SI.com article on 16 year-old Bryce Harper (1 Viewer)

[Drunken Cowboy]

I agree they will want to see him in AAA and wait until June for $$ reasons.I think the plan (or my prediction of the plan, anyway) is to let LaRoche show he's healthy, trade him for a bag of balls in early June, and move Morse to first, which opens up LF for Harper.

LaRoche doesn't start hitting until at least June.

 

[Annyong]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

 

[boubucarow]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

 

[Dr. Awesome]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

Define mediocre.

 

[Wrigley]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

 

[Annyong]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

didnt he hit like .250 something last year?

 

[the moops]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

didnt he hit like .250 something last year?

297

 

[scrumptrulescent]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

didnt he hit like .250 something last year?

.297Loved being a Hagerstown Sun, struggled a little more as a Harrisburg Senator.

 

[dgreen]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of STCould be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

didnt he hit like .250 something last year?

.297Loved being a Hagerstown Sun, struggled a little more as a Harrisburg Senator.

He's typically struggled early on each level. He struggled early in Hagerstown and then made a mockery of that league. He struggled early at Harrisburg and then improved before having his season end early with a hamstring. Unless he starts off in Harrisburg this year, we won't really know how he would have ultimately fared in AA. He then went on to start a bit slowly in the AFL before dominating that competition, too.

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

Keep hearing from the Nats just how much they want this kid to make the club out of ST

Could be coach speak, but as a Harper owner, I've got wood.

He will be very mediocre this yesr

No, extremely mediocre.

and...............why?

didnt he hit like .250 something last year?

.297Loved being a Hagerstown Sun, struggled a little more as a Harrisburg Senator.

He's typically struggled early on each level. He struggled early in Hagerstown and then made a mockery of that league. He struggled early at Harrisburg and then improved before having his season end early with a hamstring. Unless he starts off in Harrisburg this year, we won't really know how he would have ultimately fared in AA. He then went on to start a bit slowly in the AFL before dominating that competition, too.

Decent article about this on rotowire:

I first wrote about aggressive promotions back in July and how it can work either way for some prospects. Clearly, Frank Thomas had no problem making the leap from Double-A to the majors, but Alex Gordon suffered from not getting experience in Triple-A and has just now gotten to the level people thought he would be at when he was originally drafted.

I bring this up again because Davey Johnson is once again talking about Bryce Harper opening up the 2012 season as the starting right fielder. Harper turned 19 years old this past October after hitting .297/.392/.501 across Low-A and Double-A for the Nationals. He skipped High-A due to a mixture of talent as well as the poor conditions of the home park for that field and hit .256/.329/.395 for Harrisburg in 147 plate appearances. If Harper were to indeed start and stick with the Nationals, he would become the first 19-year-old to accumulate 400 plate appearances in a season since Edgar Renteria in 1996. Renteria played in 106 games that season for the Marlins and hit .309/.358/.399. Before him, you go back to Ken Griffey Jr. who hit .264/.329/.420 in 127 games, Robin Yount before him. Yount debuted at age 17 in Low-A ball and hit .285 while slugging .409. The Brewers thought so highly of Yount that he played 107 games at the big league level in 1974 at the age of 18 and was firmly entrenched as the starting shortstop at age 19. Renteria saw 143 plate appearances in Triple-A before his promotion but Griffey and Yount never saw even a single plate appearance in Triple-A, much like what Johnson is proposing for Harper.

Skipping over Triple-A is not something that happens too often, at least not as often as it did in the past. Using Baseball-Reference.com, I pulled up the top 150 hitters by career Wins Above Replacement totals. Of those 150, 32 never swung a bat in a Triple-A park before their first significant season in the major leagues. Yet, of those 32, only five players since 2000 have bypassed the final level of the minors before making it to the major leagues. Those players were Hanley Ramirez, Rafael Furcal, Mark Teixeira, Miguel Cabrera, and Ichiro Suzuki. Ichiro coming over from Japan is a unique situation, but the others made the jump well, and in some cases, at a very young age.

The other players who made the big leap into the majors include Carlos Beltran, Adrian Beltre, Vladimir Guerrero, Jason Kendall, Johnny Damon, Jeff Kent, Jeff Bagwell, Ivan Rodriguez, Chuck Knoblauch, Reggie Sanders, Luis Gonzalez, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Bobby Bonilla, Robby Thompson, Jesse Barfield, Kent Hrbek, Paul Molitor, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Ozzie Smith, Carney Lansford, and Dave Winfield. That list includes just seven outfielders and if we remove Ichiro from the earlier list, Johnson is asking Harper to do something that was last done by an outfielder in 1998 when Beltran came up with the Royals. That season, Beltran hit .293/.337/.454 and went 20/20 while winning rookie of the year.

