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CHICAGO — Imagine if there were a way, on every New England Patriots possession, to prevent Tom Brady from throwing the football. Or if, somehow, a defense could find a loophole in basketball’s rules that ensured Stephen Curry couldn’t touch the ball on every offensive possession.

Both would be sound strategies. But such strategies would also hurt the appeal of those sports.

We want to see the best play. Watching opposing teams prevent that doesn’t make for great theater.

In a loss on Sunday to the Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, the reigning National League MVP, was walked a record six times (three times intentionally) and was also hit by a pitch. He was without an official at-bat.

The strategy was great for the Cubs but bad for the game.

“It’s kind of like in basketball hack-a-Shaq, whoever they’re hacking,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. “I guess that’s part of the game and part of strategy.

“But the fans didn’t come here to see him walk. They came here to see him swing the bat.”

Well, considering how tortured Cubs fans have been for, say, the last century—give or take a few years—Baker isn’t entirely correct. Fans flocked to Wrigley Field primarily to see the Cubs win.

But his point is well-taken. Sports fans want to see the best compete. Walking Harper so many times robbed fans of the opportunity to watch the game’s best pitcher, Jake Arrieta, face its best hitter in Harper.

Sunday was like watching the same bad movie seven straight times.

Baseball is desperate for drama. The MLB playoffs provide that. But the course of a 162-game schedule can, at times, seem as redundant as a season of cop-show storylines.

Harper has made it clear that he wants to amp up the excitement. 

That’s impossible, though, if he isn’t allowed to swing the bat. Imagine an NBA Finals where the defense fouled Curry every possession to keep him from shooting three-pointers. It wouldn’t be very entertaining.

Baseball is a sport that allows opponents to fully avoid a problem. It’s a flaw few other sports share.

“When you’re a pitcher, you’re not going to not challenge a guy because of what their name is and what they can do,” said Tanner Roark, who started for Washington on Sunday. “You can’t play scared. This is a game, and it’s not ‘here’s your free pass.’ Sometimes it calls for that, but I think it’s scared baseball.”

Roark may be posturing. But he’s right about this: We don’t want to see the Cubs or Arrieta hide in a corner.

We may only get one more chance to see Arrieta face Harper this season, assuming the right-handed Cubs starter is scheduled to pitch during the two teams’ three-game series in Washington June 13-15. It’s the last time the teams are scheduled to play this season.

Sunday, baseball was robbed of, arguably, its most anticipated matchup. Twice the Cubs walked Harper to load the bases for first baseman Ryan Zimmerman.

“The way he approaches the game, he tries to pound the strike zone, but he also pitches to his strengths, and that’s what he does every time he goes out there,” Harper said. “So I don’t think he’s going to change his plan to try to get me to go this way or that way. So I think you just try to go up there, wait for your pitch and try to drive. That’s what I did today. I didn’t really get anything over the plate that I could try to drive.”

The short-term solution is for Zimmerman to hit. He bats fourth behind Harper and has struggled. Zimmerman is only hitting .236/.293/.340. He was 0-for-7 Sunday, which is part of the reason the Cubs walked Harper to get to him. If Zimmerman were raking, this wouldn’t be an issue.

But intentional walks have always been a part of the game. The problem with them—that a manager can choose whom his team faces—was magnified Sunday.

Baseball needs a long-term fix to a strategy that is hurting its appeal.

The NFL changed its rules to protect quarterbacks after noticing injuries to the position hurt the game. The NBA eliminated the hand check to allow for more offense.

Yet MLB lingers far behind in curtailing its rules to allow for more showmanship.

Quite possibly, the game might need to allow a batter—and those on base—to advance two bases if a team throws him four straight balls. The way to eliminate the strategy the Cubs employed on Harper would be to make the consequences greater.

This way, a manager would never walk a player with runners in scoring position. An intentional walk would score a runner who was on second.

Other leagues have changed their rules to better the game.

