Author Topic: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar  (Read 1560 times)

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Offline EasyAce

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The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« on: March 01, 2019, 03:08:41 am »
Now that Harper's going to be a Phillie for eternity, will his big deal do Trout the bigger favour?
By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.com/2019/02/28/the-phillies-close-out-harpers-bazaar/




If nothing else, Washington’s long Nationals nightmare begins, now that their longtime mainstay Bryce Harper has signed on with the Phillies for 13 years and $330 million. It’s one thing for the Nationals having prepared for a future without him; it’s something else again that that future is here.

The Nats spent the winter preparing by upgrading their bullpen, fortifying their catching corps, outbidding everyone else for starting pitcher Patrick Corbin, and plugging a second base crack with veteran Brian Dozier. Only half hoping that Harper might play the market, find it wanting in one way or another, and come back to take the Nats’ original ten year/$300 million offer.

It turned out that Harper wanted longer term stability than that and that the Phillies were willing to give it to him, including an absence of opt-out clauses. Assuming Harper plays out the full term of the deal, guess how many games the Nats get to play against the Phillies with or without the National League East title at stake. How does 247 games strike you?

The Nats are still a terrific team. They'll still give the Phillies (and anyone else in the NL East) a run for their money. But they might be just a little less fun without Harper. Unless they have some aces (on and off the mound) up their similarly red sleeves.

When Manny Machado signed with the Padres last week (ten/$300 million) it kicked the rebuilding Padres far closer to returning to real competitiveness, particularly with their well-regarded farm system on the threshold of a harvest. Harper sees and raises.

He kicks the Phillies—whose fortifications to their solid and still ascendant youthful core this winter include J.T. Realmuto, Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen, and David Robertson—right into being the NL East favourites. The Phillies are already imagining their Opening Day lineup with Aaron Nola on the mound and Harper patrolling right field. Phillies fans may not be muttering “Wait ’till next year” this time around.

It’s not that Harper himself didn’t gamble. The market proved a lot less flexible than he and Machado believed going in. He thought about life as a Yankee, the team his father rooted for, and either he or the Yankees or both thought, “Can’t be done.” He pondered life as a Dodger, closer to his Las Vegas home, until they “apparently offered Harper less than half the guaranteed money he’d already turned down in D.C.,” as Thomas Boswell puts it. He even pondered life as a Giant, who lost 89 in 2018 but still have the weight of several bad contracts and quickly-aging anchor players.

The Phillies showed him two more things. They showed him the guaranteed money (and a far less oppressive tax state than California), but they also showed him a team built to win now and for the next several years. A team young enough despite the veteran additions to stay winners for the next several years. A team that likes the kind of player he is at core, what Boswell called “hard hat with, sometimes, a hard head.”

The hard head caused a few clumps of Nats hair to be torn out while the team’s brain trust struggled to convince him outfield walls are still the least forgiving walls on the planet. Harper’s hustled himself into hardware-costing injuries in the past; he struggled in 2016 because of a shoulder injury and, later, a stiff neck.

Last year, after blasting out of the starting chocks in his first seventeen games, Harper nose-dove until just before the All-Star break. He’d come out of spring training seemingly obsessed with his launch angles and his pull hitting, not to mention defensive overshifts. After making a pre-break correction to that thinking, he hit .300 the entire second half, with a .305/.442/.538 slash line the final two months.

Harper will have his moments of transcendence and his moments of failure, and the notorious Philadelphia boo birds will let him know the difference as they usually do. (“Those people,” legendary pitcher/playboy Bo Belinsky once observed, “would boo at a funeral.”) He’s strong enough to know the difference and experienced enough not to let the worst of the latter stain the shinings of the former.

His critics, pardon the expression, harp on his full-season .247 batting average as evidence he had no business playing this winter’s market for the stakes he wanted. But last year’s NL Most Valuable Player, Christian Yelich, had 41 percent of his hits go for extra bases. Harper had 49 percent go for extra bases. Nolan Arenado, who just signed a delicious extension aimed at making him rich and a Rockie for life, and led the National League with 38 home runs last year, had 45 percent extra-base hits.

