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Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout stated Wednesday he’s not interested in showing up an opposing pitcher despite comments from fellow sensation Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals about baseball being a “tired” game.

Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times passed along comments from Trout, who explained he would be upset if he was a pitcher and a hitter showboated against him. It isn’t a stance meant to stir up controversy with Harper or anybody else; it’s just the way he sees the situation:

We mess around in the cage and stuff. During the game, I just hit the ball and go. I go out there and try to respect the game. I go out there and play. My parents always taught me to be humble.

Baseball’s so-called unwritten rules have been the source of a polarizing debate since Harper made comments about the lack of emotion allowed in the sport.

The 23-year-old reigning National League MVP told Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine earlier in March that players should have more freedom to express themselves in order to energize the game:

Baseball’s tired. It’s a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself. You can’t do what people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that’s Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig—there’s so many guys in the game now who are so much fun.

Harper used Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez as an example. He loves how the starting pitcher, who’s a division rival, isn’t afraid to stare down a hitter after a big strikeout.

New York Yankees legend Goose Gossage doesn’t see it the same way. The 64-year-old former pitcher doesn’t think Harper shows enough respect for the game, per ESPN 1000 (via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post):

What does this kid know? This kid doesn’t know squat about the game and [has] no respect for it. Here he is making millions of frickin’ dollars; that’s great. I’m happy for all the players and all the money that they’re making, because it’s hard-earned by all the players that came before these guys. Ninety percent of these guys never went through a strike, a work stoppage. They don’t know the blood sweat and tears that has been spent on what these guys are making. All we wanted was a piece of the pie. Marvin Miller did that, Curt Flood, from on up. My career started out on the first strike in 1972, and it ended in the last one in 1994, when we lost a World Series, which should have never happened, but it did. … We fought for everything these players are getting. So let me tell [Harper] something: Go look at the history, figure it out, and quit acting like a fool.

While it’s been viewed mostly as a generational gap, Trout’s comments show it doesn’t break directly down those lines.

Trout and Harper are two of the players leading baseball into the next generation. Finding a way to reinvigorate the game is a legitimate source of debate because of fading television ratings, but the Angels outfielder clearly doesn’t think more showmanship is the way to go.

That said, it’s hard to argue Harper’s main point of baseball needing more energy. The entertainment value increases when a player like Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista, who’s also been verbally attacked by Gossage, flips his bat or Hernandez barks at a hitter after getting an important out.

The main question is whether that’s a sign of disrespect or merely competitive fire showing through. Trout and Harper are likely going to play each other in a lot of key games over the next 15 years, especially if they eventually land in the same league, and those contrasting styles will be on full display.

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By Thursday afternoon, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred may have wanted to wash Bryce Harper’s mouth out with soap. Or, at least, rub it down with pine tar.

That’s because the 23-year-old Harper, one of the sport’s stars, criticized baseball for its unwritten rules that condemn celebration of most kinds. Harper has been slammed for not abiding by these rules. The extent of his comments can be found in an ESPN The Magazine profile titled: “Sorry Not Sorry.”

“Baseball’s tired,” Harper told Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine. “It’s a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself. You can’t do what other people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair.”

While publicly Manfred may have to admonish Harper, privately baseball’s boss should concede the truth in those comments. And to them I say: “Amen.”

Baseball has an image problem, among other issues, that has alienated a younger generation that yearns for personality from its sports stars. In the NFL, Cam Newton and Aaron Rodgers are known for their touchdown celebrations. Thanks to the NBA’s Steph Curry, the shimmy is in vogue. In the NHL, players celebrate after every goal.

Major League Baseball admonishes any demonstrative behavior.

A sport that quivers at the idea of a playoff game coinciding with a regular-season football game—or even a top-notch college football game—needs to rethink its outdated values.

Show up a pitcher and a player gets thrown at. Pump your fists on the mound and benches may clear. Baseball lacks the personality its professional counterparts have used to help market and grow their sports.

For no apparent reason.

When a pitcher hangs a curveball and it’s smacked 500 feet, Jose Bautista should flip his bat. When a reliever pitches out of a bases-loaded jam, I want to see him celebrate on the mound. You may see me write this multiple times in this space: Sports is the best in unscripted reality television.