This may seem extreme, but people thought it was drastic when the NCAA tournament extended its field to include 64 teams and 68 after that. Some thought enhancing rules to protect quarterbacks was over the top. Others detested the idea of eliminating the hand check. In all cases, it worked out.

MLB needs to do something extreme to eliminate what happened Sunday.

Chicago manager Joe Maddon decided who would win the Arrieta-Harper battle by gifting the hitter first base. The strategy worked out great for the Cubs.

It would work out better for the game if we let the players decide.

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper tied an MLB single-game record by drawing six walks in Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs, becoming the first player to achieve the feat since Jeff Bagwell in 1999, per ESPN Stats & Info.

The 23-year-old superstar had six walks and a hit-by-pitch in seven plate appearances during the 13-inning contest, making him the first player in MLB history to reach base seven times in a game without recording a single at-bat, per Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN Stats & Info).

It wasn’t enough to prevent his team from suffering a four-game sweep at Wrigley Field, but Harper truly had a remarkable series, drawing 13 walks while logging only four official at-bats (one hit) in 19 plate appearances against the dominant Cubs.

Even after getting swept in Chicago, the Nationals boast a 19-12 record that leaves them a half-game behind the New York Mets (19-11) for first place in the National League East.

The 24-6 Cubs, meanwhile, have become just the 10th team in MLB history to win 24 or more of their first 30 games in a season, per MLB Stat of the Day.

With the NL West looking shaky and the NL Central mediocre behind Chicago, it seems quite possible the Cubs and Nationals could meet again in October, perhaps with a trip to the World Series on the line.

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Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper was the 2015 National League MVP, but he missed out on the batting title because of Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon. It would be understandable if the Nationals slugger felt like he was robbed of the achievement because of the performance-enhancing-drug revelations regarding Gordon, but he blamed only himself in recent comments. 

Major League Baseball announced early Friday morning that it suspended Gordon for 80 games because he tested positive for performance-enhancing substances.

Harper discussed the suspension, calling it “a disappointment,” per Mark Zuckerman of MASNSports.com, but he wasn’t quick to point fingers when it came to last year’s batting title.

“I lost the batting title. I lost it completely,” he said. “I was hitting like .345 with three weeks left or so. I completely lost it. It was nothing to do with that. You’ve still got to hit the baseball. You’ve still got to perform. And he did that. I completely lost the batting title last year, so that’s all behind us.”

Harper finished with a .330 batting average and was only .003 behind Gordon’s .333 mark. Zuckerman noted Harper lost the crown on the last day of the 2015 campaign and struggled down the stretch with a .162 average in his last 11 contests. During that span, his average fell from .343 to .330.

However, Harper was more productive in other areas, with 42 home runs, 99 RBI and a 1.109 OPS, compared to four long balls, 46 RBI and a .776 OPS for Gordon. Those power numbers helped Harper become the MVP, although his Nationals missed out on the playoffs.

This season, Harper was hitting .314 with nine home runs and 24 RBI through his first 70 at-bats, while Gordon was off to a slow start at .266 through his first 94 at-bats.

Losing Gordon will be a blow to Washington’s National League East rivals in Miami, but Harper seemed upset the second baseman will not be on the field, per Zuckerman:

He’s one of the best second basemen in the game, a big talent, a lot of fun to watch. It’s just disappointment, something you don’t want to see. Not good for the sport, not good for baseball. But he’s still one of the best players in the game and I’ve still got a lot of respect for him. But it’s definitely something that’s just tough.

It may be tough, but the Nationals probably would have been better off if Gordon wasn’t on the field in their head-to-head matchups last year. The second baseman hit a blistering .342 in 19 contests against Washington in 2015 and helped the 71-91 Marlins beat the Nationals nine times.

Miami also swept the Nationals in April during a six-game losing streak for the latter. Washington ultimately finished seven games behind the New York Mets in the division and failed to live up to elevated expectations. Perhaps if the Nationals had beaten Gordon and the hapless Marlins more often last year, they could have challenged for a postseason spot late in the schedule.

At least Washington won’t have to worry about Gordon when it plays Miami seven times in May this year. 

Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander didn’t think enough penalties were in place regarding players who use PEDs when he sent out a tweet after Gordon’s suspension (warning: contains NSFW language): “This PED s–t is killing me. If you test positive, you need to not play. You shouldn’t be allowed to [affect] games while appealing.”

Zuckerman did point out MLB’s performance-enhancing-drug system “remains the strictest…in American professional sports.”

Harper said there are talks to come over whether the penalties are strict enough, per Zuckerman: “I think as players and as a union, we’ll speak about that.” The Nationals star also said it’s important that the players stay together and open up communication with the union.

The union will likely have meetings and potentially respond to the situation, but for now, Harper has a clearer path to a potential batting title in 2016 with the reigning champion suspended for a large portion of the season.

His Nationals were also in first place in the division at 14-7 heading into Friday and are looking to reach the playoffs after that disappointing 2015 campaign. However, they are fresh off a three-game losing streak against the Philadelphia Phillies. 

The sweep to Philadelphia underscored the fact Harper is not receiving enough help in the lineup. He is the only player on Washington who had more than three home runs entering play Friday, and not a single one of his teammates posted double-digit RBI totals through the first 21 games. 

Considering Harper has to carry the Nationals this season if they want to reach the playoffs, it’s ideal that he is not lamenting the missed opportunity of a batting title in 2015.

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Anyone who came into the season thinking Bryce Harper couldn’t possibly improve on his superstar-making 2015 season should know this: Harper’s 2016 self is making his 2015 self look like a chump.

The Washington Nationals star slugger was already off to a hot start, carrying a .341 average, a 1.296 OPS and six home runs into Tuesday’s game against the Miami Marlins. But because “hotter” is always better than just “hot,” Harper helped Washington’s cause in a 7-0 win with his second grand slam in the last week.

Observe and enjoy:

With that, Harper now has seven home runs. Only Colorado Rockies wunderkind Trevor Story has more, and he can’t quite match Harper’s .333/.429/.867 slash line. And neither can anyone else, for that matter, as his 1.295 OPS leads all qualified hitters. 

If that sounds familiar, that’s because Harper occupied the same position in that department last year with his league-leading 1.109 OPS. He also led baseball with a .460 on-base percentage and a .649 slugging percentage. His 42 home runs, meanwhile, tied him for the National League lead.

Officially, Harper’s big prize was the National League MVP, for which he was a unanimous selection. Unofficially, though, the 23-year-old’s other big prize was getting that “most overrated player” monkey off his back, per ESPN The Magazine (via ESPN). When a guy has the best offensive season since Barry Bonds at his large-hatted peak, a label like that doesn’t fit so well anymore.

And from the looks of things, Harper doesn’t want that label to come anywhere close to him ever again.

It wasn’t hard to determine how Harper went from being a solid .270-ish hitter with 20-homer power in his first three seasons to the most dangerous hitter in the game last season. As a former No. 1 pick, the underlying talent for such a transition was always there. The main thing he needed was good health, which he finally enjoyed in 2015.

With those boxes checked off, the next item on Harper’s superstar to-do list was to improve his discipline. He checked that box by taking fewer swings and chasing fewer pitches outside the strike zone. That not only meant a whole lot more walks, but fewer strikeouts as well.

But all that was apparently just a warm-up for 2016. If last season took Harper’s approach from bad to good, this season is taking it from good to great:

Note: Harper’s Swing%, O-Swing% and SwStr% marks here haven’t been updated to include Tuesday’s game.

Harper is swinging roughly as often as he did in 2015, but he’s not chasing or whiffing as often. He actually has more home runs (seven) than he does strikeouts (six), which is just not supposed to happen in an environment where strikeouts rule and power is oppressed.

That’s the profile of a hitter who’s nigh impossible for pitchers to fool, and we’ll leave it to his manager to corroborate it with eyewitness testimony.

“He has an idea what they’re trying to do to him,” Nats skipper Dusty Baker told Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports earlier this month. “That’s where it starts. You have to have an idea what the opposition’s opinion of you is and what their game plan is. I think he recognizes rather quickly what their game plan is.”