Let’s look at the extra-base hit averages among the other top ten position players in last year’s MVP voting (Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer also finished in the top ten), in descending percentage order:

Matt Carpenter—53%
Trevor Story—49%
Javier Baez (RBI leader)—47%
Ronald Acuna, Jr.—44%
Paul Goldschmidt—42%
Anthony Rendon—42%
Freddie Freeman (hits and doubles leader)—37%
Lorenzo Cain—22%

Harper wasn’t even close to getting a single MVP vote last year but only two MVP candidates had the same or a higher percentage of extra-base hits. And if you’re still harping on his full-season batting average, feel free to remind yourself about the two wounding flaws in batting average:

1) It treats all hits equally, and all hits are not equal. Come to think of it, all .300 hitters aren’t equal, either. If Tony Gwynn was a more valuable or more complete hitter hitting a lifetime .338 than Willie Mays hitting a lifetime .302, the one who says so a) didn’t see either one play all that often; and/or, b) doesn’t read the whole record as it was above, beyond, and deeper than those averages.

2) A batting average accounts only for your hits divided by your credited at-bats. It doesn’t account for everything you do at the plate divided by all your plate appearances, and thus gives an incomplete picture of what you do at the plate to help your team win.

Maybe batting average ought to be called hitting average instead. Or maybe the term for a complete offensive percentage—including hits, walks, intentional walks (yes, count them separately), sacrifices, and the times a batter got hit by a pitch, divided by his total plate appearances—should be called Real Batting Average. (No, it’s not the same as on-base percentage, which factors official at-bats but not total plate appearances.) Here are the RBAs for the aforementioned top ten MVP candidates, including the winner, plus that other guy who just signed with the Padres for ten years and $300 million:

Javier Baez—.346.
Trevor Story—.358.
Ronald Acuna, Jr.—.376.
Nolan Arenado—.398.
Manny Machado—.399.
Lorenzo Cain—.400.
Paul Goldschmidt—.404.
Matt Carpenter—.405.
Christian Yelich—.409.
Freddie Freeman—.413.
Anthony Rendon—.417.

Harper’s 2018 RBA was .429. In other words, even in what was considered a bad full season because of his .249 batting average, Harper was a more complete batter whose real batting average was better than both than the top ten National League position players and his fellow new three hundred times over millionaire Manny Machado. (Last year’s American League MVP, Mookie Betts, shows a .459 RBA.)

And that’s without talking about something else that helps your team put runs on the board: the extra bases you take on followup knocks. Harper wasn’t as good at that last year as in seasons past, but lifetime he’s taken the extra base(s) on the followup knocks exactly half the time he’s reached base in the first place. (For a little perspective, Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson—the Man of Steal himself—did it 55 percent of the time he was on base . . . and Mike Trout does it 57 percent of the time.) He’s not waiting for you to hit one out of the yard to kick on the jets and fly.

(So why did Harper crater to a 1.3 wins above a replacement-level player last year? Easy: bad outfield defense. Even in a down season Harper was still worth 4.2 WAR as an offensive player, just below an All-Star’s level. But his defensive WAR was -3.2. Maybe the weight of the free agency season he’s just finished will be removed enough to clear his head in right field as well as all the way at the plate.)

Now, who beside their new teams have been done the biggest favours by the Harper and Machado deals? One name seemed to spring to mind at once after Harper signed, and he’s due to hit free agency after the 2020 season.

He’s been the best all-around player in baseball since his first full season. The question is long established that it’s just a question of when, not if he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame, assuming nothing drastic or tragic happens to him before he finishes his tenth major league season. And his 2018 was better than all the above in several ways last year even with missing time due to a thumb injury.

OK, you asked for it. Forty-five percent of Mike Trout’s 2018 hits went for extra bases, but his real batting average, according to the foregoing criteria, was . . . .507.

Mike Trout in 2018 was a more complete batter doing that much more to help his team win—never mind that Angel fans continue to wish the organisation would build a team its and baseball’s best player can be proud of—than both leagues’ Most Valuable Players and their top-ten MVP finishers among position players.

