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That headline sounds absurd, doesn’t it? The guy already has three All-Star appearances, two postseason appearances, 97 major league home runs and a DVR full of knock-your-breath-away highlight clips.

Seriously, you need more Bryce Harper hype right now probably only slightly more than you need an IRS audit.

He is going to win his first National League MVP award Thursday, and it probably will be unanimous, and it absolutely should be unanimous. (Full disclosure: I had a Baseball Writers’ Association of America NL MVP vote this year and had Harper No. 1 on my ballot.)

But, about this “we’ve seen nothing yet” part of the equation?

Believe it.

Here’s the thing about Harper and the historical season he produced in 2015: It was the first time in his career he played from Opening Day until season’s end without landing on the disabled list.

Going into the summer, we all knew what he could do in spurts. We’ve all seen the hot streaks. But the one part of his game left to our imagination was if he could stay healthy for an entire season, what would it look like?

Boy, did we get our answer.

Some of the statistical hurdles he jumped in his age-22 season have only been cleared before by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Eddie Mathews, Mel Ott, Johnny Bench and Joe DiMaggio. All Hall of Famers.

No player in history has produced 42 home runs and 124 walks in a season as young as Harper since Babe Ruth (54 and 150) did it in his age-25 season in 1920.

No player ever has produced 42 homers, 124 walks and 118 runs scored in his age 22 or younger season, and no player of any age has done it since Barry Bonds in MVP seasons in 2001 (age 36) and 2004 (age 39).

The 42 homers he jack-hammered are the second-most by a left-handed hitter age 22 or younger after Mathews (47 in 1953) and Ott (42 in 1929).

At 22 years and 335 days, Harper became the sixth-youngest player in MLB history to reach the 40-homer plateau in a season after Ott (1929, 20 years, 203 days), Mathews (1953, 21 years, 316 days), Bench (1970, 22 years, 249 days), DiMaggio (1937, 22 years, 285 days) and Juan Gonzalez (1992, 22 years, 331 days), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

In ranking second in the NL in batting average (.330; the Marlins‘ Dee Gordon was first at .333), and first in both on-base percentage (.460) and slugging percentage (.649), Harper narrowly missed winning the “slash” Triple Crown. Only three players as young as Harper have ever won the “slash” Triple Crown: Cobb (1909), Williams (1941) and Stan Musial (1943).

“Two years ago I saw him against Philadelphia and he had a play in the outfield and threw the runner out easy at third base, and [it was such a great play] I was like, ‘I don’t believe he can do that again,'” one longtime scout said. “And he did it again.”

That’s the thing about Harper: He is doing things we haven’t seen before—at least, not in this generation—and he is young enough to keep doing them again and again.

Two specifics distinguished this season from Harper’s first three, both of which he and I discussed in March during a visit at the Nationals‘ spring training camp in Viera, Florida.

The first, of course, was balancing his need to stay off the disabled list with that fine line between playing all out all the time and being smart enough to know when to throttle things back, even if just a tiny bit.

“I just need to be a little smarter, pick my spots, but I’m still going to play hard and play this game the right way,” Harper told me that day.

Consider that item checked off his to-do list.

The second thing that elevated him to historical proportions this season was his soaring on-base percentage: Not only did he reduce his strikeout percentage to 20 percent in ’15 from 26.3 percent in ’14, bur he sharply increased his walk percentage to 19 percent in ’15 from 9.6 percent in ’14.

Most interesting about that is last spring, strikeouts didn’t seem to concern him much.

“My on-base percentage was pretty good,” he told Bleacher Report. “As long as I’m getting on base and doing the things I’m doing, if I strike out, I strike out. That’s just how it is.

“Just like a groundout to third base or a popup to the second baseman. Instead of putting the ball in play, you’re striking out. It’s still an out. If my on-base percentage is still there, that’s the biggest thing. If I get on base, I make things happen. That’s the biggest thing for me.”