No one cares about the hurt feelings of professional baseball players—only the feelings of triumph. We watch the doldrums of the baseball season in the hopes of seeing greatness: a perfect game, a cycle, a walk-off home run or an acrobatic defensive play. Let the players celebrate those accomplishments in a way that fans can embrace.

This is the age of smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, GIFs and Vines. Everything is captured and disseminated. Baseball has the opportunity to grow and promote itself.

It also has young, trendy players like Harper with which to partner. Let these players be themselves—primarily as the NBA has done. Allow the natural relationship between MLB‘s young players and social media to help grow the sport.

There are those grumpy traditionalists, like Goose Gossage, who are outspoken and in favor of baseball’s unwritten rules.

“Bautista is a f–king disgrace to the game,” Gossage told ESPN on Thursday. “He’s embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto. [Yoenis] Cespedes, same thing.”

Guys like Gossage, though, are far better off bloviating to a publication like AARP The Magazine. Baseball needs to progress, not stay stuck in its version of a Victorian Era.

I’ll disagree with one thing Harper said: Baseball can drag.

The sport has acknowledged its pace-of-play issues. To Manfred’s credit, he is trying to remedy the situation with new rules. But an attitude change would benefit the sport far more by making it more interesting for viewers regardless of how long the games last.

Someone of Harper’s stature needed to speak candidly on this issue. There are those who might say he is the reigning National League MVP and, as such, needs to align with the league. I think he needs to speak out because of it.

As players are asked about Harper’s comments over the coming days, I hope they support one of the sport’s outspoken young leaders. These players need to connect baseball with their contemporaries.

Baseball needs to eliminate its general sensitivity. Respect the sport’s forefathers. But, at the same time, acknowledge their antiquated values.

Until it does, this issue will linger. Younger players may revolt, like Harper, while some make a plea for change. But as the baseball world asks itself whether it needs to allow for more unrestrained emotion, I’ll pull another Harper quote:

“That’s a clown question, bro.”

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen and like his Facebook page.

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Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper is one of the flashiest and most exciting players in Major League Baseball, and the reigning National League MVP is hopeful his style will become more commonplace.

In an interview with Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine, the 23-year-old superstar called baseball a “tired sport” and stressed the importance of allowing young players to show their personality:

You can’t do what people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that’s Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig—there’s so many guys in the game now who are so much fun.

Harper specifically pointed toward Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez as the type of player whom others should emulate in order to make the game more fun:

Jose Fernandez is a great example. Jose Fernandez will strike you out and stare you down into the dugout and pump his fist. And if you hit a homer and pimp it? He doesn’t care. Because you got him. That’s part of the game. It’s not the old feeling—hoorah … if you pimp a homer, I’m going to hit you right in the teeth. No. If a guy pimps a homer for a game-winning shot … I mean—sorry.

To bolster his argument that baseball is behind the curve when it comes to excitement, Harper provided examples of athletes in other sports who draw people in and make them want to play their particular sports rather than baseball: “You want kids to play the game, right? What are kids playing these days? Football, basketball. Look at those players—Steph Curry, LeBron James. It’s exciting to see those players in those sports. Cam Newton—I love the way Cam goes about it. He smiles, he laughs. It’s that flair. The dramatic.”

San Francisco Giants pitcher Sergio Romo didn’t agree with Harper’s comments, saying, “Don’t put your foot in your mouth when you’re the face of the game and you just won the MVP. I’m sorry, but just shut up,” per Carl Steward of the Bay Area News Group (via Bill Baer of NBCSports.com).

Harper’s theory seems to carry some weight, as an April 2015 article by Marc Fisher of the Washington Post, citing the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, reported that youth baseball participation dropped by three percent in the previous five years.

Baseball—perhaps more so than any other sport—operates largely on tradition. It is a big reason why it took instant replay such a long time to be instituted.

There is also a set of unwritten rules that results in players getting punished for showing up their opponents, and that likely plays a big role in why more players aren’t as brash as Harper.

Baseball has long been known as America’s favorite pastime, but there is no question it has been surpassed in popularity, especially by football.

Harper’s theory about more excitement leading to more viewership and participation makes plenty of sense, but it may take a total culture change within the sport to break through the glass ceiling that is currently limiting it.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Bryce Harper doesn’t squat with an exercise ball.

He squats on one.

On Friday, the Washington Nationals star gave the world another reminder of what a freak athlete he is.