The Angels had better get to serious work on a) building a team Trout can really be proud of; and, b) making him their Nolan Arenado and not letting him escape without a fight. And there isn’t a fan alive observing the Harper-Machado markets, questioning the sanity of either or both, who’d say Trout doesn’t deserve it even more.
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« Last Edit: March 01, 2019, 06:05:30 pm by EasyAce »


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Online DCPatriot

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2019, 04:20:09 am »
Excellent!  Impressive breakdown as usual.  And don't give me any crap that all you had to do was look it up.   wink777

IMO, Bryce Harper played scared last year.  His defensive breakdown tells me he was primarily playing not to get injured.  At times he was in sandlot mode...that damned outfielder that dismisses the cut-off man and just whips it toward the visitor's dugout.  Truly pathetic.

It's why I'm glad he's gone.   Truth be told, I'd rather watch Juan Solo for the next 4 years.  He already has the league umpires trained regarding his strike zone.   And then there's Robles??

Good bye, Bryce.

But it's going to be fun playing against him in the NL East so many times.   They come to town in April.

@EasyAce
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Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2019, 04:37:16 am »
Excellent!  Impressive breakdown as usual.  And don't give me any crap that all you had to do was look it up.   wink777
@DCPatriot
If you think I shoot all that stuff just out of my head, flattery will get you everywhere!  wink777

Unfortunately, I'm not as smart as other baseball writers (of my personal acquaintance or otherwise). I have to think and do some homework before I write.  wink777

Truth be told, I'd rather watch Juan Solo for the next 4 years.

Now, there's a nickname and a thought. Han Solo in a Nationals uniform!

Chris Berman, would you consider . . .

Max (the Knife) Scherzer
Trea (Chic) Turner
Anthony Rendon (Bridge is Falling Down)
(The) Howie Kendrick (Experience)
Carter (Lower) Kieboom
Anibal (Lecter) Sanchez
J.J. (Beats as He Sweeps as He Cleans) Hoover
Sean (Doctor) Doolittle
Koda (Been a Contender) Glover
Adam (When Do We) Eaton
Vidal (Sassoon) Nuno
Wander (Who Wrote the Book of Love) Suero
Sammy (Winter) Solis
« Last Edit: March 01, 2019, 06:17:55 pm by EasyAce »


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2019, 04:41:33 am »
LOL!   Juan 'Solo'.....  a true Freudian slip.

He tells the umps... "these aren't the strikes you're looking for"... with a wave of his hand.
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2019, 04:42:53 am »
LOL!   Juan 'Solo'.....  a true Freudian slip.

He tells the umps... "these aren't the strikes you're looking for"... with a wave of his hand.
Makes you wonder what Joe West and Angel Hernandez think. (Assuming they do think.)


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2019, 04:51:55 am »
Getting back to Harper's contract:

He's also taking a huge risk.

Let's say baseball contracts continue to rise.  One day a position player will be signing for half-billion dollars which include stock options, etc..

If Harper is the Second Coming of Babe Ruth six years down the road, he's not going to be happy.   
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Offline SZonian

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2019, 04:54:54 am »
Great writeup @EasyAce

"Stupid money" is right.

Phils screwed the team with the Howard deal, here's to hoping that this isn't a repeat.
Throwing our allegiances to political parties in the long run gave away our liberty.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2019, 05:05:08 am »
Great writeup @EasyAce

"Stupid money" is right.

Phils screwed the team with the Howard deal, here's to hoping that this isn't a repeat.
@SZonian

What screwed the pooch with the Howard deal is what happened to him near the end of the second season of the deal (the first season was a then-typical Howard season)---the torn Achilles tendon as Howard ran out a division-series ground out. He was never the same player after that injury especially when more injuries hit and drained him. (The deal ended in 2016.) Those were neither his nor the team's fault. The injuries probably also cost Howard the shot at the Hall of Fame he looked to be having before the Achilles injury.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2019, 05:06:09 am by EasyAce »


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

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Offline SZonian

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2019, 05:16:34 am »
Yes the achilles hurt Howard, however, the Phils already had him on contract for another 2 years when they made that "5 year" deal...they should/could have waited.

I'm not fond of these kind of deals. 

Anything can and sometimes does happen.

Howard is my "proof in the pudding"...if I'm wrong and Harper makes it 13 years, I'll eat my Phillies cap.   :xedfingers:
Throwing our allegiances to political parties in the long run gave away our liberty.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #9 on: March 01, 2019, 06:07:49 am »
Yes the achilles hurt Howard, however, the Phils already had him on contract for another 2 years when they made that "5 year" deal...they should/could have waited.

