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Oh boy, that's going to make the Matt Williams thread even more fun. He's starting to turn into a white, quick Ramos.
I'm just saying that it is still April. At least wait until Memorial Day before deciding if someone's season is lost.
What an expected but disappointing development. He is never going to put together a full season and blossom like we had hoped.
So much for the "losing all those games to get Harper was worth it" philosophy?
Can we wait until he lead his draft class in war (sale is doubling him now in BR, 50% more in fangraphs) before calling him amazing?
Here is another fact, from a land in which perception takes a backseat to reality: Three players have logged more than 1,000 plate appearances through age 20 and put up that same .350-plus OBP and .475-plus slugging percentage. The first was Mel Ott. The second was Mickey Mantle. The third was Bryce Harper.
I guess we won't be seeing much of Harper's BH around until August.
Yup, not amazing at all.
By that measure then Harper has been even better than Trout. Saying Harper has been amazing is a joke.
He's had a pretty amazing start to his career all things considered.
Am I the only one who isn't bothered by this at all? I think Harper has been pretty mediocre and he was being bothered by a sore knee anyway.
(We could name each of the girls Harper.)
How many players at his age with his expectations
They need to come up with adjusted standings to reflect where the team would be if not for player's ages and injuries so the Nats can be listed as undefeated and declared the real champions.
You guys think he's back before or after July 4?
So much talent and so many injuries. Will we ever see Bryce Harper play the way he's capable of for an entire season? I'm completely bummed out.
The Washington Nationals went a little off the board this winter with the hiring of manager Matt Williams, a respected coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks and former All-Star who had a grand total of zero games of professional managing experience. That inexperience has shown all over the place, as Williams has demonstrated that he's in way over his head so far -- never more so than in his mishandling of the team's most talented player, Bryce Harper, who is now headed for surgery on his thumb and will be lost until (at least) early July. Leaders do not make their points at the expense of their best subordinates, but that is exactly what Williams did when he chose to pull Harper from a game on April 19 because Harper didn't fully run out a routine ground ball back to the pitcher. Harper was coming off an injured quad and (from what I'm told) battling the flu on the day when he chose, wisely, not to run out a ground ball so routine that had the pitcher rolled the ball to first base he still would have had Harper by a few feet. Asking any player to run that ball out shows an emphasis on superficial, meaningless behavior over actions that actually increase the team's chances of winning a game. No one ever scored an extra run by showboating for the cameras, but that is exactly what Williams wanted Harper -- who was injured and sick -- to do. Harper singled out Williams' tirade on "lack of hustle," directed at a player who is hustle incarnate, was a low point for the Nationals this season, but Harper's injury, which came as he tried to stretch a double into a triple by -- wait for it -- hustling, is a new nadir. It's bad enough that the inexperienced manager felt the need to heap dispraise on Harper in a public forum; it's worse that those empty criticisms might in any way have led to Harper taking more of a risk than usual and tearing that thumb ligament.On top of that, Williams seems to have it in for Harper, treating him more harshly than he's treated other players who've committed similar or graver mistakes. On April 18, the Nationals played an ugly game, making three errors -- two by Ian Desmond -- and misplaying several others. Williams didn't bench anyone during the game for sloppiness or lack of focus, and more importantly, he didn't throw any of his players under the bus after the game, refusing to even tell the press what he'd said to them after the shoddy performance. “That's for me and my team, and nobody else's business,” he told reporters. So why did Williams feel so willing to degrade Harper to the media after Harper's perceived lack of hustle? On April 20, a day after The Benching, Jayson Werth batted with two outs in the bottom of the first inning, checked his swing, and grounded out to first base … but clearly gave up on the play before first baseman Matt Adams threw the ball to pitcher Shelby Miller. Williams didn't bench Werth, didn't call him out during or after the game, didn't do anything. Why is Werth immune to criticism for failure to false-hustle while Harper gets publicly shamed for it?Of course, after Harper's injury, Williams was quick to point out that Harper "plays the game hard." But that was always the case; it's just that Harper also plays it smart, and doesn't waste time with false hustle -- probably because false hustle has yet to win any team a ballgame. The entire incident has highlighted that the Nationals organization made a mistake in hiring a manager with zero experience in Williams, who spent the first few weeks of the season trying to figure out how far down in the lineup he could bury Harper. Source of injuries The Nationals took a calculated risk in 2010 when they chose to move Harper, who played catcher as an amateur, out from behind the plate immediately after signing him, removing him from the middle of the field and from a position he'd played since childhood -- and a position he played well. Although catcher is normally a more injury-prone position than the outfield, Harper's unfamilarity with the outfield and with playing on a corner could have been a factor in several of his injuries in pro ball, including his collision with the outfield wall in Los Angeles last April. The move to right field may have gotten Harper to the majors faster, but put him at a position with a much higher baseline (replacement-level) against which we measure his performance, meaning that the Nationals may have left a lot of value on the table by shifting him to the outfield. It's probably too late to return Harper to catching -- although I don't doubt that Harper could do it, as he still has the athleticism and the arm -- so why are the Nationals so willing to further devalue the guy who should be the franchise player by claiming he doesn't hustle and perhaps driving him to overdo it in response? Washington has to do without Harper for at least the next two months now, and there's no internal replacement likely to come close to his level of production. Before he returns, however, the organization has to come up with a better plan for managing their most valuable asset -- and if that means finding a manager better able to do that, so be it.http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post?id=2286