A year after winning the National League MVP, the 23-year-old slugger will look to use what he’s done in the weight room to carry Washington back into the postseason.

[Instagram]

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At 23 years old, Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper is becoming the face of Major League Baseball. He’s a three-time All-Star in just four seasons in the majors and is the reigning National League MVP after a campaign in which he hit .330 with 42 home runs and 99 RBI.

Although he won’t be a free agent until the 2018 season concludes, there is talk that he could become the game’s first $400 million player—which would easily surpass Giancarlo Stanton’s record $325 million, 13-year contract. On Thursday, Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier of 106.7 The Fan in Washington, D.C., asked him about the possibility of receiving a record-breaking contract in an interview that will air Friday (h/t Chris Lingebach of CBS DC). Harper replied:

Yeah, I mean I don’t really think about that stuff. I just try to play the years out and do everything I can to help my team win. But don’t sell me short. That’s what you’re doing right now to me, so don’t do that.

I’m looking forward to just playing this year, just looking forward to playing the next couple years. And I think all that stuff will play out.

While he sounded humble in the beginning of the answer, his brazen side came out when hinting that $400 million may not be where his contract tops out. It would be quite a jump from the $5 million he is set to make next year, per Spotrac.com.

Of course, being humble is hard when you are anointed the sport’s next big superstar before your senior year of high school. His fiery attitude and talent have carried him far in the game, but he has also rubbed some people the wrong way, including teammate Jonathan Papelbon, who choked Harper in the dugout near the end of last season.

However, the outfielder is young, still learning how to be a professional and putting up numbers the game has rarely seen for someone of his age. He was the youngest player to unanimously win the MVP award, as well as the youngest since 1969 to hit three home runs in a game.

Ace of MLB Stats put his 2015 season into perspective:

He has yet to enter his prime and has 97 home runs and 248 RBI in 510 games while sporting an impressive .289/.384/.517 slash line. Here’s a visual of his short career, per Daren Willman of MLB.com:

It’s debatable whether MLB contracts are getting out of hand, but if the market dictates it, there is little doubt that Harper will be worth at least $400 million when he is a 25-year-old free agent.

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What’s scarier than Bryce Harper? How about Bryce Harper stacked on top of Yoenis Cespedes?

Not literally, of course, although that would indeed be scary. As a middle-of-the-lineup duo for the Washington Nationals or anyone else, however, it’s tough to imagine a more fearsome twosome.

As of January 12, Cespedes still doesn’t have a job. Someone is going to pay him to play baseball next season, but it’s unclear who that will be.

That’s been the nature of this winter’s hitters market, which has developed more slowly than an unshaken Polaroid. In addition to Cespedes, five-tool 28-year-old Justin Upton and reigning MLB home run leader Chris Davis, among others, sat unsigned entering Tuesday.

As for the Nats/Cespedes connection, it’s mostly speculative. On Dec. 31, CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman posited Washington as a possible landing spot for the Cuban slugger, but he quoted a team-connected source as saying, “Probably not, at least not at the moment.”

The Nationals have since acquired center fielder Ben Revere from the Toronto Blue Jays for reliever Drew Storen. With Harper ensconced in right field, veteran Jayson Werth in left and youngster Michael Taylor also in the mix, it might seem like there’s no room for Cespedes.

Werth, though, is coming off an injury-marred campaign that saw him hit just .221 with a .685 OPS in 88 games. Taylor is a talented but unproven commodity. And Revere, while a nice ancillary addition, is several notches below elite.

Cespedes, meanwhile, would immediately and measurably move the Nats’ offensive needle northward. And, again, pairing him with Harper would create a duo that would cause opposing pitchers to wake in a cold sweat, mumbling about fastballs deposited into the stratosphere.

Here’s a number: 16.2. That’s what you get when you combine Harper’s MLB-leading 9.5 WAR and Cespedes’ No. 7-ranked 6.7 tally, per FanGraphs.

If you don’t love WAR, you can add up Harper’s 42 home runs and Cespedes’ 35. Or Harper’s 99 RBI and Cespedes’ 105. Or—well, you get the idea. These are two of the premier mashers in the game, no matter which measure you choose. 

Cespedes makes his presence felt in the field as well. He has a howitzer arm and was the best defensive left fielder in baseball last season. 

“He’s got all the tools, that’s for sure,” said Michael Cuddyer of his then-New York Mets teammate last August, per John Harper of the New York Daily News. “He’s like Home Depot.”

