2017 Showed Us That Harper and Trout are the Game's Best

On the final day of the season, a recovered Bryce Harper stung the ball four times, twice for singles that led to runs. In his final at-bat, he smashed a 114 mph line drive and later sprinted around the basepaths from first to home, helmet airborne, on a long single by a teammate.

Harper is back and ready for the playoffs.

Harper was cruising to another MVP season when he suffered a gruesome leg injury while stepping on a slippery base at full speed after a rain delay. The 50 games he missed left him with merely 29 home runs in a .319/.413/.598 season. 

I've already waxed poetic about Mike Trout, also the MVP of his league had he not ripped up his thumb sliding on a steal. Trout and Harper, the two ends of the charisma continuum, won't earn a single MVP vote between them.

But 2017 reminded us that they are the two best players in the game. That's despite the influx of great young players, particularly middle infielders, over the past three-four seasons. Among them, Jose Ramirez, Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado and Aaron Judge will get serious MVP consideration this season.

Those four, and many more, are amazing talents who are rejuvenating the game. 

But they're all second fiddle to Trout and Harper.

Infrequently Asked Questions

You have questions? I have answers. Some of them are even right answers.

These are the questions baseball fans have been sending my way lately:

Q. Can the Indians return to the World Series next year?
A. Which is to say, can they make the playoffs? Fo' shizzle. Their two injured starters return to join my Cy Young pick, Cory Kluber, and Trevor Bauer is poised to take the next step. They lose Mike Napoli's bat but add by subtraction in the field. If Michael Brantley can return to anything like his 2015 self in 2017, and Lindor, Naquin and Ramirez avoid catastrophic sophomore slumps, they could be even better. With the Royals, White Sox and Twins reeling, only the Detroits have the stuff to challenge Believeland.

Q. When does the Yankees' rebuild pay off?
A. Sooner than any of us want it to. They very likely have the best Minor League system in baseball today, and that's even after Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird made The Show.

Q. Should the Mets sign Yoenis Cespedes?
A. It's not my money, so sure! The Amazins can hurl with anyone, particularly with Gsellman in the mix and a potential Wheeler bounce-back, but they have fewer bats than an aquarium. Getting Neil Walker back is nice, but the Mets had better sign someone who can thump or the fans will be doing the hurling. They can sign Cespedes for some gargantuan contract that he won't be worth, once again playing three left fielders in their outfield. But who's the alternative -- DH Edwin Encarnacion? DH-in-waiting Jose Bautista?

Q. Which is the worst team in baseball next year?
A. i wouldn't bet against the Reds.

Q. What should the Jays do about their two big free agents?
A. Toronto is in a pickle. Lose Bautista and Encarnacion and there go 70 home runs out the door. Each is expecting the kind of deal that could sink a team as they age poorly. The Blue Jays are too good to punt and too smart to bankrupt the future on a 36-year-old defensive liability. I think the brass are hoping the market for Bautista cools and they can reclaim him for a reasonable amount.

Q. Is Andrew McCutchen over?
A. Boy, that would be precipitous -- from the game's most dynamic player to replacement level in one year. Regression to the mean suggests he'll be a 3-4 win player next season -- very good, but not the 'Cutch we knew. After that he's 31.

Q. How good can the Mets be next season? They were ravaged by injuries in '16 but overperformed; could they get a lot better and win fewer games in '17?
A. Depends on the sticks. The lineup they have today couldn't beat O'Neil's Texaco from the Bay Village Little League. They need to find some lumber, whether from inside the roster or plucked off another one. Add some scoring to 140 starts out of deGrom, Syndergaard, Gsellman, Harvey, Wheeler and Matz, and they're a serious World Series contender.

Q. Is there anyone on the free agent wire who can help my Orioles pitching staff?
A. Zippo, zilch, nada, nuttin, nil. Rich Hill's the best moundsman out there and he's 37 with 24 good starts in his pocket.

Q. Are we forgetting about Buster Posey?
A. Who? His output dipped 50 points of OPS in his age 29 season but he's still an above-average hitter with mad framing skills who was worth four wins to the Giants. He's a Hall of Fame argument, depending on how he ages, and still one of the best receivers in the game. It wouldn't surprise me if he hit .300 next year with a bump in home runs and 5+ wins of value.

