Bryce Harper Seeks Elusive Championship In Third Act Of Baseball Career

The City of Brotherly Love is ready to welcome home its Philadelphia Phillies after splitting the first two games of the 2022 National League Championship Series with the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Citizens Bank Park will be hosting its first National League Championship Series game since October 23, 2010. The San Francisco Giants had defeated the Phillies 3-2 to clinch the pennant in six games and eventually the franchise’s first west coast world championship after winning five in New York before its 1958 exodus. Designated hitter Bryce Harper has been electrifying in eight postseason games with a batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage slash line of .419/.455/.936 headlined by a 1.391 on-base plus slugging.

Harper turned 30 years old on October 16^th and has unveiled the third act of an exceptional baseball career that began at three years old. No longer the wunderkind, Harper is an 11-year veteran on a career trajectory to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He is an amalgamation of bravado, talent, intensity, and intellect. Harper’s vast individual accomplishments pale in comparison to what he hopes to achieve over the next nine seasons with the Phillies. He seeks the respect and prestige that only accompanies a world championship.

Harper’s 13-year, $330 million contract was the most lucrative in the sport’s history at its signing in February 2019. His contract could be remembered as one of the biggest bargains given its $25,384,615 average annual value for Competitive Balance Tax purposes and its expiration at the conclusion of the 2031 season when he will be 38 years old. Dave Dombrowski, President of Baseball Operations for the Phillies, used the words “Hall of Fame talent” and “underrated” in the same sentence when describing Harper to MLB.com columnist Mike Lupica this past May.

Based on Baseball-Reference’s calculation of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Harper has the sixth highest WAR (42.5) of any ball player drafted with the first overall pick. At some point next season, he will join the top five as its current residents are Alex Rodriguez (117.6), Chipper Jones (85.3), Ken Griffey, Jr. (83.8), Joe Mauer (55.2), and Adrian Gonzalez (43.5) according to Baseball-Reference. He is one of six ball players who have won at least two Most Valuable Player Awards and the Rookie of the Year. The other five: Johnny Bench, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Cal Ripken, Jr., and Mike Trout. He is the lone first overall pick in the draft to have accomplished this feat, but him and Trout are also the only two in this prestigious group who haven’t won a world championship.

Experience and maturity have helped smooth the rough edges that have protruded from Harper’s personality. His immense talent has only been matched by a healthy confidence that regularly crossed the line into arrogance. His persona was defined by wearing eye black as if it were war paint, bat flips, confrontations, and mammoth home runs. Being under the watchful eyes of major league scouts since the seventh grade, Harper’s once in a generation talent confronted the challenges of boredom from inferior competition.

The first act of his baseball career chronicled the transition from child prodigy to amateur phenomenon. It concluded with Harper’s selection as the first overall pick in Major League Baseball’s 2010 first-year player draft. He signed a five-year, $9.9 million contract with the Washington Nationals which was mostly made up of a $6.25 million signing bonus. Harper’s second act began as a professional baseball player which produced several individual accolades not previously mentioned such as All-Star Game selections (seven), Silver Sluggers (two), Hank Aaron awards (two), and a Home Run Derby victory (2018).

As a member of the Nationals, Harper had played in four Division Series and lost in each of them. He had never played in a postseason game after his birthday until recently. Over 19 postseason games with the Nationals, Harper posted a slash line of .211/.315/.487 with an on-base plus slugging of .801. He never played on a losing ball club in Washington as they had won 90 or more games on four occasions highlighted by four National League East division titles (2012, 2014, 2016, 2017). After leaving the Nationals after the 2018 season, Harper experienced his first losing season in 2020 (28-32) due to the pandemic-abbreviated 60 game season.

Harper confronted health challenges throughout the 2022 season. In May, a small tear was confirmed in the ulnar collateral ligament of Harper’s right elbow which limited him to designated hitter duties. He missed five games to receive a platelet-rich plasma injection into his elbow. Harper also missed three games in June due to an infected blister below his left index finger. As blisters are an occupational hazard, Harper would sustain additional trauma to his left hand.

His greatest health challenge was presented by an opponent for whom he has known since playing travel baseball as a 10-year-old. Padres’ pitcher Blake Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner, hit Harper with a 97.2 miles per hour four-seam fastball that fractured his left thumb. The first fractured bone for Harper in his life, three pins were placed in his thumb during surgery and were removed after a month.

Prior to the injury that would see him miss 52 games, Harper had posted a slash line of .318/.386/.599 with a .985 on-base plus slugging over 64 games. His mentality was always to return in time for the Phillies to make a run at the postseason. He reappeared in the starting lineup on August 26^th and over 35 games Harper struggled to find his rhythm and posted a slash line of .227/.325/.352 with an on-base plus slugging of .677.

Bryce Harper’s postseason performance to date and sheer determination to fight through multiple injuries speaks volumes about his character and what he values in the third act of his career as a 30-year-old veteran. Instead of being known as an elite ball player on a high-quality ball club, Harper wants to be a world champion. He has taken the warrior mentality to another level but with a toned-down version of eye black. Harper still occasionally straddles the line between confidence and arrogance, but it’s his fire that ignites the Phillies’ fan base. He knows what a world championship would mean to the city and its fans, but he is also fully aware of what it would do for his legacy.