I'm not fond of these kind of deals. 

Anything can and sometimes does happen.

Howard is my "proof in the pudding"...if I'm wrong and Harper makes it 13 years, I'll eat my Phillies cap.   :xedfingers:
He's younger now than Howard was when he signed the big one. If he can wake up and realise that outfield walls are not the forgiving type even trying for fly balls, he should stay healthy.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline SZonian

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2019, 01:47:49 pm »
He's younger now than Howard was when he signed the big one. If he can wake up and realise that outfield walls are not the forgiving type even trying for fly balls, he should stay healthy.
True.

Thanks for your observations on the topic, quite insightful.   :beer:
Throwing our allegiances to political parties in the long run gave away our liberty.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2019, 04:44:51 pm »
True.

Thanks for your observations on the topic, quite insightful.   :beer:
@SZonian

 :beer:



"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.

Offline Polly Ticks

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2019, 05:19:33 pm »
Side note ...

Quote
Bryce Harper’s 13-year, $330 million contract with the Phillies will take the slugger through the 2031 season. It’s tied with Giancarlo Stanton’s pact for the longest active contract in Major League Baseball.

While the deal will give Harper a whole lot of stability, it’s got nothing on Bobby Bonilla’s status.


https://nypost.com/2019/02/28/bryce-harpers-contract-wont-outlast-mets-bobby-bonilla-payments/
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Offline catfish1957

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2019, 05:21:11 pm »
LOL!   Juan 'Solo'.....  a true Freudian slip.

He tells the umps... "these aren't the strikes you're looking for"... with a wave of his hand.

lol...even with his Jedi mind tricks, the fact is the Phillies just paid $330M for a guy who batted .249 last year. 

Ha ha ha.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2019, 03:42:11 pm »
@DCPatriot
If you think I shoot all that stuff just out of my head, flattery will get you everywhere!  wink777

Unfortunately, I'm not as smart as other baseball writers (of my personal acquaintance or otherwise). I have to think and do some homework before I write.  wink777

Now, there's a nickname and a thought. Han Solo in a Nationals uniform!

Chris Berman, would you consider . . .

Max (the Knife) Scherzer
Trea (Chic) Turner
Anthony Rendon (Bridge is Falling Down)
(The) Howie Kendrick (Experience)
Carter (Lower) Kieboom
Anibal (Lecter) Sanchez
J.J. (Beats as He Sweeps as He Cleans) Hoover
Sean (Doctor) Doolittle
Koda (Been a Contender) Glover
Adam (When Do We) Eaton
Vidal (Sassoon) Nuno
Wander (Who Wrote the Book of Love) Suero
Sammy (Winter) Solis

I groaned when I read "Anthony Rendon (bridges falling down), but the rest were hilarious.
Nice, @EasyAce

Offline GrouchoTex

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #15 on: March 02, 2019, 03:43:57 pm »
If MLB owners didn't learn anything after Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Bonilla, it appears that they never will.

Offline catfish1957

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #16 on: March 02, 2019, 04:00:16 pm »
If MLB owners didn't learn anything after Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Bonilla, it appears that they never will.

Or Angels with Pujols.  Or our Astros with Carlos Lee.
I display the Confederate Battle Flag in honor of my great great great grandfathers who spilled blood at Wilson's Creek and Shiloh.  5 others served in the WBTS with honor too.

Offline EasyAce

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Re: The Phillies close out Harper’s Bazaar
« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2019, 08:52:55 pm »
This just in: Bryce Harper said today that he's not going to wear the same uniform number with the Phillies as he did with the Nationals . . . out of respect for the late Roy Halladay. Harper said Halladay should be the last Phillie ever to wear number 34. That's what I call class.

FYI: These are the Phillies' retired numbers so far: 1--Richie Asburn; 14--Jim Bunning; 20--Mike Schmidt; 32--Steve Carlton; 36--Robin Roberts.


"The question of who is right is a small one, indeed, beside the question of what is right."---Albert Jay Nock.

Fake news---news you don't like or don't want to hear.