Bryce Harper will win the NL MVP tonight in a landslide if not unanimously and prove to the world how ‘legit’ he is. Bryce will also be the first player ever to go from MLB’s most overrated to win the MVP in the same season. In fact Bryce Harper got 41% of the vote to be named most overrated in the 2015 off-season which was tops in the baseball vote from his fellow players and that is even worse than 2014 when Bryce led the overrated list with 24% of the vote and that is a 71% increase, year over year. Prediction—Bryce won’t be on the overrated list in 2016.
https://twitter.com/nats_fanly/status/664288196058968065
Bryce will have the last laugh when he places that MVP trophy next to his Rookie of the Year trophy and his Silver Slugger and All Star rings and laughs all the way to the bank.
Bryce is slowly becoming the most marketable active player in baseball. It appears that Bryce Harper has endorsement deals with Gatorade to Under Armour to Rawlings to New Era to WarriorBlack. After winning a MVP and distancing oneself from the most overrated tag leads to even more sponsorship opportunities.
Bryce Harper finished the season with the HR crown tied with Arenado; however, Bryce hit his 42 HRs in 95 fewer at-bats then Arenado. Bryce won the OBP crown over Votto by 1 point at .460 and Bryce won the OPS crown at 1.109. Bryce Harper won the WAR crown. Bryce unfortunately ended up 2nd in the NL in BA as Dee Gordon went 3-4 to finish the season and Bryce finished at .330 to Gordon’s .333. Bryce also took the Runs Scored crowd.
Bryce Harper finished with the MLB best WAR at 9.9 which is in legendary levels rarely seen. MLB WAR RANKING
Runs Scored in the NL:
- Bryce Harper 118
- A.J. Pollock 111
- Paul Goldschmidt 103
NL Rank in HRs:
- Bryce Harper 42 tied with Nolan Arenado 42
NL Rank in RBIs:
- Nolan Arenado 130
- Paul Goldschmidt 110
- Anthony Rizzo 101
- Matt Kemp 100
- Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant, tied with 99
MLB Rank in Walks:
- Joey Votto 143
- Bryce Harper 124
- Paul Goldschmidt 118
NL Rank in Batting Average:
- Dee Gordon .333
- Bryce Harper .330
- Paul Goldschmidt .321
- Buster Posey .318
- AJ Pollock .315
- Yunel Escobar .314
NL Rank in Hard Hit %:
- Matt Kemp 41.4
- Bryce Harper 41.0%
- Paul Goldschmidt 40.9%
MLB Rank in OBP:
- Bryce Harper .460
- Joey Votto .459
- Miguel Cabrera .440
MLB Rank in Slugging:
- Bryce Harper .649
- Mike Trout .590
- Nolan Arenado .575
- Paul Goldschmidt .570
MLB Rank in OPS:
- Bryce Harper 1.109
- Paul Goldschmidt 1.005
- Joey Votto 1.000
- Mike Trout .991
MLB Rank in Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+):
- Bryce Harper 198
- Joey Votto 172
- Mike Trout 171
- Paul Goldschmidt 162
MLB Rank in WAR:
- Bryce Harper 9.9
- Mike Trout 9.3
- Josh Donaldson 8.9
- Paul Goldschmidt 8.6
NL Rank for Outfield Assists for a primary RF:
- Gregory Polanco 13
- Jay Bruce 11
- Matt Kemp 10
- Bryce Harper, Curtis Granderson 9
Here’s a great primer on what WAR is as explained by FanGraphs FANGRAPHS WAR Explained
Essentially, Bryce Harper already has one of the 25 best hitting seasons ever and is all of 22 years old. What he's doing is truly historic.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 21, 2015
We ran Bryce’s final stat line, BA at .330, HRs 42, .460 OBP, 1.109 OPS, 118 Runs, 99 RBIs, 124 walks, and compared him in history to those results at a minimum for each category, the results of those who met or exceeded each of those numbers are Hall of Famers Babe Ruth (age 25), Lou Gehrig (age 33) , and Ted Williams (age 30). The only non-HOFer was Barry Bonds (age 36), and none of them were 22 years old. There were many players who met several of the categories but this is a rare combination of stats. Players like Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle couldn’t meet or exceed all of those stat points in the same season. That’s how elite this season was for Bryce.
We will update this thread after the vote is revealed.
UPDATED 11/19/2015 8:00PM EST: It was clear Bryce was going to win the MVP, and what wasn’t clear was if Bryce would get all 30 of the 1st place votes and Bryce did get all 30 of the 1st place votes and became the youngest unanimous MVP winner in the MLB history.
“I want to thank my fans in D.C. “I want to thank the fans in D.C., the best fans in the world…I love the city of D.C.” Bryce thanked Mr. Lerner numerous times and two players he thanked was Jayson Werth and Ian Desmond. Bryce thanked Matt Williams and Mike Rizzo and even Tony Tarasco. Bryce thanked his agent Scott Boras. “I want to win games—I want to win a World Series and have a parade in D.C.”
Bryce was asked about the haters, “Jayson always messes with me and says ‘if you don’t like it then stop doing all your stupid commercials.’ I enjoy getting booed when I go to places. It makes me thrive. It makes me play well.”
Bryce was asked if he would stay in D.C., “I have a couple [three under contract] more years in D.C. and hopefully at the end of that, we can do what we can and maybe be a National for life.” We wrote yesterday that 16 to 18 year deal that got Bryce to 1/2 a $Billion isn’t out of the question. Much of that depends on the RSN money from MASN and it certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. “I want to be able to do the things I can for my city and my town. And that’s D.C.”
Ted Lerner had a message for Bryce, “It’s such a pleasure to watch him play and we look forward to his future outstanding contributions to the team. The entire Lerner family extends congrats to Bryce on his well-deserved MVP award and his tremendous, record-setting season.”
#Nats Managing Principal Owner Theodore N. Lerner on the #MVPDMV, @Bharper3407: pic.twitter.com/vJHTvk5knk
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) November 19, 2015
Bryce thanked Mr. Lerner many times, and you just don’t hear in baseball too often that a player personally thanks his owner. People say often how much is wrong with the Nationals, and clearly there’s so much that is right, and you don’t have to look hard to find it. Bryce proved it, and his words resonated in what we’ve said over and over again about the clubhouse impact of Jayson Werth and Ian Desmond—the intangibles.
https://twitter.com/UABaseball/status/667484719836082176
A nice video produced by Under Armour about Bryce Harper and narrated by George Brett.
