company to be in).
Among the five youngest MVP winners ever, a list which also includes Cal Ripken Jr. and Mike Trout, Harper’s season blew all of theirs out of the water as he sported better OPS+, wRC+, and WAR figures, and by sizable amounts, too.
Everything was coming up aces for Harper. He seemed like he’d easily reach his potential as one of the best to ever play the game, and would probably snag a few championships along the way just for kicks. The best-laid plans however, often go at least a little awry.
Bryce Harper was unable to win a World Series in seven years with Washington. Photo from: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo.
In truth, Bryce Harper never really “fell off” at any point in his career. He’s either been an All-Star or won the MVP award in eight of his eleven seasons in the majors, has only twice ever had a season batting below .250 (and was still an All-Star both years), and has only posted an OPS below .814 once, in an injury-plagued 2014 season. But for a period of time after his historic 2015 MVP campaign, people began to wonder just how high Harper’s ceiling was. Would he continue to be just another really good player in this league for a while, or could he ascend to be the multi-MVP, game-wrecking, championship-earning baseball behemoth he was always meant to be?
Looking back on his numbers from the five years following his first MVP season, a period which included three All-Star nods, only one appearance on the MVP voting ballot (a twelfth-place finish in 2017), and no other hardware to his name, one can see how the narratives began to build against Harper. He was still playing stellar baseball, no doubt, but was unable to either recapture his magic from 2015 or win a championship with the Nationals.
Harper finally departed from a Washington ballclub that seemed to be stuck in neutral in 2019, ditching the team that drafted him for a division rival in the Philadelphia Phillies. He then became a meme by professing his desire to bring a title back to D.C. -- whoops, he means Philadelphia! -- and finally the sparks of the simmering anti-Harper narratives were well and truly set ablaze when the Nationals went on a shock run to win the World Series in their first season without Harper, while Harper posted the third-worst batting average of his career, wasn’t an All-Star, and failed to make the playoffs with a .500 Phillies team.
Harper was voted MLB’s “most overrated” player in both 2018 and 2019. Photo from: New York Post.
From a poll conducted by The Athletic, Bryce Harper was reportedly voted the “most overrated” player in baseball in back-to-back years in 2018 and 2019 by his peers. In that 2019 poll, Harper allegedly received 48.6% of all votes, with the second-place Chris Davis getting just 10.8%. Although Harper continued to play quality baseball, he just couldn’t seem to shake that dreaded “overrated” tag-- that is, until he bounced back with his second MVP season.
Admittedly, I was among the loudmouthed crowd decrying the overratedness of Bryce Harper for a few years, but as a great quote attributed to Confucius reads, “the expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools''. Harper took his licks and quietly set out to improve back to his 2015 level, and eventually did just that. In 2021, he posted the second-best OPS of his career with an again-staggering 1.044 figure, and for the second time in his career led the entire MLB in SLG%, OPS, and OPS+. Those numbers won him the NL MVP award once again, and although the Phillies again failed to reach the playoffs, Harper finally began to ever so slowly turn his narratives around.
Harper has followed up that MVP campaign this year with a good season that could have been better if not for injuries -- he played just 99 of 162 regular season games -- but most importantly he helped Philadelphia sneak into the playoffs as the final Wild Card team in the newly-expanded MLB playoffs, the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 2011. And Harper has saved the best baseball of his career for this very moment.
To call Harper and the Phillies’ run to the World Series this October ‘incredible’ would be an incredible understatement. Philadelphia has been expected to lose each playoff series they’ve been a part of, but instead have lost just two games in total, sweeping the Cardinals in the new Wild Card series format, and dispatching the 101-win Braves and the Dodger-slaying Padres in five games each. Of course, no one player can ever win or lose entire series for their teams -- the sport is just too big and random for that to be possible -- and as such the Phillies have enjoyed stellar playoff campaigns from many of their other stars, including Zach Wheeler, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Jean Segura, Nick Castellanos, and Kyle Schwarber. But the real hero of the Fightins’ mad playoff dash has undoubtedly been Harper, who is putting up postseason numbers the likes of which we have never seen before.
Due to the MLB’s addition of a universal designated hitter, and to a thumb injury from earlier this year, Harper moved from his traditional position as an outfielder to becoming a full-time DH. Man, how that has paid off: slotting Harper at DH has allowed Philadelphia to start an outfield of Schwarber, Castellanos, and Brandon Marsh, who while not striking a ton of fear into opposing pitchers at the plate, is a stellar defensive center fielder. Most importantly, Harper himself has been a revelation this postseason as a pure DH. He’s slashing .419/.444/.907(!!) in 11 playoff games, good for an otherworldly 1.351 OPS. He leads the playoff field with 18 total hits (Manny Machado is in second with 13), has driven in 11 runs and has tallied 39 total bases including a league-leading six playoff doubles. If these metrics don’t mean much to you, here’s something to provide a little context:
In the last 15 years, there have been 339 players who have had at least 40 plate appearances in a single postseason.
— Sheil Kapadia (@SheilKapadia) October 23, 2022
Among that group, Bryce Harper's 2022 batting average (.419) and OPS (1.351) rank...
1st and 1st.
This is an all-time run.
Source: @TruMediaSports
Harper has mashed five home runs in these playoffs and almost all of them have seemed to come in clutch spots. He’s now hit a home run in three different series-clinching wins, becoming the first player to ever do that, and none was bigger than his most recent one-- a two-run shot in the bottom of the eighth inning while down 3-2 to deliver the pennant-clinching runs:
Bryce Harper sends the Phillies to the World Series ‼️
— For Future Considerations (@PodcastFFC) October 23, 2022
Harper's 8th inning 2-run home run lifts Philadelphia to a 4-3 victory over San Diego and a 4-1 win in the #NLCS #MLB #Postseason #RedOctober #RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/Q0Cl3w1err
This is the peak of Bryce Harper’s talent, and this October version of Harper is perhaps even better than anyone ever thought he could be. And it’s coming at the most important time. Should Philadelphia go on to beat Houston in this final series, Harper’s run will likely be remembered as the greatest playoff run by a single player ever.
Some naysayers would still argue that a title this year wouldn’t yet be enough to make good on all the praise heaped upon him as a young prospect -- perhaps the “greatest talent ever” should have more than just 2 MVPs and 1 World Series on their résumé -- but it would come pretty darn close. And having only just turned 30, Harper will have plenty more chances to bolster his legacy further, especially given the way he’s played the past two years.
Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations actually has two different endings; one where the main character, Pip, remains single and the girl he agonized over remarries with someone else, and a later-rewritten one where Pip finds the love he’s yearned for all his life. It is to be determined which ending Bryce Harper will see, with regards to if we will ever attain his beloved World Series title, but one thing is for certain: he is rewriting his own legacy in real time, one glorious playoff swing of the bat after another. And in my mind, I’d say he’s finally reached his own great expectations, championship or not. ■
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