Cespedes arrived in New York at the trade deadline and proceeded to go on an otherworldly tear, propelling the Mets to their first postseason appearance since 2006.

Now, after signing former Met Daniel Murphy, the Nationals could twist the knife in the defending National League champs by nabbing Cespedes.

Yes, there are risks. As Eno Sarris noted at ESPN.com, the projection systems are foretelling a significant decline at the plate for Cespedes next season. And as the New York Daily News‘ Harper outlined, “Cespedes has been dogged by whispers that he’s a bit of a diva who has done things his way in the past and hasn’t been the most coachable player in the game.”

That alone is a red flag for a club that’s trying to pick up the pieces of a lost season, one that bloomed with hype and promise and withered with inconsistency and infighting.

But new skipper Dusty Baker, legitimate criticisms aside, is an accomplished players’ manager who has worked with outsized personalities ranging from Barry Bonds to Sammy Sosa. Surely, he could juggle the egos of Cespedes and Harper and retain a modicum of clubhouse harmony.

The most talked-about aspect of the Nationals’ 2015 collapse was the team’s less-than-advertised super-rotation. But an offense that posted the second-lowest batting average in the NL after the All-Star break didn’t help.

Will Washington actually land Cespedes? It seems less likely after the Revere trade, but the Nationals did make a serious run at Jason Heyward before he signed for eight years and $184 million with the Chicago Cubs, meaning a nine-figure offer for an outfielder isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

Should it happen? Doubters can debate the merits of giving eye-popping years and dollars to the 30-year-old Cespedes. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe reported the figure “being bandied” is six years and around $150 million. That’s a major investment.

Remember, though, Harper could become a free agent as soon as 2019, and right-hander Stephen Strasburg may bolt after this season. 

The time is now for the perennially underachieving Nats. The window won’t stay open forever. Which means it’s time to get bold, get scary and, why not, get Cespedes. 

All statistics and contract information courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Anybody who has watched Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper in his first four years in the majors knows he has incredible strength.

As this video shows, the 2015 National League Most Valuable Player wasn’t just born with the ability to crush 450-foot home runs. He puts in the work in the weight room.

Harper took to Instagram on Friday afternoon to give fans a look at one of his offseason workouts.

In case you haven’t tried it before, dead-lifting 500 pounds is no easy task.

The rest of Major League Baseball better watch out. Harper (42 home runs, 38 doubles and a .649 slugging percentage in 2015) is already at the top of the NL at just 23 years old—and he’s only getting stronger.

[Bryce Harper]

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It was about time someone made a song honoring Bryce Harper.

On Wednesday, rapper Wale did the honors. Always one to throw out sports references in his lyrics, the Washington, D.C., native included all types of baseball analogies in the three-minute song appropriately titled “MVP.”

The beat goes pretty hard, and Wale flows over it well. Here’s the chorus:

Got the streets talking, when I swing on me.

Do my thing all year. You know the season long as s–t.

Got the seats all filled. I’m the reason y’all here.

Errybody talking, feel like I’m Bryce Harper.

Stephen Strasburg, Dusty Baker, Scott Van Pelt and the late Stuart Scott all get name-dropped, too.

Take a listen below (Warning: NSFW lyrics): 

[SoundCloud]

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Close your eyes, Washington Nationals fans, and picture it: Bryce Harper and Jason Heyward, two of the game’s most dynamic young players, roaming the outfield together.

It’s far from a sure thing, but it’s also not an impossible dream.

The rumor, which dropped as the winter meetings were wrapping up in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday, came courtesy of CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman:

Heyman added Heyward is “said to have a $200 million offer,” more likely from St. Louis or Washington than from the Chicago Cubs—the outfielder’s other possible suitor. Heyman mentioned a possible unnamed fourth interested party as well.

That figure is no surprise. The 26-year-old Heyward is one of the winter’s most coveted free agents. If Zack Greinke and David Price can sail past the $200 million mark, why not him?

And remember, the Nats were the team that swooped in and signed right-hander Max Scherzer last offseason for $210 million to cap off their supposed super-rotation.

Scherzer pitched well, twirling a pair of no-hitters, but the Nationals’ season crumbled into a heap of injury and infighting.

Now, they’ve got a shot at redemption. Why not aim for it with a super outfield, anchored by a pair of legit five-tool studs? Call them the 10-tool twosome. 