Yet his refusal to bite on pitches outside of the strike zone in 2015, elevated to Bondsian-like discipline, is the part of his game that was most noticeable and most responsible for boosting his on-base percentage to .460 in ’15 from .344 in ’14.

One other indicator that the best is yet to come for Harper: Because of his youth, every single pitcher he faced through his first 414 MLB games was older than him. Not until he matched up against Yankees left-hander Jacob Lindgren in early June, in his 415th MLB game, did Harper face a pitcher who was younger than him. Lindgren, 22, was five months younger than Harper at the time.

According to Baseball-Reference.com’s Similarity Scores, the hitters most similar to Harper through their age-22 seasons are Frank Robinson, Tony Conigliaro, Mickey Mantle, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Hank Aaron, Ken Griffey Jr., Orlando Cepeda, Andruw Jones and Cesar Cedeno.

Four of those players—Robinson, Mantle, Aaron and Cepeda—are in the Hall of Fame. Another, Griffey, will be when this year’s Hall election results are announced in January. And Cabrera (32) and Trout (24), at different stages of their careers, are on track.

For all of these reasons, it is reasonable to expect that Harper will improve. And that, as MLB pushes deeper into this century, Harper will continue to emerge as one of the faces of the game who propel it forward.   

“He could be the youngest star to represent the face of the game since Ken Griffey Jr.,” said Blake Rhodes, a longtime media relations director with the San Francisco Giants who now is a vice president in corporate and public affairs for Ketchum Inc., the world’s third-largest public relations firm. “Nike really tied into Griffey in the mid-’90s, especially coming out of the [1994-95] strike.

“He was ‘The Kid.’ He was playful. Harper has a playful side to him, but he’s also intense. Griffey was intense too, but had that million-dollar smile. With Harper, he can come across as more intense, but he’s also got that matinee-idol look.”

It is a good call and an intriguing thought, whether Harper will emerge as this generation’s Griffey Jr. Certainly, both relate to baseball’s younger demographic, which is the lifeblood for the sport’s future.

“There’s some intrigue to Harper,” Rhodes said. “I think people are always curious to see when he takes his hat off, what kind of hairstyle he’s rocking. You also want to see what he does on the baseball field because he does some memorable things. I remember him taking on that wall in Dodger Stadium, and in the division series against the Giants [in 2014], he had some prodigious home runs.

“It’s akin to Griffey back in the day, when it was ‘Let’s see how far he can hit it.’ I was flipping around MLB Network a week-and-a-half ago and they were doing something on Griffey and showed him in the Home Run Derby in Baltimore in ’93 when he hit one to the warehouse and people were just going bananas out there.”

Michael Jordan and LeBron James have since supplanted Griffey Jr. as the chief poster boys at Nike, and other than Derek Jeter, baseball hasn’t produced many national faces. Which isn’t surprising, given the NBA’s surge in popularity in recent years.

“Baseball is such a regionalized sport,” Rhodes said. “Players have more marketability in their region than nationally, from what I’ve found. That’s starting to change a little bit.”

With Harper and the more vanilla Trout, there is a chance that could change a lot in the coming years.

The package that Harper brings with him—incredible talent and a voracious appetite for both the game and success—can help spur that change.

“I want to be an All-Star. That’s huge,” Harper, whose knowledge of and respect for the game’s history is impressive, told me last spring. “To get voted in by the fans as one of the best players in baseball, you want to do that.

“You want All-Star Games and to do Home Run Derbies, and you want to enjoy hanging out with the guys at those things.

“When you’re a little kid, that’s what you dream of. But at the end of the year, you want to be able to place that trophy over your head and kiss that thing every night.”

No doubt, that last part will continue to drive Harper after the Nationals crashed and burned this summer. And after he collects his first NL MVP award, you can count on this: That drive will continue to push Harper to greater heights as he continues to mature, and the game’s best will only get better. It will be something to see.

