Bryce Harper’s First 162 Games

by
April 28, 2013

A year ago today, the Washington Nationals called Bryce Harper up to the big leagues, so he officially has one full season of Major League Baseball under his belt. One of the coolest little known features of the site is a split called “Past Calendar Year”, which allows you to see how a player has done in the last 365 days, giving you a rolling one year look at a player’s most recent performance. Here is the Major League leaderboard for the year that has included Bryce Harper:

Rank Name G PA AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
1 Mike Trout 162 747 0.318 0.391 0.546 0.399 159 15.6 14.3 11.0
2 Robinson Cano 166 717 0.320 0.384 0.578 0.407 158 10.4 -1.5 8.7
3 Ryan Braun 155 681 0.317 0.395 0.601 0.416 164 4.7 2.5 7.7
4 David Wright 162 697 0.301 0.390 0.489 0.376 141 11.5 2.6 7.6
5 Buster Posey 154 630 0.327 0.402 0.538 0.399 157 7.2 -4.7 7.6
6 Miguel Cabrera 164 720 0.340 0.404 0.599 0.421 169 -11.8 -1.6 7.3
7 Andrew McCutchen 163 696 0.311 0.386 0.545 0.393 152 -8.1 4.0 6.7
8 Alex Gordon 162 726 0.310 0.375 0.474 0.368 133 12.1 2.1 6.2
9 Bryce Harper 162 692 0.284 0.356 0.518 0.375 138 9.3 -0.9 6.2
10 Yadier Molina 142 583 0.318 0.373 0.487 0.371 137 9.3 -5.4 6.1

(Side note – holy crap Mike Trout.)

Because the season started a little later last year, the past calendar year includes more than 162 games for a few guys, but Harper is right at 162 after yesterday. And in those 162 games, he’s been one of the ten best players in baseball. Some fun facts from Harper’s first full season.

Over the last year, he has a .234 ISO. Prince Fielder has a .233 ISO.

Harper is still learning how to hit lefties, which isn’t unusual for a guy who just turned 20. Against right-handers, though, his career line: .308/.382/.569, good for a .406 wOBA and 159 wRC+.

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Harper has elite pull power, but he’s not just a pull power guy. For his career, he’s hit .363 and slugged .548 when going to the opposite field.

Think Harper just hits fastballs and can be exploited by good breaking stuff? Think again. Bryce Harper has been an above average hitter against every pitch type he’s been thrown.

Don’t let Bryce Harper elevate the baseball – he has a .583 wOBA on balls in the air, 100 points higher than the league average.

With 31 home runs, Bryce Harper is already tied with Ted Williams for 5th all time in home runs through his age-20 season. His age-20 season has five months left to go. He’s 11 home runs away from tying Mel Ott for most HRs before his age-21 season. I’m guessing he’ll get there.





 

Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

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Canucklesndwch
12 years ago

I was just heading to fangraphs to read look at harper’s first year of stats… you are timely Mr. Cameron.

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Canucklesndwch
12 years ago
Reply to  Canucklesndwch

done! now to read look at other interesting things

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