Twelve Million Babies Have Been Born Since Bryce Harper’s Last Home Run

The image you just scrolled past is a photograph of professional baseball player Bryce Harper. You might remember him from home runs like this 2019 walk-off grand slam or his rain-soaked, NLCS-clinching blast. Indeed, Harper has hit 288 regular-season home runs and another 11 in the playoffs since making his big league debut. Only nine players have hit more in that time. His career .519 slugging percentage ranks 12th among active qualified batters, and his .239 isolated power ranks 15th. His maximum exit velocity has been in the top 10% of the league for seven years straight. Long story short, this Harper guy is one of the most fearsome power hitters of his generation.

So why am I talking about a two-time MVP as if there’s any chance you aren’t familiar with his accomplishments? Well, as hard as it is to believe for an old-timer like me, millions of people around the world hadn’t even been born the last time Harper hit a home run. Granted, I doubt many of those babies between zero and 34 days old have found their way to FanGraphs just yet, but the point remains: 34 days is a long time. It’s the longest home run drought of Harper’s career. The last time he hit a home run, the Reds had the worst record in the National League and Shohei Ohtani ranked 21st on the combined WAR leaderboards. Five weeks later, the Reds sit on top of the NL Central and Ohtani is lapping the competition in WAR.

Since May 26, Harper is slashing .227/.342/.268 with four doubles, zero triples, and zero home runs. His -0.3 WAR ranks 162nd out of 173 qualified players. By isolated power, this is easily the worst 26-game stretch of his career. The superstar told Todd Zolecki of MLB.com that he isn’t worried about his missing power, but he gave his batting helmet a different impression after an 0-for-3 showing against the Braves:

The simplest explanation for Harper’s power outage is his rapid return from Tommy John surgery. He went under the knife last November and was back in the majors 160 days later, the fastest Tommy John recovery time in MLB history. He accelerated his timeline by forgoing a rehab assignment, so when he came to bat against Julio Urías on May 2, it was his first in-game plate appearance since the World Series.

No one would have been surprised or upset if Harper struggled to readjust in his first few games back. But Harper being Harper, he didn’t struggle at all. In his second game of the season, he went 3-for-3 with two walks and a double. Two games later, he hit his first home run. He would go on to hit three home runs and six doubles in his first 20 games, good for a .547 SLG and .200 ISO. Those aren’t quite Harper-esque power numbers, but if that were the equivalent of his spring training, things were looking good.

Harper’s average exit velocity was surprisingly low over those first 20 games, sitting closer to the 70th percentile than its usual home around the 90th. But his barrel rate, solid contact rate, and 95th-percentile exit velocity were no different from 2022; hitting the ball hard didn’t seem to be a problem. And while his average launch angle was shockingly low, and accordingly, his groundball rate was unusually high, his sweet spot percentage was as good as ever. In other words, he might have been sending more balls straight into the ground, but those extra grounders weren’t coming at the expense of line drives and well-hit fly balls. Simply put, there wasn’t any major cause for concern under the hood.

What’s more, throughout his home run drought, Harper’s quality of contact numbers have normalized even more. His average exit velocity is up from 90.8 mph to 91.2, and his average launch angle is up from 1.4 degrees to 11.8. His groundball rate is down, his fly ball rate is up, and both numbers are much closer to his career averages. His sweet spot percentage and barrel rate have fallen, but only slightly, and his solid contact rate is up. Meanwhile, his 95th-percentile exit velocity is essentially the same. On top of that, Harper’s plate discipline has been even better during this stretch. He may be slumping, but he’s still reaching base at an above-average clip, thanks to a 15.4% walk rate. He’s also been whiffing less and chasing at fewer pitches outside the zone. These trends indicate that Harper is growing more confident at the plate, despite his lack of results.

If there is any trend worth worrying about, it’s Harper’s performance against left-handed pitching. The sample size is small, but his 23 wRC+ against southpaws is alarming, and he struggled to hit same-handed pitchers even before he entered his slump. In particular, he’s had a rough time against breaking balls from lefties (.113 wOBA, 50.6% whiff rate), and as fate would have it, lefties are throwing him more breaking balls than ever. Right-handers haven’t changed their approach against Harper, and he has thanked them with a .406 wOBA and .416 xwOBA. Left-handers, however, have stopped offering him the fastballs he loves to feast on:

Those numbers are extreme, and I’m not convinced this is actually a targeted approach against Harper instead of a consequence of the particular lefties he’s faced so far. Tommy Henry, Jared Shuster, Austin Gomber, and Kyle Freeland have combined to throw 30% of the breaking pitches Harper has seen from southpaws. All four of those pitchers lean on their breaking stuff against same-handed opponents — not just Harper. As he faces a wider array of lefties throughout the season, I’d be surprised if Harper continues to see so many breaking balls. I’d also be surprised if he continues to perform so poorly against those pitches. Sliders and curveballs from same-handed pitchers are tough, but throughout his career, Harper has been tougher.

Bryce Harper without a homer is like The Simpsons without Bart or the Ancient Greek literary canon without Euripedes; something is missing. All the same, that doesn’t mean it’s time to sound the alarm. If anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt during a month-long slump following a record-breaking return from major surgery, it’s Harper. It was always a possibility that his body wouldn’t be at full strength right away, and that he would need time to recalibrate after an atypical offseason. The fact that he came sprinting out of the gate over his first 20 games doesn’t make that any less true. His triple-slash looks miserable right now, but his plate discipline and batted ball stats suggest he’s actually trending in the right direction. Rest assured, the home runs will come back eventually; the world just might welcome a few million more babies before they do.