The Bryce Harper Watch

[Lintyfresh85]

oh but remember, we're in phase two and are close to competing

I hope the FO knows the difference in their empty promises and the reality of the situation they face.

[imref]

I'm not suggesting calling him up and keeping him up, but what good does it do him if he's tearing the cover off the ball at AAA to just keep him there? A September call up wouldn't hinder him I wouldn't imagine, if anything, giving him a taste of the Show might drive him even harder to get to the bigs for good.

I argued a while back that the "best case" scenario for him is that he tears up A, skips Potomac, tears up Harrisburg, and gets called up in September.  This positions him to make the club starting in 2012 when we expect to field a team that can compete with Philly.  I still think that's the path for him. 

Of course if he goes .360 / .400 / .600 in Harrisburg and the Nats are somehow alive for a wild card spot, there might be a lot more pressure to pull him up earlier.

I still don't think he'll play at Potomac or Syracuse. 

[NJ Ave]

Harper was listed as 6'3" 205 when he was a 16-year old in Sports Illustrated, and now he's a 6'3" 225, fully developed hitter. There's no reason to think he's going to magically grow 3 inches, and he doesn't look physically immature, like someone like A-Rod did when he first came up (6'3" 190).

When you're 6'3" 225 lbs, you're not filling out anymore, you're just bulking up or getting fat. There's no reason for Bryce Harper to do either, if he doesn't want to.

This is like some Boswell argument using the analogy of Adam Dunn without ever admitting that Adam Dunn is a big ol' fat guy now.

[imref]

FWIW, the Royals just called up Eric Hosmer because he's destroying AAA pitching, and their current 1B sucks.  By calling him up now, it's likely he'll hit Super-2 and will get another year of arbitration.

[comish4lif]

FWIW, the Royals just called up Eric Hosmer because he's destroying AAA pitching, and their current 1B sucks.  By calling him up now, it's likely he'll hit Super-2 and will get another year of arbitration.

Super two status... maybe, maybe not. The CBA is currently under renogotiation, and I have to think that the super two thing will be changed. To me, it looks like a process that neither side likes - which means to me it is ripe for an adjustment.

[NJ Ave]

However, I do understand that a nation of fat people will assume it's natural to "fill in" 25 lbs from your 18-year old weight. That's the norm, anyways...

I think most people think that if they don't completely take out the super-2 clause, they'll decrease the number of days you need in the big league substantially so that you'd have to wait until July or August to bring a prospect up to gain another year of team control.

I just think the manipulation is stupid, economics be damned. The number of prospects a team has that need to be "held down" artificially are maybe 3-4 every ten years? What does the team gain, maybe $5 million per player? I mean, this is a drop in the bucket, a few seasons of Jason Marquis.

[blue911]

Harper is signed through the 2015 season. Harper wouldn't even be eligible for super-2 status if he is promoted during the 2012 season.

[PANatsFan]

Harper is signed through the 2015 season. Harper wouldn't even be eligible for super-2 status if he is promoted during the 2012 season.

2016, he wasn't added to the 40 man in time last year to get service time, and that's if he's called up this year. 40 years on the 40, 4 options, 2020.

[Lintyfresh85]

Harper ranked the 5th "hottest" prospect by BA this week. Was #1 last week.

[blue911]

2016, he wasn't added to the 40 man in time last year to get service time.

No he's signed through the 2015 season. Service time has nothing,zip,nada to do with his contract status.

[PANatsFan]

No he's signed through the 2015 season. Service time has nothing,zip,nada to do with his contract status.

Oh, money-wise, not team-control. Yes, that's correct then.

[NJ Ave]

Actually, that's an interesting point. If he's promoted early, does his major league $9.9 million contract through 2015 preclude him from arbitration (i.e. does his $1 million salary in 2015 take the place of an arbitration salary)?

So even if he was a super-2 by coming up early next year, he would just have the first 2 years of his 4 year arbitration period covered by his contract, rather than the first 1 of 3?

[PANatsFan]

Actually, that's an interesting point. If he's promoted early, does his major league $9.9 million contract through 2015 preclude him from arbitration (i.e. does his $1 million salary in 2015 take the place of an arbitration salary)?

So even if he was a super-2 by coming up early next year, he would just have the first 2 years of his 4 year arbitration period covered by his contract, rather than the first 1 of 3?

Yes. Look at Samarchachahaha on the Cubs.

[blue911]

Actually, that's an interesting point. If he's promoted early, does his major league $9.9 million contract through 2015 preclude him from arbitration (i.e. does his $1 million salary in 2015 take the place of an arbitration salary)?

So even if he was a super-2 by coming up early next year, he would just have the first 2 years of his 4 year arbitration period covered by his contract, rather than the first 1 of 3?