Harper’s other big change in 2015 was embracing his best natural hitting talent and turning his power-hitter mode to 11. He put balls in the air at the highest rate of his career, traded in an all-fields approach for more of a pull-oriented approach and just hit the ball hard.

In keeping with our theme, Harper is doing all the same things in 2016, except better. With assistance from Baseball Savant for his exit velocity, here’s the scoop:

Harper isn’t pulling the ball at a significantly higher rate than he was a year ago, but only a small handful of hitters are putting the ball in the air more often. And as his jump in exit velocity shows, contact off his bat is somehow even louder this year than it was in 2015.

All this is Harper’s 2016 evolution spelled out in statistical gobbledygook. For a good practical summary, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs nailed it when he wrote that the current version of Harper is like “Joey Votto‘s control of the strike zone married to Chris Davis’ power when Chris Davis is on a hot streak.”

For those who prefer ballplayer-ese, here is Jayson Werth seemingly struggling to even comprehend Harper in a chat with Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post:

Since Werth was reluctant to say it, I will: Right now, Harper is indeed the best player in baseball.

That was up for debate last year. Mike Trout went into 2015 with the “best player in baseball” crown firmly on his head, and the Los Angeles Angels center fielder maintained a strong grip on it with a .991 OPS, 41 home runs and solid defense in center field.

But Harper actually topped Trout in wins above replacement last year, and there’s no ignoring the present reality of his pseudo-rivalry with Trout. Whereas Trout’s best season is still his big breakthrough back in 2012, Harper’s own big breakthrough is ongoing and only gaining momentum.

In the long run, maybe it’ll result in some record-breaking history. In the meantime, there should be plenty of history for Harper to make in the short run.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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When the Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper does something, he does it all the way.

The latest example of this baseball truism came Thursday in the nation’s capital, when Harper launched his 100th career home run off the Atlanta Braves’ Julio Teheran. 

First off, this was no cheap shot. Harper’s milestone blast traveled an estimated 429 feet, according to ESPN Stats & Information. (In a cool numerical twist, that’s the same distance his first career home run traveled.) 

It was also a grand slam, the first of Harper’s big league career. And the Nationals went on to win, 6-2, making Harper’s jack the difference.

Oh, and he did it on a special occasion.

“It was my mom’s birthday today, so being able to hit her a homer was definitely huge,” Harper said, per James Wagner of the Washington Post.

It was about as awesome as a 100th home run can be. If you’d scripted it, it would seem too trite and tidy by half.

Now, let’s pull back and ask a question that requires a ton of conjecture and some telescopic forward-gazing: At the tender age of 23, is Harper the best bet to someday break baseball’s all-time home run mark?

Yeah, it seems crazy to even talk about. So much can happen over the course of a career—including, most notably, injuries. Even the biggest talents can fizzle and falter at any time.

But admit it—you’re at least slightly intrigued.

First, let’s crunch some numbers. If Harper matches last season’s home run total of 42, he’d finish 2016 with 139 dingers. After that, if he averages 40 every year for the next 10 years, he’d be sitting at 539 going into his age-34 season.

That would be an impressive stretch of fence-clearing production but by no means a ludicrous or unattainable output for a guy like Harper. Remember, as much as the reigning National League MVP has already made his mark on the game, his prime is still far on the horizon. 

Let’s say Harper gets there. For perspective, Barry Bonds, the all-time home run king with 762, had 411 home runs entering his age-34 season. 

Bonds, of course, went on a historic, almost surely chemically aided home run binge in the final decade of his career. So that’s an imperfect comparison.

A better comp might be Hank Aaron, who sits second all-time with 755 and had 481 homers entering his age-34 campaign. Or there’s Babe Ruth, third all-time with 714, who had 470. Aaron played until age 42 and Ruth until age 40.

To have a realistic shot at catching Bonds, Harper would have to vault past that 40-homer average, find the (hopefully natural) fountain of youth in his later years and/or stay productive well into his 40s.

