In 2015, Bryce Harper finally posted the breakout season the Washington Nationals had been waiting for, throwing up an ungodly .330/.460/.649 slash line en route to a National League MVP. But somehow, some way, the 23-year-old right fielder is even better in 2016. Harper has improved in three critical areas, which have sparked his red hot start to the season.
Improved Plate Discipline
Even as his walk rate has dipped this season, Harper has greatly improved his eye at the plate. He has cut down on swings outside the strike zone in 2016. Last year, according to Fangraphs, he swung at 28 percent of pitches outside of the zone. This season, that number is down to 23.7 percent. Harper’s ability to lay off pitches off the plate has been essential to his strikeout percentage, which has plunged all the way from 20 percent in 2015 to 10.9 percent this year.
Along with letting pitches out of the zone go by, much of Harper’s success has come from his ability to put the bat on the ball when he finally sees strikes. In fact, Harper has made contact with a whopping 92 percent of pitches that he has swung at inside the zone, and has only swung and missed at eight percent of strikes thrown, which are both career bests. Basically, when he is swinging, the ball is going to be put in play, which is remarkable for a slugger of Harper’s caliber.
Better Plate Approach
Walks are great, but Harper seems to have found the fine line between aggression and passivity. If there was any flaw in his game last season, it was that he sometimes seemed too interested in drawing walks. This led to a phenomenal 19 percent walk rate, but also a 20 percent strikeout rate because he would occasionally get behind in counts as he tried to drive up the number of pitches. This year, he is still drawing walks at an impressive clip (14.1 percent), but he is also jumping on pitches earlier in at-bats if he likes what he sees (his pitches seen per plate appearance is 3.53 this season, down from 4.10 in 2015). He isn’t seeing a ton of fastballs, so Harper needs to pounce on any fastball in the zone when he gets the chance, even if it is the first pitch. He has been taking the walks when given to him (he still has a fantastic .406 OBP), but he isn’t actively seeking them out. Any time Harper has seen strikes, he has been driving the ball, which is much more useful to the Nationals than settling for a walk.
Improved Power
Yeah, Bryce’s power is even better this year. After 42 home runs and a .649 slugging percentage in 2015, Harper has an .849 slugging percentage and is on pace for monstrous 86 homers in 2016. The scariest part, especially for the rest of baseball, is that is appears to be sustainable. While Harper’s fly ball rate has spiked, so has his percentage of hard hit balls. This has kept his home run per fly ball rate (HR/FB) steady compared to 2015. He is also hitting less infield pop ups than last year, which means he isn’t just fluking his way into some home runs based on the number of fly balls he hits. Harper is launching a lot fly balls indeed, but they are rocket shots, not soft bloopers, and those tend to end up in the seats more often than not.
After struggling with injury and youth in his first three seasons, Harper is finally the full-fledged beast Nats’ fans all imagined. Not only did he post titanic stats in 2015, he is putting up an encore performance that is even more incredible. With the potential back-to-back MVP leading the way with Babe Ruth-like numbers, the Nationals should be in the divisional driver’s seat throughout the summer.