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

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Immense hype has followed Bryce Harper throughout his young baseball career, but he truly began to fulfill it with a monster 2015 MLB season.

The Washington Nationals star was rewarded by his peers Monday, taking home National League Outstanding Player honors at the Players Choice Awards, the MLB announced:

Harper beat out other worthy finalists in Paul Goldschmidt (Arizona Diamondbacks) and Nolan Arenado (Colorado Rockies) for the accolade. Those around baseball gave Harper the prestigious distinction in a year he matured as a person and player.

Expectations were high for the Nationals and Harper in 2015. Washington was touted as a World Series contender, and Harper did his part to contribute, but turbulence troubled the club in the nation’s capital, leading to the firing of manager Matt Williams at season’s end and uncertainty on the horizon for a talented team.

With a slash line of .330/.460/.649 and 42 home runs to go with 99 RBI, it was nearly impossible for opponents to keep Harper off base—or in the ballpark, for that matter. The only slight negative to Harper’s 2015 campaign was a career-high seven errors in the outfield, which he offset to a degree with nine assists.

Fans of America’s pastime and Washington have reason to have huge hopes for Harper’s future. His teammate, Jayson Werth, described how Harper became more receptive to mentoring as opposed to years past, per the Washington Post‘s Thomas Boswell:

When you’re young or new, it’s tough. … We’ve always loved him. But being who he is, when you’re “That Guy,” especially at that age, it’s hard — nothing is normal. He wasn’t always receptive. … This year, he’s shown the guys in here the intangibles that you think of in an MVP-caliber player.

The 23-year-old phenom is only beginning to realize his potential. Whether Harper can maintain focus amid his latest raging success and push himself to continue improving will determine how great he can be. On pure ability alone, there seems to be no ceiling for Harper’s upside.

It therefore stands to reason Harper will be up for Most Outstanding Player and NL MVP more often than not in his prime. Any seasons in the future that emulate his 2015 performance will be plenty to merit such distinguishing.
 

Note: Advanced stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise indicated.

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The MLB MVP races don’t have the luster of recent memory, given only a handful of candidates were a part of a pennant race despite their teams being rich with high expectations fueled by remarkable talent.

It’s far less enticing than the Cy Young Award conversation where in the National League, there are three worthy winners and in the American League, there is a pair of southpaws that led their teams to snap lengthy playoff droughts. 

Perhaps a slight stride in the 2015 MVP hunt is that there appears to be more variety among vying candidates. Last year, Mike Trout ran away as the unanimous AL winner and Clayton Kershaw got the NL nod with a dominating 21-3 record while claiming his fourth-straight ERA title.

The MVP awards—along with the Cy Young, Rookie and Manager of the Year honors—are administered by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. 

The BBWAA selects two members recommended by the local chapter chairman from each MLB city for each award, tallying 30 total votes. There is no crossover—meaning AL writers vote only for that league award, and same for the NL—and in smaller markets, some members may vote for multiple awards, per the BBWAA.

With the MVP announcement slated for Nov. 19, here is a look at the candidates and predictions.

American League

Trout turned in another phenomenal year, but the reigning MVP may be hindered by his team’s overall struggles and a breakout season from Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson.

Donaldson scored 13.6 percent of Toronto’s MLB-best 891 runs this season, led the AL with 123 RBI and 352 total bases, and tied with Trout for third with 41 homers. He was undoubtedly the best bat in a Blue Jays lineup filled with power and consistency.

Donaldson was an exceptional hitter and defender in four seasons with the Oakland A’s—he was an All-Star in 2014—before being traded last offseason. But his ascension to MVP favorite came at a rapid rate and as somewhat of a surprise given the A’s were willing to let him go in part of an overall rebuild. 

The third baseman could become the first player to win MVP following an offseason trade since the Detroit Tigers’ Willie Hernandez in 1984, according to JP Morosi of FOX Sports.