That’s a tall order. Just ask the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez—one of seven players to reach 100 homers at a younger age than Harper, according to the Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN Stats & Information).

For a while, it looked like A-Rod might have a crack at the all-time mark. Now, he seems destined to fall short, especially if he retires after the 2017 season like he’s indicated he might.

This is a steep, difficult mountain to scale. Many greats have tried and tumbled.

Speaking of greats, is there anyone aside from Harper in today’s game with a realistic shot? 

The active leader behind Rodriguez is the Los Angeles Angels’ Albert Pujols with 560. At age 36 and with injury issues nagging him in recent years, it seems unlikely Pujols will sniff 700.

Miguel Cabrera, with 409 at age 32, is a better bet, but it’d take a massive late-career surge and a serious assist from Father Time.

The more likely challengers have fewer home runs to their name but are also much younger.

At age 24, the Angels’ Mike Trout has 140 jacks. He might be Harper’s stiffest competition in this completely speculative future. Imagine them battling it out in 2031, when we’ll have put a man on Venus but still won’t have real, functioning hoverboards.

There’s also Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins, possibly the best pure power hitter in baseball. Stanton is sitting at 183 home runs at age 26, though he also has some troubling injury history.

As USA Today‘s Ted Berg noted, “Hank Aaron played in at least 145 games every single season from 1955-1970. Stanton has only done that twice in five seasons as a full-time major leaguer.”

The same can be said of Harper, who eclipsed 150 games played for the first time last season. Again, that’s why this is such a monumental feat—it requires an insane mixture of ability and durability.

Harper, though, has that quality that makes you think he could get there—that rare melange of brashness, bravado and a flair for the dramatic. Oh, and generational ability. That, too.

For now, Nats fans can bask in the glory of their newly minted 100-homer man. And Harper’s mom can enjoy her gravity-defying birthday present. 

When Harper does things, he does them all the way. Someday, we’ll find out if that includes breaking seemingly unbreakable records.

All statistics current as of April 14 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Bryce Harper hit the century mark in home runs, and he did it in style. 

The 23-year-old reigning National League MVP hit the 100th homer of his career, a grand slam, in the third inning of Thursday’s 6-2 win over the Atlanta Braves.  

It was the Washington Nationals star’s first career grand slam, which cleared the wall at Nationals Park:

Harper’s grand slam came a half inning after the Braves took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third.

After a sacrifice bunt from Stephen Strasburg resulted in an out at second base, back-to-back hits by Anthony Rendon and Chris Heisey loaded the bases for Harper with two outs.

On a 1-0 pitch from Julio Teheran, Harper connected on a 91 mile-per-hour fastball and launched it over the right field wall for his third homer and ninth RBI on the young season.

The Las Vegas native became the eighth-youngest player to reach the 100-homer mark, per Baseball Tonight. Mel Ott remains the quickest to reach that mark at 22 years, 132 days old. Harper will turn 24 in October.

Sportsnet Stats tweeted out this graphic featuring the entire list, as Harper missed legendary catcher Johnny Bench by 20 days:

Harper knew how close he was to the century mark in homers. He took to Instagram on Monday to show off his bats, which featured “100” emoji decals:

Harper has evolved into one of the best players in baseball, with proof coming last year in his winning the MVP Award. The three-time All-Star has played at least 100 games in every year since coming to the majors in 2012. Last season was the first time Harper hit more than 30 homers in a campaign.

He’s still more than 600 homers away from the top mark all time, but if he continues to stay healthy and play a large number of games, he could challenge Barry Bonds’ total by the time his career is up.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

Follow Danny Webster on Twitter.

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Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper is a confident man, and he’s also up on all things “new school.” Basically, he is baseball’s Cam Newton.

It’s no surprise, then, that he placed stickers with the “100” emoji on the bottom of his bats. Because of course he did.

Harper is also one home run away from No. 100 in his career, so the timing is appropriate.

Wonder what Goose Gossage would have to say about this.

[h/t For The Win]

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Bryce Harper 2016.