There are a lot of ways to illustrate how good a Harper-Heyward tandem would be. While wins above replacement (WAR) is an imperfect stat, it works just fine here.

By FanGraphs’ measure, Harper paced the field in WAR with a 9.5 mark. Heyward, meanwhile, checked in at No. 17 in the game with 6.0 WAR. That combined 15.5 mark would have been the highest of any two teammates in the game, eclipsing the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Clayton Kershaw (8.6) and Greinke (5.9), who combined for 14.5 WAR.

Harper was the superior hitter last year in his breakout National League MVP season, as he cracked 42 home runs with an eye-popping 1.109 OPS. But Heyward turned in a well-rounded offensive performance of his own, posting a .293/.359/.439 slash line and stealing 23 bases.

Oh, and he was the best defensive right fielder in the game.

Speaking of which, right field in the nation’s capital is currently occupied by Harper, who started 139 of his 151 games there. His other starts came in center field, but the more likely move would be to put Heyward there. 

Heyward started only eight games in center in 2015, but the three-time Gold Glove winner’s range and leather are more than adequate to man the position full time. Or, at least, until veteran Jayson Werth—who is owed $42 million over the next two seasons—vacates his outfield spot.

As long as we’re looking down the road, it’s worth asking if sinking big bucks into Heyward would preclude the Nationals from locking up Harper when he hits the market after the 2018 season. It’s entirely possible the answer is “yes.”

But here’s another perspective: The Nats might not be able to sign Harper at that point—Heyward or not. Remember, Harper just turned 23 in October, meaning he’ll be slightly younger than Heyward is now when he inevitably tests free agency, and he will have likely put up gaudier numbers.

With deep-pocketed suitors such as the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and basically everyone else with two nickels to rub together lining up, Harper could land a deal that makes Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 million pact with the Miami Marlins look like couch-cushion change.

A similar argument can be made about right-hander Stephen Strasburg, who will become a free agent next winter, as Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal noted:

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. For this season, and the next couple of seasons, a Harper-Heyward union has the potential to rock the MLB world. These are generational talents. And while nothing is guaranteed, putting them in the same dugout could be one of the more face-meltingly awesome experiments in recent baseball history.

Would it be enough to propel Washington past the defending NL champion New York Mets and their stellar young rotation? There’s no telling, though the fact that Heyward has tagged Mets pitchers to the tune of a .917 career OPS has to make the Washington faithful smile a little.

They’ll be smiling a lot if this rumor turns out to have legs. Sure, it may be another hot-stove mirage—one of many pulse-raising scenarios that remain forever in hypothetical limbo.

“Heyward to D.C.” didn’t sound probable in mid-November if you listened to Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo.

“I wouldn’t think we’d be big players for one of the big free-agent outfielders,” Rizzo said at the time, per James Wagner of the Washington Post. “We like the three guys that we have. We think Michael Taylor is going to be a terrific major league player.”

A lot can change in a month, especially this time of year. And it has, if the chatter is to be believed.

So go ahead and close your eyes, Nats fans. You had a rough season. You deserve to dream big.

All statistics and contract information current as of Dec. 11 and courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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A few months ago, Bryce Harper entered 2015 looking to silence the many doubters who thought he was, at worst, a huge disappointment or, at best, overrated.

If nothing the Washington Nationals star right fielder did throughout his phenomenal 2015 campaign could, him winning the National League Most Valuable Player should do the trick.

It was hardly a surprise when the news came down on Thursday. Though Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto were technically in the running for the NL MVP next to Harper, there was little question that the award was going to be his in a landslide.

It was just a question of how big of a landslide it was going to be, and it turned out to be unanimous.

At just 22 years and 353 days old on the final day of the regular season, Harper is the third-youngest player ever to win the NL MVP, behind only Johnny Bench in 1970 and Stan Musial in 1943. But of all the unanimous winners in the history of the MVP, he stands alone as the youngest.

And now for a point that is very, very, very hard to argue: Harper deserves every bit of the satisfaction he’s now feeling.

Harper’s 2015 season was, after all, nothing short of stupendous. All he did was hit .330 while co-leading the NL in home runs with 42 and leading all of baseball in on-base percentage (.460), slugging percentage (.649) and OPS (1.109). In the eyes of OPS+, a version of OPS adjusted for league average, Harper’s 2015 season was the best offensive performance since Barry Bonds’ 2004 campaign.

