The Bryce Harper Show remains off the national stage, and that’s bad for baseball

LOS ANGELES — There’s a locker with Bryce Harper’s name on it this week in the National League All-Star clubhouse.

But there’s no Bryce Harper at the All-Star Game.

Again.

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The closest anyone at Dodger Stadium will get to seeing Harper are his Dairy Queen commercials with Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson that play every so often on the left-field video board against the backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains in this picture-postcard ballpark.

But at least there’s a good reason for his absence this year. The Phillies star had his left thumb fractured by a wayward 97-mph fastball in a game in San Diego last month and underwent surgery three weeks ago. He’s seeing his doctors in Philadelphia for follow-ups and could have the three pins removed from his thumb by the end of next week.

So although Harper won the fan balloting to start the All-Star Game as the NL’s designated hitter, he’s unable to play and said in a text message last week that he preferred not to disrupt his rehab in order to fly across the country to stand on the third-base line alongside Phillies teammate Kyle Schwarber and tip his cap.

OK, fair enough.

But Harper somehow hasn’t been to an All-Star Game since 2018, when he was still with the Washington Nationals. And considering the Phillies missed the playoffs in each of his first three seasons with them, there have been few opportunities for one of the top handful of players in the sport to be showcased on a national stage.

At the peak of Harper’s powers, Philadelphia has had him largely to itself.

Good for us. Not so great for baseball, which desperately needs more exposure for its star players, not less.

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“I mean, it’s kind of crazy that it’s been that long,” Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner said of Harper’s four-year All-Star absence. “Wait, last year he won the MVP and he wasn’t an All-Star?”

Correct.

“That’s wild,” said Turner, who teamed with Harper in Washington from 2015-18. “That’s probably one of my favorite stats. Yeah, that’s crazy.”

How’s this for crazy? Since 2019, Harper’s first year with the Phillies, he ranks fourth among all players in on-base percentage (.400) and slugging (.563), fifth in on-base plus slugging (.962) and OPS+ (155), and tied for eighth in home runs (98) and doubles (108). Yet he wasn’t among the 66 NL players named to the All-Star team in 2019 or 2021.

A case could have been made for Harper in both of those years. He got off to a slow start in 2019 but had 24 doubles, 16 homers, 62 RBIs, and an .840 OPS at the break. Last year, he had 14 doubles, 15 homers, only 34 RBIs, but an .899 OPS in the first half. Those were borderline All-Star numbers but worthy of an argument.

There was a sense then, even among fellow players, that Harper, a six-time All-Star in seven seasons with the Nationals, was a touch overrated.

Maybe it was jealousy of his 13-year, $330 million contract, still the highest overall value for a free-agent contract, although Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, and Fernando Tatis Jr. signed extensions that were larger. Or his dozen or so endorsement deals. Or maybe it was the impossibility of fulfilling expectations when Sports Illustrated puts you on the cover at age 16 and brands you as “Baseball’s Chosen One.” Whatever the case, 62% of roughly 250 players polled by The Athletic in 2019 rated Harper as the most overrated player in the sport.

The last 12 months seem to have brought a new appreciation of Harper. Since the All-Star break last year, he’s batting .328 with a .433 on-base percentage, .656 slugging, 49 doubles, 35 homers, and 98 RBIs. Only Juan Soto has reached base at a better clip (.459); no other player has slugged better than .602.

“For a guy who’s been the face of baseball since, what, the age of 13, for him to be at this event only a couple times, it’s weird,” Schwarber said. “Kind of interesting to see that. The year that that guy was having, he was on pace to do another really special thing. He’s going to have that opportunity to come back and keep putting up those numbers. I would’ve been thrilled to see him here.”

When the Phillies signed Harper, they believed his best years were still ahead of him. They were right. But it’s difficult to see him getting better than this. The question now is how long Harper’s apex will last. He doesn’t turn 30 until October, so it seems possible that he will have a longer prime than most players. It’s what separates “generational players,” as agent Scott Boras often describes Harper, from mere All-Stars.

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So there are likely many more All-Star Games in Harper’s future. There may even be a few playoff games. The Phillies are leading the St. Louis Cardinals by percentage points for the final NL wild-card spot, with the San Francisco Giants nipping at their heels. FanGraphs puts the Phillies’ playoff odds at 44.8%. Baseball Prospectus (55.1%) and Baseball Reference (74.6%) are more bullish.

“He’s been great for Philly,” Turner said. “He’s played really, really well. The All-Star Game’s great, but more importantly, he’s just playing great baseball for that city.”

The rest of the country should get to see it more often.

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