The Washington Nationals slugger traded in his uniform cap for a “Make Baseball Fun Again” hat after the team’s 4-3 Opening Day win over the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field on Monday, addressing the media in his Donald Trump-inspired piece of headwear.

But the statement the reigning National League MVP makes with his version is more than just topical. It embodies his not-so-secret take from his ESPN The Magazine interview on the “tired” game of Major League Baseball and its strict limitations on celebrations.

[Twitter]

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The reigning National League MVP is picking up right where he left off in 2015.

In his first at-bat of the 2016 season, Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper sent a Julio Teheran slider into the right field bleachers, giving the Nats a 1-0 lead over the Atlanta Braves on Monday in the first inning.  

According to James Wagner of the Washington Post, it’s Harper’s fourth home run on Opening Day.

He might have been motivated by getting a less than welcoming reception from the Turner Field crowd, per MASN’s Dan Kolko:

Harper certainly enjoys stepping up to the plate when Teheran is on the mound, per David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The only disappointment from the home run was that Harper didn’t play up his jog around the bases after Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench criticized his occasionally expressive celebrations on the field while calling in to The Rich Eisen Show (h/t Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media).

The Nationals will unquestionably need Harper to stay healthy and produce offensively if they’re to contend for the NL East crown. The fact that he’s already off to a hot start will be good news for Washington.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Flip your bat, pump your fist, shoot your imaginary arrow and come sit down with us for a few minutes as we investigate exactly how tired baseball is.

Like, take-a-two-hour-nap-each-afternoon tired?

Gulp-a-Red-Bull-or-two-a-day tired?

Enter-a-dance-competition tired?

“I do agree with what Bryce is saying,” Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley says. “Maybe his words were a little off. It’s not tired.

“I think if he could change that word, he would.”

“Just growing up watching the game on TV and being a part of it now, it’s changed,” Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant says. “You see guys wearing neon on their shoes and on their gloves, you see bat flips, things like that. I think there’s a time and place for it.”

So after Washington Nationals superstar and National League MVP Bryce Harper said what he did about pumping some enthusiasm into the game, I enthusiastically set off to visit a few of the game’s top young stars to seek their opinions.

Speaking to Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine, Harper endorsed Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez’s mound exuberance, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig’s on-field giddy-up and many, many other forms of in-game celebratory measures.

Next thing you knew, Goose Gossage was firing lightning bolts from Mt. Hall of Fame, decrying the excess exuberance he sees in today’s game.

Here’s the thing, full disclosure: I know Gossage. And I know Harper. They both have such a deep-rooted passion for this game, I guarantee you that if they met each other and sat down to discuss it, they would get along splendidly. Guarantee it.

So what do a handful of the game’s top young stars think? Essentially, this:

“Honestly, I don’t show very much emotion, but I have no problem with it either way,” Los Angeles Dodgers rookie shortstop Corey Seager says. “You want to respect the game, but the game is evolving.

“People are showing more emotion. There are scenarios to everything. Times to do it. Times not to do it.

“Does it bother me? No. But there are certain times it does. When you’re up by 10 runs, you don’t need to keep abusing it. If it’s a big moment in a game when excitement and adrenaline are going, that’s when it’s OK.”

Says Cubs shortstop Addison Russell: “I really don’t mind it. If you come through in a clutch situation, I think you have a right to have a celebratory moment. It’s not how you look at it from the outside. You’re the one who has to go through the pressure moment and when you do something, it’s like, Whew!”

Not everyone is on board, of course. Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout preached humility earlier this week.

“I don’t try to show anybody up,” Trout said, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. “Whatever somebody else does, that’s what they do.”

The world changes. People change. Things aren’t as stodgy anymore. The younger generation, generally speaking, is more accepting today.

Unwritten rules never have been easy to decode then or now (“It’s like walking on eggshells,” Arizona’s Bradley said), but the current reading of them veers more toward this:

If you’re celebrating yourself and your team in a big moment, cool.

