Bryce Harper 2018 and beyond

[catocony]

At the moment, the Nats are about $9 million under the luxury tax, so unless they go on a spending spree later in the season, they'll remain under and will get a pick after the 2nd round.  Only if they end up over the tax threshold will they get a pick after the 4th round.

It's not great, but it's better than nothing.

[LoveAngelos]

The Dodgers will mean he is close to his family and some of the best hair architects in the world

[HalfSmokes]

At the moment, the Nats are about $9 million under the luxury tax, so unless they go on a spending spree later in the season, they'll remain under and will get a pick after the 2nd round.  Only if they end up over the tax threshold will they get a pick after the 4th round.

It's not great, but it's better than nothing.

http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/

Cots has the nats $7 million over

[catocony]

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/washington-nationals/payroll/

This one includes a running total for the minor league guys as well.  Interesting that Edwin Jackson and Tommy Milone are both making over a million this season as insurance. 

[HalfSmokes]

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/washington-nationals/payroll/

This one includes a running total for the minor league guys as well.  Interesting that Edwin Jackson and Tommy Milone are both making over a million this season as insurance. 

They’re not counting deferred in their total

2018 Cap Totals
 
CAP TYPE   TOTAL
Active Payroll   $122,861,568
Disabled List Money   $62,415,778
Retained Salary   $593,012
Deferred Salary   $13,500,000
Buried Minor Salary   $228,540
Total Payroll   $186,098,898

I personally trust cots more than sports trac for cap numbers

[JCA-CrystalCity]

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/washington-nationals/payroll/

This one includes a running total for the minor league guys as well.  Interesting that Edwin Jackson and Tommy Milone are both making over a million this season as insurance. 

for lux tax purposes, you add in benefits like health, per diems, etc...  The sportrac number you quote doesn't seem to have that amount in it. 

Obviously, the lion’s share of a club’s CBT payroll is actual player salaries, and writers generally use only the actual known salaries to calculate the CBT for teams. The CBA itself does give one tidbit of context: for the 2017 contract year (the season just completed), Club costs for player benefits amounted to $7.3 million per club—and the CBA itself provides that that amount cannot increase by more than 6% per year. So to safely dodge paying the CBT Tax, a team realistically needs a player payroll 7-8 million dollars under the CBT threshold.

https://www.lookoutlanding.com/2018/1/8/16862070/i-dont-care-what-you-say-were-signing-yu-darvish-screw-the-cubs

[Senatorswin]

Bryce is a tremendous asset to have on a team. The only question is can you afford him and be able to pay enough other good players to compete for a world series. The Nats won't be able to. It's keep Bryce and let the Roarks and Rendons of the world go or keep a strong pitching staff and everyday players and let Bryce go. It might be manageable if Bryce did take 10 years 300 million but I don't suspect he'd do that.
Could be his average was going down due to eyesight. Since he put the glasses on he seems to be hitting much better.

[GburgNatsFan]

I thought he only wore the glasses for one at bat...

Bryce is a tremendous asset to have on a team. The only question is can you afford him and be able to pay enough other good players to compete for a world series. The Nats won't be able to. It's keep Bryce and let the Roarks and Rendons of the world go or keep a strong pitching staff and everyday players and let Bryce go. It might be manageable if Bryce did take 10 years 300 million but I don't suspect he'd do that.
Could be his average was going down due to eyesight. Since he put the glasses on he seems to be hitting much better.

[lylelgreen]

Bryce Harper wears contact lenses:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bryce-harper-crushing-ball-after-eye-exam/

He wore eyeglasses because he had difficulty putting his contacts in.

[CoryTheFormerExposFan]

Cory, I'm not a believer in BABIP. I do the eye test. Too many pop-ups or lazy flyballs. Now if you want to cite the defensive shifts of taking away hits from him and other lefties I can buy into that.

His hard hit rate and line drive rate are amongst the league leaders.  That's complete 100% measured data of what your eyes would see.

[bluestreak]

The purpose of stats is twofold: to measure past performance and and to predict future performance. When people quote BABIP, the aren’t trying to “excuse”’poor past performance, they are trying to determine if that past performance is indicative of future performance.
To the people that roll their eyes at mention of Harper’s BABIP, do you believe Bryce’s true talent level is a .230 batting average? Sure, he hasn’t performed at a high level, but over the long run players always regress to their true talent level. All these extra stats are just an attempt to determine the true talent level.