Donaldson’s peers voted him the overwhelming winner in the Sporting News MLB Player of the Year honors, determined from 387 player votes—of which 150 were for Donaldson. Trout finished sixth with 12 votes.

His Los Angeles Angels were 14-1 odds to win the World Series this spring, per Odds Shark, sixth among the majors after winning 98 games the year prior. They would’ve assuredly been worse without the versatile outfielder, as only two teammates had a FanGraphs WAR of 2.0, the mark of an average position player. Trout’s 9.0 topped the AL with Donaldson second at 8.7.

Handcuffing the five-tool Trout for his team’s struggles might not be fair—and it defies BBWAA protocol—but that’s not why Trout shouldn’t win. It’s because Donaldson was simply the better player, who also happened to play on a better team.

Donaldson winning MVP would leave Trout the runner-up for the third time in his fourth full MLB season, but he’s only 24, is the face of baseball and will assuredly contend for the honor in many years to come.

Prediction: Josh Donaldson

National League

The NL MVP race isn’t nearly as close or varied, with the Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper the clear favorite despite his team failing to reach the postseason as unanimous preseason World Series favorites, per Odds Shark.

Harper blasted a league-high 42 homers and was the batting title bridesmaid with a .330 average. The former first overall draft pick finally lived up to his prodigy pedigree after three seasons of above-average, but not necessarily remarkable, performances forecasted when he entered the league, as Eddie Matz of  indicated:

Harper hasn’t had a bad season since he came to the majors, but this is the first year many feel he has really lived up to his superstar potential. Part of that is patience, he says, sure. But a bigger part is that, for the first time, he has been able to play an entire season.

Harper fulfilled his preseason goal of playing at least 150 games—he reached a career-high 153—in large part to baserunning and defensive discipline. And his presence benefited the Nationals greatly, as he led the majors with a 9.5 WAR, per FanGraphs.

His competition for the award doesn’t seem as stiff as others’ in years past, either. 

There is a trio of starting pitchers—Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke and Kershaw—each worthy of the Cy Young Award, but they probably won’t challenge Harper given the writers awarded Kershaw in a once-in-a-generation selection a year ago when he became the first NL MVP pitcher since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado each had exceptional seasons, but none quite reached Harper’s echelon. Rizzo was the only one among that trio to reach the postseason.

Should writers select Harper, he would be the first NL MVP on a non-playoff team since Albert Pujols won in 2008 with the St. Louis Cardinals. In total, six have won the award since MLB expanded its playoffs in 1994 to incorporate the League Division Series, according to Dayn Perry of CBS Sports. 

And per BBWAA protocol, the performances of Harper’s teammates shouldn’t be a factor in determining the award. 

Prediction: Bryce Harper

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In the 15-year span from 1990-2004, Barry Bonds won the National League‘s Most Valuable Player award seven times. He finished in the top five in MVP voting in five of the other eight years.

Whatever you want to say about how he did it or what became of his legacy, the fact is he was absolutely dominating on the field.

Here’s another Bonds fact: In all those years, and in all the other years in his 22-year major league career, he went to the World Series exactly one time, with the 2002 San Francisco Giants.

Blame it on what you will, but without a doubt it stands as a missed opportunity for the two teams that employed him (the Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates).

The Washington Nationals and Bryce Harper can’t afford to miss their opportunity.

Harper isn’t Bonds, off the field (good thing) or on the field (more debatable). He is the overwhelming favorite to win his first MVP next month, at age 23 (three years ahead of Barry). He’s coming off a season that was arguably the best any player has had since Bonds retired (his Baseball-Reference.com OPS+ of 195 was the best since Bonds).

He’s also coming off a season in which the Nationals were the biggest disappointment in the game and is four years into a career in which the Nats have yet to win a single postseason series.

Maybe Dusty Baker can help.

Baker, as you may have read, is one of the two finalists to succeed Matt Williams as the Nationals manager. He and Bud Black each had a second interview this week, according to reports from CBSSports.com‘s Jon Heyman and others.

