Bryce Harper and the Burden of Great Expectations

Sunday Night Baseball is coming to Citizens Bank Park this week when the New York Mets take on the Phillies at 7:20 p.m. ET in a game that can be seen on NBC and Peacock. Both teams got off to slow starts this season, but the Phillies have turned things around and still have designs on a long October playoff run.

And if that happens, one of the main reasons will be due to the play of their first baseman Bryce Harper. Harper has accomplished an almost impossible task: he has lived up to extraordinary expectations. He was perhaps the most hyped position-player prospect in history, certainly the most hyped in the last 30 years.

Harper has outperformed expectations. Remember, he was a mega-star before his first major league plate appearance. He went from child prodigy (he skipped the final two years of high school to concentrate on his baseball development) to one of the game’s most enduring superstars.

Harper was the first player selected in the June 2010 draft. He won the National League MVP Award in 2015 with a season that would fit in nicely on the back of Ted Williams’ or Barry Bonds’ baseball card. Harper would capture another NL MVP Award with a different team six years later in 2021. In 2022, Bryce won the NLCS MVP, leading the Phillies to the World Series.

It is the middle of 2026—Bryce’s 15^th season in MLB. It is his eighth season in Philadelphia, since signing his 13-year contract in early 2019. He’s on pace for a 35-homer season. He’s slugging .496. His OPS is .860, and his OPS+ is 133 (not far off from his career 142).

I appreciate all of this.

Aaron Judge: Born April 26, 1992: 385 HR
Bryce Harper: Born October 16, 1992: 378 HR

Harper is six months younger than Judge and has virtually the same amount of home runs. Judge does have one more piece of hardware: he has three MVPs, and Harper has two.

If Harper compares to one of the greatest right-handed batters ever (Judge), he also compares quite favorably to one of the greatest left-handed batters—Barry Bonds.

Through their first 7,000 plate appearances, Bonds had won three MVP awards, and Harper two. Bonds had slightly higher average, on-base, and slugging percentages, but it was all close. Clearly on Hall of Fame tracks.

You know what happened to Bonds. He didn’t decline after 7,000 plate appearances. He did the opposite, to an extreme degree. Harper has followed a more natural projection.

We should be celebrating Harper for being this good this far into his contract, this far into his career.

The two contenders for the “Most Hyped Position Player” entering MLB the last 50 years besides Harper were probably Alex Rodriguez and Bo Jackson.

Bo was out of baseball by the time he was 31, a victim of a damaged hip.

Alex’s name was linked to steroid use and admitted in 2009 to taking a banned substance when he arrived in Texas as a free agent in 2001. His name was linked to Biogenesis, a company investigated for providing performance-enhancing substances to players. Arod received a 211-day suspension and missed the entire 2014 season. He has not received much support for the Hall of Fame despite superb statistics.
           
That’s the pattern that most of these prodigies follow. There are only a few paths. One is that the journey ends prematurely, due to the body breaking down. Another, as we saw with Rodriguez and Bonds, is prolonged greatness aided by performance-enhancing substances. The third is inevitability, where a player performs to high expectations, and then has a natural regression.
           
That’s Harper.
           
Harper has hit 15 home runs this season, a 5.1 HR% that would be his highest since 2021. Assuming the 33-year-old plays only six more seasons after this one, let’s be conservative and give him 18 more this season to end 2026 with 395. Now, project him for only 2,400 more at-bats through 2031 and a 4.7% HR percentage. That gives him 112 more home runs, meaning he would finish with 507 home runs.
           
That’s 500 home runs without being suspended or widely suspected of cheating. That’s 500 home runs and (at least) a couple of MVP seasons and deep playoff runs while coming back from broken thumbs and Tommy John surgery and hamstring injuries along the way.
           
More fighting back time: Bryce this season is striking out less and walking more than his career averages. He is performing well in the eighth year of his 13-year deal, which is remarkable given the number of long-term contracts which don’t work out in the end. Harper started 2026 with a memorable game-tying home run in the World Baseball Classic. Will he end one with a memorable October blast?
           
This weekend, Bryce will face the Mets, a familiar opponent as Harper has spent his entire career in the N.L. East. Harper has hit 40 home runs against the Mets. Is that a lot?

Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

Most HR vs. Mets

60 — Willie Stargell, HOF
49 — Chipper Jones, HOF
49 — Mike Schmidt, HOF
48 — Willie McCovey, HOF
48 — Ryan Howard
45 — Hank Aaron, HOF
42 — Pat Burrell
40 — Bryce Harper

Harper has hit home runs against some terrific Mets pitchers: Johan Santana, current teammate Zack Wheeler, Bartolo Colon, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Max Scherzer, and Edwin Diaz.

▶ A few Father’s Day connections between the Phillies and Mets

It’s Father’s Day every Philadelphia Phillies game:

Don Mattingly’s son Preston Mattingly is the general manager of the Phillies. It’s hard to imagine a father-son duo operating a team as GM-manager. Wait, the son is the boss of the father?
           

It’s nice that the Mets play the Phils on Father’ Day:

Phillies’ TV announcer Tom McCarthy’s son Pat McCarthy is a radio broadcaster for the New York Mets.

The most memorable Phillies/Mets game played on Father’s Day:

The Phillies and Mets played on Father’s Day–also June 21–in 1964. It was memorable.

Philadelphia’s Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game–only the fifth all-time…the first in regular season play since 1922….the first in the National League since 1880.

Jim Bunning of course was a Hall of Fame pitcher (224-184, 3.27). He was a sidearm pitcher, mostly for the Tigers and Phillies. When he retired, he was second on the all-time strikeout list (only to Walter Johnson). Following his baseball career, he became a member of the United States Senate (from Kentucky) from 1999-2011. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 85. 

A great use of ChatGPT is to find out exactly how many times since 1964 has Father’s Day been on June 21. 2026 will be only the ninth time (1970, 1981, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2009, 2015, 2020, and 2026).

Can lightning strike twice on the same date with the same franchises? Where’s Benjamin Franklin when you need him?

Editors’ Note: Elliott Kalb – dubbed “Mr. Stats” decades ago by Marv Albert and Bob Costas – is the former Senior Editorial Director at MLB Network and a longtime contributor of research and information to NBC Sports’ telecasts.