Conversely, much was made last season about Desmond Jennings and Jesus Montero nearly compiling 1,000 plate appearances in Triple-A for their careers as they “wasted away” in Triple-A. It is funny how short-term our memories can be sometimes because we have seen players pile up more plate appearances than Jennings and Montero did. The most Triple-A plate appearances in the Top 150 WAR totals belongs to Lonnie Smith who saw 2,172 plate appearances in Oklahoma City of the American Association while part of the Phillies organization in the late 70's. He was eventually called up in 1980 and finished third that season in the Rookie of the Year voting, but was later traded to the Cardinals and in 1982, finished second to Dale Murphy in the MVP voting that season.

Smith is joined by nine other players who saw at least 1,000 plate appearances in Triple-A before their first full-time season in the majors and all of them went on to have impactful baseball careers:

Brian Giles - 1,348 PA's

Tony Fernandez - 1,312 PA's

Pedro Guerrero - 1,295 PA's

Bobby Abreu - 1,283 PA's

Jorge Posada - 1,227 PA's

Edgar Martinez - 1,159 PA's

Wade Boggs - 1,079 PA's

Fred McGriff - 1,033 PA's

Jose Valentin - 1,027 PA's

In Giles' case, he was stuck in the minors as the Indians had Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, and Manny Ramirez in the outfield with Eddie Murray DHing. Abreu was stuck behind the likes of Richard Hidalgo and Derek Bell in Houston and was eventually exposed to the expansion draft and traded for Kevin Stocker by the Devil Rays. Boggs was stuck behind Carney Lansford at third and Carl Yaztremski who was DHing at this point of his career leaving him little room in the lineup.

These days, players do not typically see that type of exposure to Triple-A because the parent club will move the more expensive asset to another team to create the room for the prospect. Overall, the fear of a player suffering from no time or too much time in Triple-A is rather overblown. It is not the same for every player and those that are rare talents can pull it off while others bide their time waiting for the big league roster situation to shake out. Just because a prospect is piling up too many plate appearances in Triple-A does not necessarily mean that player's star is dimming and that he will need to don the cap of the Quad-A player. The top 150 WAR players spent an average of 414 plate appearances in Triple-A before their ascension to a full time role in the majors. If we take out the 32 players that never saw a plate appearance in Triple-A, we are left with an average of 519 plate appearances.

Every prospect is a unique case and the team makes the decision to promote them or to slow them down based on skills first, and then for financial reasons. Harper is on a major league contract already, so that helps make this decision somewhat unique but looking at what Harper did in Double-A and the issues he has shown against left-handed pitching even in the Arizona Fall League makes me hope that Johnson is just giving writers something to talk about before camp starts. Harper was taken with the ninth pick of the 15th round in the latest expert mock draft and has a current ADP of 212. In a reset draft, that's a risky move.

 

[Don Quixote]

Profile in GQ by Will Leitch on him: http://www.gq.com/sports/guides/201204/bryce-harper-mlb-baseball-preview

 

[dgreen]

Optioned to Syracuse.

 

[Tiger Fan]

Optioned to Syracuse.

he can play basketball too!

 

[Wrigley]

And hello

 

[Raider Nation]

 

[Tiger Fan]

mlb network literally talking about the sound coming off of bryce harper's bat in BP. He better go 5/5 with 5 HRs tonight

 

[Raider Nation]

Vin Scully is calling Harper's first game tonight. He also called Mickey Mantle's first game.

Let that one sink in a bit.

 

[dparker713]

Vin Scully is calling Harper's first game tonight. He also called Mickey Mantle's first game.Let that one sink in a bit.

He also called James Loney's first game.

 

[Raider Nation]

Vin Scully is calling Harper's first game tonight. He also called Mickey Mantle's first game.Let that one sink in a bit.

He also called James Loney's first game.

Whoa.

 

[dgreen]

Due up in the 2nd.

 

[Raider Nation]

Due up in the 2nd.

Game is on MLB Network for those who may not know.

 

[Raider Nation]

1st MLB AB: Comebacker to the hill.

 

[dgreen]

Bounced it back to the pitcher.

BUST!

 

[Raider Nation]

Bounced it back to the pitcher.BUST!

Just doesn't have what it takes.

 

[Premier]

Why is MLBN not showing Scully's call of the game? When available it should be SOP.

 

[dgreen]

SLG% = 0.667

 

[Encyclopedia Brown]

Solid double over the CF's head for his first ML hit.

 

[dgreen]

Drive him home, Stras!