Black has an outstanding reputation, from his time in San Diego. Many of the other candidates for the job have fine resumes, too, as does Don Mattingly, who would have been a nice fit but seems headed to the Miami Marlins instead.

Without sitting in on the interviews—sorry, they wouldn’t let me—I’d go with Baker, the one manager who took Bonds to a World Series (they lost, in seven games to the Anaheim Angels).

Baker can deal with superstars, and he can deal with clubhouses that include strong personalities. He would walk in and command the type of respect his former player Williams so obviously didn’t get.

He won with the Giants. He won in Chicago, where he’s still the manager who got the Cubs closer to the World Series than they’ve been in 70 years (six outs away, in 2003). He won in Cincinnati.

He won with Barry Bonds, with Sammy Sosa, with Joey Votto. He can win with Bryce Harper.

The Nationals need to get this one right, and Harper is a big part of the reason.

It’s not that he’s difficult to manage. As one former Nationals coach said this week, “He just wants to play, and wants to win.”

He also wants to get paid. Most players do, and most players who employ Scott Boras as an agent really do. Perhaps the Nationals will be able to pay him what it would take when he’s eligible for free agency after 2018; perhaps they won’t.

It sure would help if they can win before that.

Harper was the one Nationals player to publicly endorse Williams in mid-September (“I love him as a manager,” he told reporters, according to the Washington Post). He was also at the center of Williams’ final embarrassment as manager, when Jonathan Papelbon went after Harper in the dugout and Williams claimed not to notice how bad it was.

Harper is often misunderstood by fans, and sometimes in his own clubhouse, too. The fans part needn’t concern the manager, but he’ll need to take control of the clubhouse part. The Nationals need someone experienced enough to handle it, someone who can keep Harper’s intensity channeled in the right direction and push the rest of the team in the right direction, too.

Whatever the length of the new manager’s contract, he and the Nationals have a three-year window to get it right. They have maybe the best player in the game—a player capable of historic numbers.

It would be an historic missed opportunity if they waste it.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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While it was an easy call to place the likes of Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper on this MLB 2015 Year-End All-Star Team, there were plenty of positions where the decision was far more challenging.

Simply put, there were a ton of spots with two or sometimes even three deserving players.

To figure out which position players would make the grade, stats like average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, extra-base hits, home runs and WAR were all taken into consideration. Defensive production was also considered—especially at shortstop and catcher, the premier defensive spots on the diamond.

When it came to selecting the starting pitcher and closer, stats like ERA, saves, strikeout-per-nine ratio, FIP, xFIP and WAR were all factored into the equation. And after crunching all those numbers, an unexpected ace ended up claiming the starting nod for this team.

Begin Slideshow

A few days after Washington Nationals closer Jonathan Papelbon choked Bryce Harper in the dugout, the face of the franchise once again was getting “choked” by a teammate.

Don’t worry, it was all in good fun this time.

On Sunday, Papelbon and Harper were involved in a dugout altercation during their contest with the Philadelphia Phillies. The incident included Papelbon choking Harper:

The Nationals suspended Papelbon four games for his actions. The team’s suspension was tacked onto the three-game ban the league had already handed down after Papelbon threw at the Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado on Sept. 24, ending the reliever’s season.

Skip ahead to Thursday. That’s when Nationals ace Max Scherzer decided that the “too soon” phase had passed and jokingly choked Harper in the dugout during the club’s road tilt with the Atlanta Braves.

Update: As a reader points out, Scherzer and Harper have done something like this pre-Papelbon incident.

[MLB.com]

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Just when you thought the Washington Nationals couldn’t sink any lower, there they go, plunging to new depths.

Less than 24 hours after they were officially eliminated from postseason contention, the Nats watched Jonathan Papelbon, their mercurial closer, try to choke Bryce Harper, their star player and the potential National League Most Valuable Player—and the rest of us got to watch it, too.