Arbitration is only for players that don't have a signed contract.

[tomterp]

FWIW, the Royals just called up Eric Hosmer because he's destroying AAA pitching, and their current 1B sucks.  By calling him up now, it's likely he'll hit Super-2 and will get another year of arbitration.

I agree this is relevant to the Harper watch.

Here's a bit more on Hosmer, and Super 2:

Get it While it's Hot
by Tommy Bennett, Baseball Prospectus

By now, you should know that the Kansas City Royals have exactly eleventy-million prospects capable of making scouts drool. If you watched any Royals spring training games this year, you probably already know that they got a lot more interesting after about the fifth or sixth inning. That’s when the ringers from Omaha and Northwest Arkansas would come in and knock the ball around a bit. You may also know that the Royals have an astonishingly low $11.73 million committed to next year’s payroll. (Even the relatively cheap Indians owe Travis Hafner $13 million; at least KC’s money is going mostly to Billy Butler.) And, finally, you may have heard that the Royals made the decision to call up Eric Hosmer, the prospect with the most compelling legend—all indications are that he will make his major-league debut tonight at home. Heck, the call-up was the lead story on Royals.com last night.

The expectation for this Royals season was that it would be something like sitting on a hard plastic chair at the DMV until your number—impossibly far from the one flashing red above the bank of windows but incrementing ever closer—was finally called. The wait would be slow and extended, but the payoff would be an enormous, almost Tantric, relief.

The aging veterans and the one-year stopgaps would give way to the dynamic youngsters in the minors. There was a near-perfect symmetry in the way the prospects lined up, so that nearly every position was covered. Sure, if Myers didn’t stick at the dish they’d have to find a catcher, and maybe they’d need one more guy up the middle (especially if Jeff Bianchi couldn’t hack it at shortstop). Still, it seemed that the Royals had a whole baseball team stalking the American plains, waiting to make the major-league minimum salary. The only obstacles standing in their way were Melky Cabrera and Bruce Chen, Jeff Francoeur and Wilson Betemit—and a number-three starter, Kyle Davies, who ranked among the worst of all time. Eventually, the weak resistance offered by the major-league roster would give way to the groundswell brewing beneath.

The only problem with that story is that those mediocre stopgaps had a winning month. In fact, the Royals are now 17–14 and in second place in the AL Central. They have the second-best adjusted Hit List factor among teams in their division. Even Jeff Francoeur is hitting well! Never mind regression: those 17 wins are in the bank, and the rest is as yet unwritten. So you’ll have to forgive the Royals and their fans their optimism. If this was supposed to be a year where only the second half would interesting—and not because there would be any chance of obtaining a playoff berth, but because it would be a sneak peek at the shape of things to come—then entering mid-May with only the Indians above them on the ladder is all lagniappe.

Even good problems invite solutions, and the Royals have responded to theirs by jumping the Super Two deadline by a couple of weeks with Hosmer. No one would argue, based on his world-beating .439/.525/.582 line in Triple-A, that he wasn’t ready for big-league pitching. If the front office didn’t believe during spring training that Hosmer was quite ready, even after he put up an outstanding season in Double-A last year, it surely has been convinced otherwise after he collected 43 hits in 26 Triple-A games. But what gain is there in failing to wait two weeks? What kind of sense does this middle-ground madness —not opening day, but not Super Two deadline either—make?

The argument has to go something like this: Despite PECOTA’s wildest dreams for Kila Ka’aihue (.263/.387/.472 weighted mean), he has been lousy. In 326 career major-league plate appearances, Ka’aihue has hit .216/.309/.375. He’s 27 now and not getting any younger. Meanwhile, there’s a kid down in Triple-A who can finally see straight and can flat-out hit. The standings are just about exactly upside-down, and here’s a chance to improve the club. All that would appear to add up to something like “Let’s give it the old college try.” What’s wrong with that?

For starters, the Royals are very unlikely bets to make the playoffs. In the American League, only the Blue Jays and Mariners have worse chances. Because it is so unlikely that the AL wild card will come out of the Central, there are four teams better than the Royals vying for a single playoff spot. (The Indians, who now lead the division in playoff odds, are 29 times more likely to win the division than the wild card.) That makes for an uphill battle.

Then there’s the fact that Kila Ka’aihue is probably a better hitter than his early performance would suggest. PECOTA may make mistakes, and it may not be deadly accurate about everyone, but its principles are sound. Ka’aihue put up a .364 TAv in Triple-A last year and a .298 mark the year before. There definitely exist guys who exist in the netherworld between Triple-A and the majors, but every once in a while those guys turn into superstars just when we’re ready to write them off. So the relevant comparison is what we can expect Eric Hosmer, a 21-year-old rookie with zero major-league at-bats, to produce over and above what Kila Ka’aihue can—minus the long-term costs associated with calling up Hosmer two weeks early.

