Bryce Harper Promoted to Nationals
It wasn’t the way the Nationals envisioned it, but nevertheless, Bryce Harper has graduated to The Show. With Ryan Zimmerman heading to the disabled list for the second straight season, the team was looking to put an impact bat, as well as perhaps shift the focus away from Zimmerman’s injury, and thus Harper gets the call.
The reason that it has the chance to come off as little more than a publicity stunt is that Harper isn’t hitting all that well so far this season. His .313 wOBA ranks just fifth out of the seven Syracuse Sky Chiefs who have accumulated at least 40 plate appearances. This is actually sort of a continuation of his production at Double-A from last year, where Harper had just a .332 wOBA. He did dominate the Arizona Fall League last year, but in the regular season, he hasn’t hit well since last July.
Since Harper may soon find himself back in the Minors if Zimmerman only misses the minimum, the team could have certainly could have gone with one of its hot hands. Tyler Moore, Corey Brown and Mark Teahen all have experience in the outfield and are sporting .422, .389 and .365 wOBA’s at Syracuse, respectively. Teahen in particular would have been an easy call to make, since he is a Major League veteran. Doing so would have allowed the team to avoid starting Harper’s service time and arbitration clocks, which would seem like an important consideration if this is truly a temporary situation. Even more players will qualify for Super Two arbitration status under the terms of the new collective bargaining agreement, and there are less top prospects in the Majors right now than there have been at this point in the past two seasons. Of Marc Hulet’s top 30 prospects this year, only Matt Moore, Jesus Montero, Devin Mesoraco and Jarrod Parker are in the Majors. Then again, perhaps Zimmerman’s injury is a long-term concern, as Will Carroll suggested earlier today.
And just because Harper hasn’t hit well in 55 games between Double and Triple-A doesn’t mean that he doesn’t deserve the call-up. He has been young for every level, and at just 19 years old, he will be the youngest player in the Majors, displacing the 21-year-old Drew Hutchison — whose reign as the game’s youngest player lasted just eight days. And as Harper showed as an amateur, in A ball and the AFL, there is legitimate thunder in his bat. In addition, Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo was in Syracuse to scout the Sky Chiefs earlier this week, and came away impressed with Harper. The error bars for his performance are likely to be wide, but with Washington expected to play him every day starting tomorrow, he will have an opportunity to get his bearings. And even if he doesn’t hit, he should be an asset in the field, as his speed and arm have graded out as plus or better by scouts.
Luckily though, Harper doesn’t have a tall mountain to climb to be a useful hitter for the Nats. To date, Washington has one of the worst offenses in the game. Its .290 wOBA ranks 24th in the game, and is tied for 12th in the National League. The average NL wOBA is just .306, but Washington’s left fielders have been far, far worse than that. Xavier Nady, who has started 10 games in left, is sporting a downright odious .192 wOBA, and he’s been the club’s best left fielder. Mark DeRosa, who has started six of the other nine games in left, is “hitting” .091/.250/.091, which translates to a .187 wOBA. Among players with at least 40 plate appearances, the un-dynamic duo ranks ninth and seventh-worst in the game in wOBA, respectively. It would be difficult for Harper to be worse.
Of course, since Harper doesn’t play third base, DeRosa, or Chad Tracy — whose .138 wOBA is even more abominable, though in an even smaller sample — is still likely to appear in the lineup. Nationals manager Davey Johnson could solve that by playing Steve Lombardozzi instead, but he has only done that in one of the four games since Zimmerman went down. Lombardozzi doesn’t have much experience at the hot corner, but at least he is capable of hitting a baseball, which is a skill that DeRosa and Tracy have not yet demonstrated this season.
But no matter how Johnson juggles the lineup to accommodate Harper, these are minor details in the grand scheme of things. Harper is an uber talent. He ranked either first or second on every major top prospects list this spring, and his Major League debut tomorrow will likely be one of the most exciting moments of the season. With such a dearth of top prospects currently in the Majors, Harper will be the hands-down favorite for Rookie of the Year if he plays well from the jump. If he doesn’t, he may quickly find himself back in Syracuse, and Nats fans will have both his subpar play and Zimmerman’s shoulder to worry about, but the fact that we are going to find out just good he can be sooner than expected is a real treat.
http://thesaurus.com/browse/illogical?s=t
He still hasn’t learned how to hit lefties…
Espinosa hasn’t learned how to hit righties so we are gonna put em next to each other in the lineup and hope for the best
Why?…why?…whyyyyyy?
Brandon Belt thinks this is a good idea though.
Over/under on a 25% k rate?
Ahhhhhh…. everybody is going over…. move the line!!
FWIW, his last games in AAA he struck out 3 times in 30 ABs.
Sorry, his last 8 games.
His AAA K% is league average, and he was right around average in every league he’s played in so far. It’s easy to peg him as a high-power, over-aggressive, swing and miss kid, but statistics don’t bear that out, and scouts praise his zone judgment.
Still going with the over. 19-year-old against big-league pitching. I’ve got not choice….
For the over/under, how about Giancarlo’s K%?
I’ll take under.
I think that the Nats have demonstrated pretty clearly they are a lot less concerned about his Super 2 status than most every baseball writer.