I say “got to.” But at this point, there’s not even much perverse enjoyment to be gleaned from this train wreck. The Nats have gone from a disappointment to a downright embarrassment. The only appropriate response is to shake your head and look away.

The latest incident occurred Sunday in the eighth inning of Washington’s 12-5 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. After Harper flied out to shallow left with the score knotted 4-4 and barely jogged down the first base line, Papelbon had words for his teammate in the dugout.

The exchange quickly escalated and came to an ugly head when Papelbon grabbed Harper by the throat before the two men were separated.

In the ninth, Papelbon took the hill, promptly coughed up the lead and exited to a serenade of boos from the Nationals Park crowd.

After the game, Papelbon attempted to downplay the scuffle.

“I grew up with brothers, he grew up with brothers, I view him as a brother,” Papelbon said of Harper, per ESPN.com. “And sometimes in this game, there’s a lot of testosterone and things spill over.”

Manager Matt Williams told ESPN it is a “family issue” but added that “it’s no fun when stuff like this happens.”

This season hasn’t offered much fun of any kind for the Nationals, who came into spring as prohibitive favorites to win the NL East, with their loaded lineup and star-studded super rotation.

Instead, the New York Mets have whizzed past them, while Washington has crumbled into a fractured heap of undelivered promise.

Even before Papelbon laid his hand on arguably the best hitter in baseball, there was acrimony swirling in the clubhouse.

“It’s a terrible environment,” an unnamed player told Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. “And the amazing part is everybody feels that way.”

Blame can no doubt be spread around. Papelbon, who cemented his status as a classless malcontent while playing for Philadelphia, flashed his colors again on Sunday.

And the bad blood was already brewing between Harper and Papelbon. The pitcher drilled the Baltimore Orioles‘ Manny Machado on Wednesday in apparent retaliation for a home run celebration he deemed too emphatic. Harper responded by calling Papelbon’s tactics “tired,” per FoxSports.com.

But the buck stops with the skipper, and right now, Williams looks like a man with a dagger dangling over his head.

The Nationals won 96 games and the NL East last season under Williams, and the former All-Star third baseman won NL Manager of the Year.

Now, he appears to be losing his grasp on a team in free-fall.

“A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it made any difference,” another player told Svrluga, speaking about the importance of a manager in relation to overall cohesiveness. “But after what we’ve been through for two years? It’s huge. Huge.”

Does that mean Williams will get the axe? Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo left the door wide open, saying he would “evaluate everything that went right and went wrong this season,” per Chris Lingebach of CBS D.C.

Rizzo will have plenty to jot in the “what went wrong” column.

The Nats were bitten by injuries, with Denard Span, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Doug Fister, Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman all making trips to the disabled list. And others, including shortstop Ian Desmond, have significantly underperformed. 

They’ve frequently swallowed their mitts, ranking 22nd in baseball with minus-18 defensive runs saved as of Sunday, per FanGraphs.

And the pitching staff, while not horrible, has failed to measure up to the preseason hype, posting the seventh-best ERA in the NL—almost literally the middle of the pack.

Really, it’s been death by a thousand paper cuts for Washington, as CBSSports.com’s Dayn Perry spelled out:

Again, there’s no singular and obvious shortcoming with the Nats this season. You can’t point to a league-worst offense or a bottom-feeding pitching staff or anything like that. It’s instead been “soft” failures on a number of fronts that have made them the most disappointing team of 2015. 

The Nationals have plenty to build around, including an offensive nucleus of Harper, Rendon and young talent such as Trea Turner. And they have studs in the stable, including Strasburg and Max Scherzer, the latter mostly living up to the massive deal he signed over the winter.

The first step is probably to wave goodbye to Williams and change the clubhouse vibe, symbolically and practically. Then you slap a muzzle on Papelbon (who is signed through 2016) and keep him the hell away from your franchise player’s esophagus. 

That by itself would be a great start.

