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Harper has a higher career WAR. But this year Rendon is way ahead. 2.1 to 1.2. You can’t build around a player who is a 1.5 annual WAR either. The Nats offense has been off this year and Harper is a major reason. You are mistaking HRs and RBIs for actual value.
Sign both Rendon and Harper. Why not. Not my money. Rendon is not a player you can build around. He's a very good, complimentary player. Besides, he has an awful game face.
Career WAR is what matters. But WAR does not factor in off the field value and game face.
We are usually on same page, but you have to get over Rendon's easy going attitude.Give me a player who will grind out solid OBP, pound doubles and 20 homers, and be a plus glove and base runner then I don't care what his face looks like. Rendon is a stud.
I believe in trends. Harper is trending downward. He really has not been the same since 2016. Anyway. He is going to LA to play with his buddy Trout. That way he can be the complementary guy at $40 million per year.
All right, I will come clean. The whole thing about Rendon and his crap eating grin is just a minor annoyance that I love to joke about. I love him as a player. Oh, the fact the he's dumber than a box of rocks doesn't bother me either.
I don't believe he is trending downward at 25. Best years ahead of him. And he's not getting $40 million a year. He's better friends with Kris Davis anyway. But friends can't make you money.
Harper had a pretty ridiculous season last year that somehow went unheralded as Rendon destroyed pitching staffs, Murphy kept raking, and Zim looked like would win the Triple Crown for a few months.Harper is going to have more ridiculous seasons. That is why I want him back. I just don't know if it is possible financially.
“In the end, all that stuff that happened to him will make him better,” Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long said last weekend in Chicago. “He learned more about himself. He learned his value.“His value is not in trying to hit home runs. His value is putting together good at-bats and hitting line drives, and some of those line drives will end up home runs. He really thought he could elevate his game by hitting more home runs. He has hit 40, and he thought he could elevate to 55 to 60. He found that wasn’t the case — the hard way.”Harper has increased his line-drive rate from 22 percent before June 20 to 26.8 percent since, according to Inside Edge. The league average is 23.2 percent, and his increase ranks 31st of 157 hitters who have at least 250 balls in play on the season and 50 BIP in each time frame.
The offense sucks when Harper is off, does the offense necessarily thrive when Rendon is on or tank when he is off?
So, in other words, Harper's collapse is due to not listening to the coaching staff, who was telling him to hit the ball the other way?
Harper's hitting coach is his dad. That is a major problem, not necessarily because his dad is a terrible coach but because his dad isn't there everyday. Buster Olney wrote a piece two or three weeks ago about how Mike Trout's dad stepped away when Trout started playing in show case games. Even though Jeff Trout had played professional baseball. Harper's dad needs to do the same.
You kind of contradict yourself there. He can't be his hitting coach if he's not there every day. Of course, his father gives him advice. I bet that applies to many MLB players. I think the whole thing Harper father thing is a media myth anyway. It doesn't help that his father threw to him a the HR derby.
Dunno. Doesn't say that Long was telling him to do things one way or the other. More like a parent who's lets their kids learn lessons through experience rather than rigid discipline.
Don't be a knob.
You remember that day that Long worked with him by hitting off the tee and go the other way? That's the kind of thing Long was doing with Murphy back in 2015.