Q. Who is the most under-rated player in baseball?
A. There are two variables in that question, one of which is, how is a particular player "rated." For the past two years I've touted Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich. The low-key 24-year-old has a Gold Glove, a Sliver Slugger and a .293/.368/.483 batting line over a three-and-a-half year career. 

Q. Didn't Ian Kinsler sort-of get his wish?
A. When the Rangers flipped him to Detroit for Prince Fielder before the 2014 season, Kinsler called GM Jon Daniels a "sleazeball" and wished a 0-162 record on Texas. Since then, he's added 18 wins and a division title to the Tigers, but Texas has won its division each of the last two seasons, even as injuries ended Fielder's career prematurely. So assuming Kinsler hates the Rangers and not Prince Fielder, all he has is the satisfaction that his side got the better of the deal.

Q. What can we reasonably expect from Gary Sanchez in 2017?
A. Not that. Fangraphs projects .268/.329/.490 with 26 home runs and four wins against replacement. Pretty good for $540,000.

Q. It felt like Terry Francona out foxed Joe Maddon in the World Series. Why does everyone love Maddon?
A. For all the right reasons. He's smart and open to new ideas. His players love playing for him. He keeps it light over 162 games. He knows his players and never panics. That said, I agree that Tito did a great job of matching his limited assets -- most notably Cory Kluber and Andrew Miller -- against the Cubs' deep vein of talent. 

Q. I can't decide whether Hal Steinbrenner is a better owner than his father. George was a lunatic but his teams won.
A. That's not technically a question, frequently asked or otherwise. It's a different time now. George could bully the rest of baseball then in a way Hal can't today. New York enjoyed advantages -- not just financial-- that pre-dated the luxury tax, shared revenue and a social media landscape that makes anywhere the center of the media world depending on who's Tweeting. George's brand of insanity would be a colossal failure today.

Q. You made it pretty clear that you think Donald Trump is a sociopath. What policies of his are you rooting for?
A. My problem with Trump is not partisan;  who even knows where he stands on the issues? The problem is he's a despicable human being who remains willfully ignorant of the job he sought. Replacing the Affordable Care Act and enforcing some fiscal discipline would be welcome developments, though I have zero faith he will accomplish either.

Q. What is ahead for Bryce Harper? He was the world's best player in 2015 and then hit .243 last year.
A. Almost no one's career progresses in a straight line. Harper appeared to be dinged up last year, yet he managed a .373 OBP, 24 homers and three wins against replacement. His 2015 might have been a one-off, but Fangraphs projects a big bounce back for him, particularly in the power department.

Q. What do the Cubs do if Jason Heyward continues to suck?
A. The only thing that's certain is that they'll keep paying him through 2023.

Q. Where does Aroldis Chapman land and for how much?
A. Are we assuming he's chasing the cash? Word is he and the Yankees are courting.

Q. Am I crazy or is this Hot Stove season shaping up as the worst ever? The free agent crop is garbage.
A. The free agent crop is mostly garbage. As for your mental health, you should see a professional.

Q. Who is going to be the best free agent pickup this winter?
A. Ian Desmond? Versatile defenders with broad skill sets tend to have high floors, and speedsters tend to age well. Plus he's good looking and of uncertain ethnicity.

That's enough for now. Keep those cards and letters coming. And try to put the questions in question form.

Bryce Harper In College

No insight here, not that that's anything new. Just happened to look up Bryce Harper's one college season and discovered the following in his 66 games for the College of Southern Nevada, a junior college based in Las Vegas playing in the Scenic West Athletic Conference:

He led the league in batting with a .443 average, 46 points better than the next best hitter.
He led the league in on base percentage at .526, 62 points better than anyone else.
He led the league in slugging at .987, 258 points ahead of anyone else.
He led the league in OPS by 421 points at 1.513
He led the league in homers with 31, more than double the next slugger.
He led the league in doubles -- by double.
He led the league in steals with 20 and was caught just four times.
He led the league in total bases by 50%.
He scored and knocked in 81 more runs combined than the next most prolific run producer.
He had the second most walks and third most triples. Slacker.