Sunday might be remembered as the day the Nationals finally, emphatically hit bottom. At least, they’d better hope so.

Because if it gets worse than this, it’s going to be painful to watch.

All statistics and standings current as of Sept. 27 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper hit his 38th and 39th home runs of the season during Tuesday’s 4-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, tying Vladimir Guerrero for fourth place on the franchise single-season home runs list, per Baseball-Reference.com.

Harper started with a solo shot off of Phillies pitcher David Buchanan in the first inning, then drove in the Nationals’ second run with a third-inning single off of Buchanan.

Following a walk in his third at-bat, Harper hit a short two-run homer to left field in the eighth inning against Phillies reliever Adam Loewen.

Harper thus provided all four of the Nationals’ RBI in the victory, improving his team-high total to 90 for the year.

Already tied for fourth place with Guerrero’s 2002 campaign, Harper needs three more homers to match Guerrero’s 1999 season (42 homers) for third place on the single-season franchise homers list.

Guerrero also holds second place with 44 homers (2000), but Alfonso Soriano’s 46 home runs in 2006—his only season with the Nationals—are good for the all-time Nationals/Expos record.

Already a favorite for the MVP award despite his team’s late-season struggles, the 22-year-old Harper needs seven more home runs to match Soriano’s record.

He also needs just two more homers to pass Alex Rodriguez for fourth place on the list for most home runs before a player’s 23rd birthday, per Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN Stats & Info).

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Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper is the National League‘s Most Valuable Player, and there really shouldn’t be any debate.

But, of course, there is. This is baseball we’re talking about, and a baseball award no less—there will always be disagreement. That’s part of the fun.

Honestly, though, Harper’s MVP case is about as open-and-shut as they come.

Entering play Tuesday, Harper owns a .333/.464/.652 slash line to go along with 37 home runs. He leads MLB with 9.19 WAR, per ESPN.com. His 199 OPS+, a stat that adjusts for park and era, is the best mark since Barry Bonds in 2004, per Baseball-Reference.

By virtually any measure, Harper has been the top player in the Senior Circuit and arguably all of baseball—period.

The only knock against the brash outfielder, if you consider it a knock, is that he plays for a team that almost certainly won’t make the playoffs.

After entering the season as odds-on favorites to run away with the NL East, the Nationals have been a bundle of injury and inconsistency. Disappointing doesn’t begin to describe the state of affairs in the nation’s capital.

Yes, technically the Nats—who sit at 73-70 after an 8-7 win Monday over the Philadelphia Phillies—are mathematically alive.

Baseball Prospectus, however, gives them less than a 1 percent chance of reaching the postseason—and that might be generous.

So Washington is done. Stick a proverbial fork in ’em. That does nothing to diminish what Harper has accomplished at the tender age of 22.

It’s not his fault Washington’s vaunted super-rotation has failed to deliver on the hype or that the bats around him have mostly gone frigid.

If anything, Harper’s output is more staggering when you consider the rest of Washington’s offense has been hobbled by ailments and underperformance.

“You can cry over spilled milk, but having guys injured and out of the lineup, the guys that generally hit in front of him, puts him at a disadvantage in that regard,” manager Matt Williams said, per Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. “To his credit, he’s stayed the course and done really well, regardless of the situation.”

Yet, fair or not, MVP winners usually hail from playoff-bound squads.

Of the 30 MVPs crowned in both leagues since 2000, only five have come from clubs that didn’t qualify for the postseason. The last time it happened was in 2008, when Albert Pujols won the award in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.

In laying out the criteria for MVP, the Baseball Writers Association of America leaves things open-ended:

There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.

The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:

1.  Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.

2.  Number of games played.

3.  General character, disposition, loyalty and effort. …

Frequently, though, voters favor players who put up big numbers on a team that ascends to baseball’s biggest stage.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. If it’s a toss-up between a guy who stuffed the stat sheet for a mediocre club and one whose gaudy figures propelled his franchise to October, use that as a tiebreaker by all means.