 

[dgreen]

Strasburg just misses a HR.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Solid double over the CF's head for his first ML hit.

Did you see the guy mooning him behind home plate as the pitch was thrown? I missed it at first but my wife saw it. Had to rewind DVR but it was pretty good ### shot.

 

[dgreen]

Solid double over the CF's head for his first ML hit.

Did you see the guy mooning him behind home plate as the pitch was thrown? I missed it at first but my wife saw it. Had to rewind DVR but it was pretty good ### shot.

 

[dgreen]

Ramos drops Harper's first assist. Perfect throw had him dead at the plate.

 

[TLEF316]

http://deadspin.com/5906055/bryce-harper-has-his-first-major-league-hit-possibly-because-dodgers-fans-were-mooning-their-own-pitcher?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

 

[The Flying Elvis]

Everyone keeps calling this kid a ##### but I love him. He's cocky but he plays his ### off and I'll take that any day over being more relaxed and not being so intense about the game.

Obviously early in the season and he probably won't do too good this year but I'm seriously considering keeping this guy for next year in my 4 player keeper H2H points league. Problem is I have potential keepers with Cano, Braun, Kershaw, King Felix, Lawrie and Hosmer. Might have to make some off season deals to open up some space. Just think the kid is going to be a stud and I want him on my team when that happens.

 

[dgreen]

Harper with the chance for a game-winning RBI.

 

[dgreen]

Sac fly RBI.

 

[BRONG]

HFS do I hate this guy already. I knew next to nothing about him, and in one game, ONE, I grew to despise him.

Amazing. Another Barry.

 

[Smack Tripper]

He's got a nice swing and easy power. I do love how he's able to keep his hands back after the weight shift to handle off speed stuff.

As he learns, and grows into that frame, sweet jesus this boy will be unreal if he doesn't implode Marinovich style.

 

[E-Z Glider]

Bryce Harper debut: The 10 best moments

kinda surprised the helmet flip wasnt number 1

 

[Limp Ditka]

Bryce Harper debut: The 10 best moments

kinda surprised the helmet flip wasnt number 1

why? it was probably the worst moment of his professional career.

 

[E-Z Glider]

Bryce Harper debut: The 10 best moments

kinda surprised the helmet flip wasnt number 1

why? it was probably the worst moment of his professional career.

because I assumed the whole thing was tongue in cheek... who the hell has an article recapping the 10 greatest moments of one player in a single game?

 

[dparker713]

HFS do I hate this guy already. I knew next to nothing about him, and in one game, ONE, I grew to despise him. Amazing. Another Barry.

I really have no idea why. Sure, he's cocky. But he plays hard and is an otherworldly talent.

 

[TobiasFunke]

HFS do I hate this guy already. I knew next to nothing about him, and in one game, ONE, I grew to despise him. Amazing. Another Barry.

I really have no idea why. Sure, he's cocky. But he plays hard and is an otherworldly talent.

It's inevitable. Hype + cockiness = fan hatred, unless he's on your team. Always been that way, always will be. Nothing he can do about it, even though he is by all accounts a good kid who plays incredibly hard and who is well-liked by his teammates.

 

[Wrigley]

HFS do I hate this guy already. I knew next to nothing about him, and in one game, ONE, I grew to despise him. Amazing. Another Barry.

I really have no idea why. Sure, he's cocky. But he plays hard and is an otherworldly talent.

It's inevitable. Hype + cockiness = fan hatred, unless he's on your team. Always been that way, always will be. Nothing he can do about it, even though he is by all accounts a good kid who plays incredibly hard and who is well-liked by his teammates.

Kid has a friggen cannon

 

[JZilla]

I can't wait to be a douchenozzle Bryce Harper fanboy in here. I owe it to most of you.

 

[dgreen]

HFS do I hate this guy already. I knew next to nothing about him, and in one game, ONE, I grew to despise him. Amazing. Another Barry.

I really have no idea why. Sure, he's cocky. But he plays hard and is an otherworldly talent.

It's inevitable. Hype + cockiness = fan hatred, unless he's on your team. Always been that way, always will be. Nothing he can do about it, even though he is by all accounts a good kid who plays incredibly hard and who is well-liked by his teammates.

Kid has a friggen cannon

Didn't he pitch in the mid-90s in HS?

 

[Premier]

I can't wait to be a douchenozzle Bryce Harper fanboy in here. I owe it to most of you.

Looking forward to it myself.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Pirates suck for 20 years and miss Harper and Strausberg.

 

[Tiger Fan]

He sold me on his hustle to first during his first AB...nobody does that anymore

 

[dgreen]

Harper plays softball on the National Mall.