Throw in solid work on the basepaths and on defense, and Harper also topped all other position players in wins above replacement, whether you ask Baseball-Reference.com or FanGraphs.

In all, the only argument against Harper’s victory is that the Nationals didn’t make the playoffs. But that’s not a prerequisite for winning the MVP, nor is it a legitimate criticism of the season Harper just had.

For that matter, there are no legitimate criticisms of the season Harper just had.

This, of course, is the first time in Harper’s major league career that we’ve been able to say such a thing.

Two years after the Nationals drafted him No. 1 overall, Harper was good enough to win Rookie of the Year in 2012. Even still, he often looked like a rookie throughout the year. He was good again in 2013, but he was often hurt and was inconsistent down the stretch. In 2014, it was the same story.

By the end of that year, you could apparently look at Harper’s .816 career OPS and feel underwhelmed. His fellow players sure did, anyway, voting him baseball’s most overrated player in an ESPN the Magazine poll at the outset of 2015. At the time, you could wade into virtually any comments section and get the sense that fans felt the same way.

Harper’s response? Well, he just sort of clicked.

It wasn’t any one thing that led to Harper’s monster season. One guy who’s well aware of this is Nationals hitting coach Rick Schu, per Bill Ladson of MLB.com:

It was a combination of things as to why Harper had a great year. The No. 1 thing is that he stayed healthy. This past season, he was able to get comfortable with his hands. He was able to take the pitch that was given him. He was going line to line. I think his confidence really helped him with everything—pitch selection and taking his walk. He really slowed things down.

Harper staying healthy was indeed the No. 1 thing. After playing in only 218 games total in 2013 and 2014 because of injuries, he experienced only minor aches and pains on his way to playing in 153 games in 2015. If nothing else, this afforded him a chance to settle into a rhythm.

But Harper made tangible changes as well, most notably with his plate discipline. When looking at his Zone% and O-Swing% rates—those being how often he saw pitches in the strike zone and how often he swung at pitches outside the strike zone—Schu’s point about Harper’s learning to take pitches rings true:

In 2015, pitches in the zone continued to come infrequently for Harper. But because he stopped obliging pitchers by chasing their junk, he drew a ton of walks (19.0 BB%) and reaped the benefits of keeping his swings confined mainly to the strike zone.

Like, for example, a career-high 40.9 hard-hit rate and, by extension, slugging percentages over .800 to right field, center field and left field.

Such is the technical explanation for how Harper went from being a solid hitter to being the game’s most dangerous hitter. The more practical explanation is that he became more than just an incredible bundle of raw talent. For the first time in his career, Harper played with his body and his head.

As much as anything, this would appear to be related to how Harper’s head was finally in the right place in 2015.

Beyond his inconsistency, one of the problems Harper’s critics had with him before his big breakout was that he acted too big for his britches. He often came off like a walking, talking ego. When he got into a dugout scrap with Jonathan Papelbon at the end of 2015, it looked like maybe nothing had changed.

Either that, or the Papelbon confrontation was an anomaly. Teammate Ian Desmond saw an improvement in Harper’s attitude, per James Wagner of the Washington Post:

He learned from the negative stuff he was doing a couple years ago. Beyond what happened at the end of the year, no one talked about Bryce Harper not running the bases hard. He was playing the game the right way. At the end of the year, emotions are high, and that [fight with Papelbon] just surfaced from basically nothing. All year long, he played the game the right way and carried himself like a professional.

Looking back, it’s almost as if Harper chose to stop and listen to every last critique that was being hurled his way, and that his 2015 season was his way of saying, “This is what you want me to be? OK, then.”

And now that Harper’s 2015 season is in the bag, it’s amazing how different his career looks. Beyond placing him among today’s elite players, Ace of MLB Stats couldn’t help but notice that Harper’s 2015 campaign elevated him to a pretty special place among the all-time elites:

Mind you, this is not to suggest that Harper is destined to have a career that will rival that of Hammerin’ Hank. He has a lot of baseball ahead of him, and we’re obligated to grant that anything could happen.

But for now, at least, things are definitely looking up. For anyone who dared to peg him as such, Harper is no longer a disappointment. Or overrated.

Nope. He’s now an MVP and everything that anyone ever wanted him to be.

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

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