[CoryTheFormerExposFan]

Yes...if you are good, you are good...if you are bad, you are unlucky.  It's the modern thinking...

Wow.  Nobody is saying that at all.  There is simply more to look at "under the hood" with players than average and ERA.  Sometimes what you see backs up why a player has bad numbers.  Sometimes what you see paints a story of someone "unlucky" that should see an uptick in production going forward.  With larger sample sizes, "luck" normalizes.  If a hitter strikes out all the time, and hits weak ground balls and fly balls, then their low average is expected.  Joey Gallo can't hit .200 because he strikes out like 35% of the time and only hits fly balls. 

[GburgNatsFan]

Don't feed the troll.

(VaRK, I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

Wow.  Nobody is saying that at all.  There is simply more to look at "under the hood" with players than average and ERA.  Sometimes what you see backs up why a player has bad numbers.  Sometimes what you see paints a story of someone "unlucky" that should see an uptick in production going forward.  With larger sample sizes, "luck" normalizes.  If a hitter strikes out all the time, and hits weak ground balls and fly balls, then their low average is expected.  Joey Gallo can't hit .200 because he strikes out like 35% of the time and only hits fly balls.

[PowerBoater69]

No comments on Harper allowing the runner to advance to second when he made a useless throw to the plate? If you lead the league in home runs you are allowed to be a moron?

[UMDNats]

Bryce should look at Ovechkin and what winning freaking means to DC.

But anyways, enjoy Philly, 34.

[LoveAngelos]

No comments on Harper allowing the runner to advance to second when he made a useless throw to the plate? If you lead the league in home runs you are allowed to be a moron?

He has been doing it since he came up. Think any manager has said anything to him about it?

[Count Walewski]

No comments on Harper allowing the runner to advance to second when he made a useless throw to the plate? If you lead the league in home runs you are allowed to be a moron?

This happened like every day in 2012 and nobody cared.

[Optics]

When's he gonna start hitting like an MVP?

[GburgNatsFan]

When's he gonna start hitting like an MVP?

2019. In Philly or Cali.

[Ray D]

He has been doing it since he came up. Think any manager has said anything to him about it?

Well now that you mention it, yes.  Opening day, 2013. 7th inning, runners on first and third one out. Fly ball to Harper (in left). He airmailed the throw straight to home (way over the cutoff man's head)- it was a great throw, or rather it would have been had there not been a runner at first.  Davey made mention of it in his post game press conference, said that Harper's throw should have been "cuttable".

(Turned out ok.  Runner at third held, runner at first got hung up, and it was a doubleplay, no run scored.)

[varoadking]

I forget what year, but when Royce was playing center field, I remember when he unleashed a throw from fairly deep center that was a seed to the catcher.  I swear the runner tagging from third was out by 15 feet.

Yesterday he tossed a weak 2 hopper that arrived well after the runner had crossed the plate. 

And that drop at the wall ended up being the game yesterday...

He just doesn't seem to be dialed-in...

[GburgNatsFan]

Let's just say this isn't howie do it.

I forget what year, but when Royce was playing center field, I remember when he unleashed a throw from fairly deep center that was a seed to the catcher.  I swear the runner tagging from third was out by 15 feet.

Yesterday he tossed a weak 2 hopper that arrived well after the runner had crossed the plate. 

And that drop at the wall ended up being the game yesterday...

He just doesn't seem to be dialed-in...

[imref]

so who is Harper rooting for in the Stanley Cup finals?

[Ray D]

And that drop at the wall ended up being the game yesterday...

I haven't seen it yet, but listening on the radio, it sounded like a routine fly - Dave said "And he dropped it.  Hit him on the leg."  (Paraphrasing,  but something along those lines.)  Yet it was scored a hit.  (First scored an error, but changed to a hit.)

[GburgNatsFan]

I haven't seen it yet, but listening on the radio, it sounded like a routine fly - Dave said "And he dropped it.  Hit him on the leg."  (Paraphrasing,  but something along those lines.)  Yet it was scored a hit.  (First scored an error, but changed to a hit.)

Given the position of the sun, it was not routine. If you believe that he really couldn't track the ball, then he was an inch short of that final adjustment. If you think he saw it, then he should have caught it.