Philadelphia Phillies first base Bryce Harper (3) gets ready to hit against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first inning of a baseball game, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
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After a difficult NLDS loss to the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the post-mortems have been pretty negative for the Philadelphia Phillies. Outside of 2nd place NL MVP finisher Kyle Schwarber, 2nd place NL Cy Young finisher Cristopher Sanchez and 5th place NL MVP finisher Trea Turner, no one has escaped scrutiny.
And this projects as a huge offseason for the club. Major cogs like Schwarber, catcher J.T. Realmuto and lefty starter Ranger Suarez are free agents. Ace righty Zack Wheeler is recovering from a significant surgical procedure. Rookies, like OF Justin Crawford are expected to be integrated into the mix without the club missing a beat. But expectations – from the fans, ownership and front office – remain as high as they come. Anything short of a World Series title is a disappointment.
And that’s just fine, for one of the game’s big ticket franchises. One thing you might not want to do, however, is tick off your face of the franchise superstar, Bryce Harper. In his end of the season press conference, team President Dave Dombrowski threw a bit of shade in Harper’s direction, expressing dissatisfaction with his 2025 performance, calling it “merely good, not elite”.
Now Dombrowski has since smoothed things over with Harper, who was a bit irked by the comment. Ultimately, it’s not likely a big deal, though this isn’t Dombrowski’s first rodeo and he should have avoided such clunky language.
But Harper was actually a really good player last season, much better than he’s been given credit for. In my mind, if you would have told me that 23 different NL players would be listed on at least one of the 30 MVP ballots, I would have assumed that Harper clearly would have been one of them. He was not.
About a month ago, I presented my hypothetical NL MVP ballot in this space. I only considered position players, and ranked them in “Tru” Player Runs Above Average (TPRAA) order. That’s a metric I have developed that incorporates batted ball data for offense alongside Fangraphs’ baserunning and defensive data. Harper was the highest ranked Phillie on my list, finishing 8th with 21.0 TPRAA, just ahead of Turner (9th, 20.2) and Schwarber (11th, 19.8).
Now you could basically throw a net over players #5-11, from Pete Crow-Armstrong (22.8 TPRAA) through Schwarber. But all of those guys except for Harper and Brewers’ C William Contreras (10th, 20.1 TPRAA) got actual MVP votes. Why not Bryce?
About the only good answer I can come up with is the wrist injury that limited him to 132 games for the season. All of the top NL MVP finishers played a much higher percentage of their team’s games.
Otherwise, he should have been a fit toward the bottom half of more than one MVP ballot. But in 2025, you apparently have to hit a boatload of homers if you aren’t a patently obvious MVP candidate.
Let’s look at Harper vs. Schwarber. Harper plays a position, and though it isn’t the most important one on the field, he plays it quite well. Not at a Gold Glove level, mind you, but pretty well. His overall -8.2 run defensive adjustment was in the top half of qualifying NL 1Bs. Not great, like I said, but fine.
Schwarber is a DH who is occasionally trotted out to the outfield. His -19.5 defensive adjustment is absymal. But that’s OK, and expected – he’s a pure DH, and brings it with the bat. But it has to be brought into the equation.
The prevailing assumption is that Schwarber had a vastly superior offensive season compared to Harper. And when you’re overly fixated on homers like MVP voters are, you see 56 next to Schwarber’s name and 27 next to Harper’s, and you make a hasty conclusion.
Besides the homers, the largest difference between Schwarber and Harper offensively in 2025 is that the former was a power-before-hit guy and the latter was the more preferable hit-before-power prototype.
Harper’s K rate was in the league average range, his BB rate was over a full standard deviation above average. Schwarber’s K rate was almost a full standard deviation higher, while his BB rate was over two standard deviations higher. All in all, Harper’s K/BB profile was better.
Harper’s pop up rate was over a full standard lower than league average, unusually low for a power hitter. Schwarber’s was over a full standard deviation higher. So Harper’s floor is a lot higher than Schwarber’s, though it doesn’t offset Schwarber’s power advantage.
But while Schwarber’s batted ball data almost completely supports his actual performance (he “should have” batted .243-.358-.545, for 150 “Tru” Production+), Harper was quite unlucky on balls in play.
He had bad fortune on both fly balls (126 Unadjusted vs. 163 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score) and grounders (99 vs. 118). Plus, unlike Schwarber, he is not an extreme ground ball puller, so there was no reason for him to underperform on the ground – it was plain bad luck.
Harper “should have” hit .277-.365-.505 (143 “Tru”+) last season, not as good as Schwarber, but close enough that his defense and baserunning adjustments place him just ahead of his teammate.
And going forward, there’s no doubt which player I’d prefer. Harper’s more nuanced all-around game is likely to age better than Schwarber’s. Both are entering their age 33 season, but Harper plays a position, has a superior floor and a reasonably comparable ceiling. Schwarber has…….homers.
Phils’ fans were a bit alarmed this week by a picture of Harper with a gruff mustache, looking like he just got finished barnstorming with Shoeless Joe Jackson in the Roaring Twenties. I grew up 10 miles from Philly – I know full well that no matter how good the Phils, Eagles, etc., are, there must be some cause for material worry. And sure, there are plenty of consequential baseball decisions to be made this winter. But chill regarding Bryce Harper – he’ll still pretty darned good, and is the least of the Phils’ worries.