This straightforward ledger-based approach is relatively familiar to savvy denizens of this website. But is that all there is? Maybe there’s an expressive logic to this move. Call it a “get it while it’s hot” theory. No team with Bruce Chen as the stopper is going to last long above .500, but why not start calling people’s numbers while you’re still on the plus side of the ledger? Is anyone really concerned about the long-term financial status of a team that just three years ago gave Jose Guillen $36 million?

If you think the Royals will be saved by going after the extra two percent, I’ve got my own two cents to offer. On April 29, the first day the Royals came back after a six-game road losing streak, they sold 31,407 tickets at home. Granted, not all the games have been selling that well, but fans in Kansas City are smart enough to know that this year’s farm system isn’t like those of years passed. They’re ready to show up and enjoy it, however long it lasts.

This weekend, the Royals play a home series against the Athletics. They’ve got two night games and a Sunday matinee, and Eric Hosmer’s name will be in lights. In two weeks, when the Super Two deadline passes, maybe Danny Duffy and Mike Montgomery can join him. Get it while it’s hot.

Tommy Bennett is an author of Baseball Prospectus. You can contact Tommy by clicking here or click here to see Tommy's other articles.

[hammondsnats]

I agree this is relevant to the Harper watch.

Here's a bit more on Hosmer, and Super 2:

Get it While it's Hot
by Tommy Bennett, Baseball Prospectus

thanks for the read.  good stuff. 

[Minty Fresh]

First line:  "By now, you should know that the Kansas City Royals have exactly eleventy-million prospects capable of making scouts droll."






I've been had by a Ninja-Turtle edit!  

[tomterp]

First line:  "By now, you should know that the Kansas City Royals have exactly eleventy-million prospects capable of making scouts droll."






I've been had by a Ninja-Turtle edit!  

 

I fix a lot of BP typos.

[blue911]

If you think the Royals will be saved by going after the extra two percent, I’ve got my own two cents to offer

uh oh. Looks like somebody got their feelings hurt.

[Smithian]

My opinion on Bryce Harper is this: I think he has the potential to be the greatest baseball player of all time. I think his absolute floor is Adam Dunn like production. He hasn't disappointed yet. I think he'll be in the lineup at some point next year.

Completely awesome that he is in our system.

[Nathan]

No Harper game for me this Sunday

[hammondsnats]

No Harper game for me this Sunday

then promote him!!!

[JMUalumni]

Ben weighs in on Harper's path to the majors:

...

First, there's a huge - make that cavernous - difference between the pitchers Harper is facing in the South Atlantic League and the ones he'd face in the majors. He'd see more skilled pitchers at Single-A Potomac, which is likely his next move, and even more capable arms at Double-A Harrisburg. He's 18, and even if he's uber-talented (which he is), the Nationals believe in their process. It's rare for 19-year-olds to play in the majors; it's almost unprecedented to do it at 18. As talented as Harper is, there's a learning curve that has to take place, and the Nationals respect it.

Second, don't forget Harper is learning a new position, and we don't see his progress there in the box scores. He hasn't played the outfield every day, and there's a chance he ends up in center field over the long haul. The Nationals love having Harper work with former major league outfielder Tony Tarasco at Hagerstown, and they want to develop him there.

And third, it doesn't make sense from an economic standpoint. Remember how the Nationals left Stephen Strasburg in the minors until June last year? Harper would need to be there for the same reason: the Nationals would save millions by delaying his arbitration eligibility by a year. There's a new collective bargaining agreement coming after this year, and the Super Two process is likely to be addressed. So why chance it by bringing him up now?

....

So what can we expect from Harper? Sources in the organization have said if he tears through the minors, Harrisburg would be a good landing point for him at the end of this year. Let's say he goes to Potomac in another month, reaches Harrisburg with a couple weeks to go in the season and finishes there. That's still an extremely accelerated development curve, and it would put Harper in position to spend a few months in the minors next year, miss the Super Two cutoff date (if it's still in place by then) and, in a best-case scenario, join the Nationals sometime in 2012.

There are a hundred things that could stall or divert that path, but it seems like a realistic one given how quickly Harper has come out of a slump to terrorize South Atlantic League pitching. It's not realistic, though, to expect him in Washington now.

http://www.masnsports.com/the_goessling_game/2011/05/a-point-of-clarification-on-bryce-harper.html

[imref]

Why doesn't anyone remember what he did in the AFL and in spring training?  He's already held his own against top prospects and some major leaguers.

[Lintyfresh85]

Because 70-80 AB's are a drop in the bucket and prove nothing.