Why would the super two issue come into play if he signed a 5 year major league deal with set salaries from 2011 to 2015? Aren’t his first few years of compensation (excluding bonuses) set? So his MLB years 1-3 would be 2012, 2013, and 2014. His first year of arbitration would be 2015, and that salary is set as well. So the super two designation doesn’t seem like it make a difference unless Harper didn’t make the majors until 2014.
In fact, if Harper is ready, wouldn’t now be the perfect time to call him up? The first potential year of arbitration is set at $1M, rather than some huge number if he plays well. You do lose the year before free agency, but you’re probably not saving much money with the year of delay..
he has barely enough time at AAA to not hit FA until 2018 rather than 2017 if he started the season in the majors
When draft picks sign major league deals they include opt outs if the player is arb-eligible. So if Harper is super-2 eligible in 2014 he will be able to opt-out of his rookie contract and instead decide to go to arbitration
*meant 2015 for arb-eiligable
I don’t think that’s necessarily *always* the case, but it is the case for Harper.
This is a myopic promotion by the Nats. Harper is going to struggle, but he’ll be fun to watch. I still think Niewenhuis is going to be rookie of the year. He’s the leader in the clubhouse after the first month, anyway.
The leader in getting beaten up by teammates because he’s a punk?
I don’t even know what this means. Since when is Niewenhuis a punk?
They can always send him down if he is not hitting. The Nats are hoping to utilize his 19 year old piss and vinegar and catch lightning in a bottle. That contract for Zimmerman was not a good idea, I’ll tell you that. At least it will be expiring before Harper is looking for a 12 year 300 million dollar deal in 7 years.
He is definitely NOT ready.
Still hasn’t hit a lick above high-A ball (excluding 93 ABs in the AFL).
Saw him a couple times in Harrisburg. Still has quite a bit to work on, but the talent level in unreal. I don’t think seeing some big league at bats will hurt him.
Are there multiyear minor league splits anywhere now? Minorleaguesplits.com doesn’t exist anymore and milb.com only has the current year splits.
You can do it at b-r, but it’s tricky.
Man mike trout coming up too. This could be a great day for baseball tomorrow.
I wish the Dodgers would’ve put off Kershaw’s start till Saturday. Strasburg, Kershaw, Harper, Kemp……ratings!
If he gets extended time in the majors I think its pretty safe to assume it will have some rocky moments but from a fantasy perspective he seems worth the gamble. Any early success will be all over every web portal and flipping him shouldn’t be hard at all. If it doesn’t happen you can always just cut bait and move on.
…but don’t do it in a keeper league. You’ll regret it later.
As an employee of the team, I would like to point out that we are the Syracuse “Chiefs”…the “Sky Chiefs” moniker was dumped in December 2006.
Not that I have anything to go on besides stats…
…but based on the stats, he is so completely not ready.
Hope like crazy I’m wrong, though.
As an 18 year old he put up a .724 OPS in AA last year. That was league average offense in a league where the average hitter was 24.3 years old and average pitcher 24.6.
I’m pretty sure that hitting at the league average levels while being almost 6 years younger than the AVERAGE player in your league IS pretty impressive…
In the small sample at AAA, his .708 was just a hair under the league average of .718; the average hitter and average pitchers were about EIGHT years older.
His numbers might not look great, but relative to his leagues and given his age, extremely good.
Eric, what he’s done is impressive, but it doesn’t show that he’s ready. As you said, he was slightly below average in AAA. If he’s about an average AAA player, why would be he ready for the majors?
Nobody’s questioning his long term potential. The question is whether he can be an adequate major leaguer today.
Sky Chiefs is a better name, you guys should change it back to make the article correct.
This may well serve as a message to the team that the Manager, GM, and ownership believe in this team and are willing to invest the necessary resources to get this team to the playoffs. I think this has to be the takeaway from the Gonzalez trade and extension, the Jackson signing, sending Lannan to the minors, and promoting Harper. No excuses this year.
Happy Harper-Trout Day!
“My kid isn’t comfortable swimming in the 3′ end of the pool… I think I’ll toss him into the deep end.” Brilliance.
oh because swimming in deep water is different than swimming in shallow water right?
Actually the analogy makes a lot of sense. In the 3′ side, you can stand up if you start to fail and there is really no harm. You can’t stand up on the deep end and might drown. Harper “drowning” in the Majors means more losses for the Major League team. If he struggles and they lose in the Minors, no real harm.
Except that Harper has been comfortable hitting in the minors. As noted above, he’s been league-average or better, and that’s ignoring the “struggle, then dominate” pattern that he has established throughout his baseball life. At JuCo, at Hagerstown, at Harrisburg, and in the AFL he struggled mightily (and haters came out of the woodwork to proclaim him a bust) and then took off. In Harrisburg and in Syracuse his last week was his best week, with the hamstring stopping him in AA and the callup ending his season (so far) in AAA.
Watching the game last night, he certainly didn’t look overmatched against solid ML pitchers in Billingsley (3x) and Guerra (1). He showed patience, taking some tough pitches, and certainly made good contact. He’s got a long way to go, but he has a real chance to stick in DC.
I would love to watch his debut, but I have a bigger priority. Senior Prom!
Watch Harper’s debut -> tank your grades -> repeat senior year -> go to prom next year!
Everybody’s happy!
Except your parents