If you’re celebrating to rub the other guy’s nose in something, or you’re doing it because you just schooled an opponent whom you dislike, not cool.

“I don’t mind some of the flair,” Bradley said. “You still give respect, but a little here and there isn’t bad.

“You don’t want to step on the toes of the guys who played the game before you did, but things evolve and change. There’s a process.

“I think one reason is technology. There are multiple platforms now. With social media, the game has changed. I definitely respect Harper for saying that stuff. He has a huge platform.”

No disrespect to the grumpy Goose, a personal favorite, but the only platform he’s accustomed to is whatever platform he stood on when his New York Yankees won the World Series in 1978.

Bradley, who is competing for a job in Arizona’s rotation this spring, said some of the most fun he’s had playing baseball came in the Arizona Fall League in 2014.

“We did some bush league, summer ball-ish, excessive celebrating,” he says of a team that also included Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, Colorado’s Trevor Story and Arizona’s Peter O’Brien. They would chant at opponents from the dugout and even rag on the left fielder from the bullpen.

“Our bullpen talked trash the whole game, and I still remember Darnell Sweeney [of the Philadelphia Phillies organization] in left field tipping his cap to us,” Bradley says. “The fans enjoyed it.”

Obviously, Bradley said, they carried it further than they ever would dare in a major league game, but “we were being free. We were having fun.”

It’s a man’s game, but it takes a little boy to play it, the old saying goes. And maybe we’re seeing more little boy break through in some of this, but fun is a good thing. Especially when baseball is criticized for being too slow and vanilla to hold its footing in today’s high-def world.

“It’s exciting for the fans, it brings excitement and energy to the crowd,” Seager says. “From that standpoint, it’s a positive.

“You want the fans to be excited. That’s why we play.”

Five months later, I can’t tell you how many times Jose Bautista’s bat flip during the playoffs last October has come up in clubhouses this spring. Most of the time, it’s been with amusement and chuckles.

“Obviously, you play a big playoff game like Bautista last year, it’s a really cool moment,” the Cubs’ Bryant said. “I don’t think any pitcher is going to get upset if you do that in that type of situation.

“Certain guys do it. I don’t. It helps certain guys play. I think that’s part of the appeal of the game; you never know what to expect, certain guys are going to celebrate, certain guys aren’t. I’ve never been that type of guy.”

Adds Bradley: “In the Bautista situation, I thought if ever there was a time to flip a bat, it was then. That game was insane. You look at how Toronto reacted, people will remember that for the rest of their lives.”

Conversely, we sure seem to be seeing more fist pumps from pitchers after key outs than ever before. Ever so slowly, even hitters are accepting it.

“I think if something happens to my teammates and it bothers my teammate, then it’s going to bother me too,” Bryant says. “I’m going to have his back whatever it is.

“But if a pitcher is doing that, more fuel to the fire next time. You won’t see any reaction out of me. That’s not the way I’ve ever done things. I’ve been the calm player, go out there and keep everything internally. That’s the way I do it.”

Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson took a wider-lens view. “You look at football, you look at basketball, there’s a lot more celebrating,” he says. “When someone does something well, they celebrate.

“They dance and shimmy in soccer. I played winter ball in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and when you struck out, the pitcher would showboat. When you hit a home run, the hitter would bat flip, pimp it. In that culture, people will accept it.”

It isn’t Pederson’s style, and he says he doesn’t agree or disagree with it.

“I’m not a judge of that,” he said.

Bottom line is, within reason, how can passion be a bad thing?

Why should it be a bad thing?

“I love the way Bryce plays the game,” says Bryant, who, like Harper, is a Las Vegas native who knows Harper’s family well. “It’s entertaining to watch. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, but that’s who he’s always been. It’s not like he’s changing who he is just because he’s a superstar in the big leagues.

“I watched him when he was eight years old and he had so much intensity playing this game. That’s what got him going. I think he played football too growing up, and he has some of that football player’s mentality. Some guys have it. I just played baseball growing up, so I never got into that whole side of things. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. And I don’t think Bryce ever takes it over the top either.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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