But in Harper’s case, there’s no tie to break. He is the unambiguous winner, even with a few weeks left in the regular season.

Are other NL players enjoying superlative campaigns? Of course.

Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks (.316/.431/.554 slash line, 28 home runs), Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds (.313/.460/.553, 27 home runs) and the San Francisco Giants‘ Buster Posey (.327/.391/.483, 17 home runs) warrant mention.

But if you’re going to disqualify Harper for his team’s shortcomings, those three are out as well.

Among likely NL playoff clubs, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates (.299/.401/.509, 22 home runs) and the Chicago Cubs‘ Anthony Rizzo (.278/.388/.523, 29 home runs) belong in the conversation.

And Zack Greinke (1.61 ERA, 200.2 innings pitched) could become the second Los Angeles Dodgers hurler in as many years to snag MVP honors, following in the footsteps of Clayton Kershaw, who’s having another dominant year of his own.

Look at all of those numbers again, though, and then look at Harper’s. No one bumps him off the leaderboard.

OK, here’s the part where we have to talk about Yoenis Cespedes. The Cuban slugger has gone on a tear since the New York Mets acquired him at the trade deadline, and the Mets have concurrently left the Nationals sputtering in the dust.

There’s poetry to it, no question.

And there’s media momentum. Fox Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi and MLB.com’s Richard Justice have each recently elucidated Cespedes‘ case. Here’s how Morosi propped up his argument:

When filling out MVP ballots in the past, I’ve considered the context of individual teams and leagues. I tend to think of the MVP as the player whose outstanding performance had the greatest impact on the division races. One could argue that — despite spending only two regular-season months with the Mets — Cespedes is the player most responsible for flipping the NL East race between early August and now.

Cespedes is indeed raking. In 41 games with New York, he’s hit 17 home runs and tallied 42 RBI. And the pitching-rich but formerly punchless Mets have gone 30-11 since he joined the party in Queens.

That’s valuable all right. But most valuable?

Whatever Cespedes does from here to the finish line, he will have played only two months and change in the National League. Yes, his overall numbers between New York and the Detroit Tigers are also excellent, but if you’re going to toss that in, what’s the point of awarding an MVP in each league?

To put it another way: What if a kid got called up from Triple-A in early August and proceeded to catch fire, carrying his club to the playoffs? Would he deserve MVP votes over someone who’d produced for the duration of the MLB slate?

Harper, unquestionably, has been the most consistently valuable player in the NL from the word “go.” Sure, the Nats are barely hanging around .500 with him, but imagine where they’d be without him.

And so we return to the part where this is all subjective and open to debate. Argue if you want, and have fun while you’re at it.

But unless and until the BBWAA alters its MVP criteria and gives specific preference to players on playoff teams, it should be about who had the best season in each league—period.

All statistics current as of Sept. 14 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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Tsk tsk, Mets fans.

All it took was one—one decent regular season for you to go full Bawston.

You get a couple of good pitchers on your team and all of a sudden you’re Ben Affleck stumbling around outside O’Flannigan’s and pounding your chest on social media.

All poor Bryce Harper wanted was to share a moment of light he found in the dark, dark hole the Washington Nationals have slid into, and you couldn’t even let him do that.

Just take a look at Harper’s Instagram. It’s not a photo page anymore—not after New York completed its three-game sweep of the Nationals on Wednesday night.

Now it’s just a parking lot where Mets fans come to do wheelies and ram shopping carts into parked cars:

Maybe one out of every 20 comments isn’t “#LGM” (“Let’s go Mets”):

Got ’em!

The thing is, I get where Mets fans are coming from. Their team is exciting. I’d watch Jacob deGrom throw fastballs until the sun burns out. He’s like a giant Cocker spaniel with unpredictable action.

But still, maybe pump the brakes a tad. The Nationals are already dead. You can’t kill them again.

Dan is on Twitter. Never go full Bawston. 

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