He also pitched for the Coyotes!
His 11-1 record accounted for the second most wins and the best W-L percentage in the league.
His 2.62 ERA was second best ERA in the league
He allowed the lowest batting average against.
He fanned 96 in 65 innings.

He had the league's fifth best fielding percentage.

This kid might be a good Major Leaguer. Keep an eye on him.

Why the Projection Systems Can't Get Bryce Harper Right

"History will little note, nor long remember, what we say here." --President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg battlefield, considered the worst prediction in human history.


The futility of predicting the future in baseball has been amply documented and only weakly lamented. Bless their hearts, the various Sabermetric websites continue to offer the old college try, annually tweaking their systems to finer and finer levels of mediocrity. Fangraphs, Bill James, Baseball Prospectus, Tom Tango and The Hardball Times all provide projections whose mathematical formulas do a 5% better job than you would making educated guesses.

As I've mentioned before, understanding a few simple rules will give you all the tools you need to pull even with, or even out-guess, the projections. The reason is that these systems are prisoners of their calculations, whereas you know something or two about the players.

Take Bryce Harper, who flummoxes PECOTA, ZIPS, Steamer, Marcel, Bill James and all the rest. Harper was a young phenom who flashed wads of unrefined brilliance in his first three seasons but also got himself injured with regularity because of his over-exuberance. Then last year, having learned how to stay on the field and harness his innate power, he blasted 42 homers and got aboard safely at a 46% clip, en route to the MVP.

What the projections systems see is a good player who scuffled along for three seasons batting .270 with 20 home runs before out-performing himself in 2015. Consequently, they are regressing him to the mean. Here is PECOTA's projection of Harper:

2015 (Actual)	22	.386	11.2
2016 (Projected)	23	.313	5.1
2017 (Projected)	24	.322	5.5

(That's age, True Average and WAR listed in the three columns above.)

That's generally the way to treat players, but this is Bryce Freakin' Harper. When it crunches the numbers and spits out its projection, PECOTA doesn't know Bryce Harper from Valerie Harper. It's never seen this prodigy play.  It thinks he's just a guy whose pants were on fire last season.

You know better. You know that's the Harper we've been waiting for, and that putting it all together at 22 makes him a superstar not in spite of three previous seasons of .270 and 20 home runs but because of what we saw during them. 

I'll bet my Pope Francis Fan Club membership that Harper posts a TAv north of .350 this season and, if he stays upright, hands at least another eight wins to the Nationals. It may not work out that way, but that's what PECOTA would say is a reasonable 50% percentile projection if it had the ability to discern the man behind the statistics.

It doesn't, as none of the projections systems do, which is one of the reasons they aren't of much use.

All Star Observations

The All-Star game is an exhibition but real life intrudes with every pitch.

For starters, there's Royals manager Ned Yost, exhorting his charges pre-game to play as if it mattered, because it might, as his personal testimony could attest. Last season, KC stood seven games out at the ASB, yet returned home for the seventh game of the World Series thanks to an American League victory.

Which they lost, demonstrating that even in the unlikely event that your team runs the gauntlet to the Fall Classic, and in the even more unlikely event that the series goes seven games, even then, the advantage conferred upon the home team is barely worth noting. 

The All-Star game is still a game, and ballers are still ballers. Did you notice how Bryce Harper adjusted his position in the batter's box with two strikes on him? That's one reason he has grown into his talent and now plays the part of George Washington in today's NL Mount Rushmore. In the same inning, Adam Jones, who possesses the same wealth of talent, swung at two balls down and off the plate on the way to a strikeout. That's about the only reason Jones has made a mint in the game, but won't pose for any monuments.

The introduction of elderly Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax and an aging Johnny Bench was a stirring addition to the opening ceremonies. Kudos to MLB for its promotion of the four greatest living players vote.

Lost in the years since the playing days of Aaron and Mays, who stand a head taller than anyone else who might join them in the top four, is that both were sons of the South who overcame racist hatred with aplomb and helped smash the race barrier. They are not just all-time great ballplayers; they have been great men. Let's not forget it.

Meanwhile, Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux and others had to be scratching their heads about Koufax. The Left Arm of God was almighty during the final six years of his career, winning three pitching triple crowns and three Cy Youngs, averaging 22-8, 2.19 and 286 strikeouts. But in his other six seasons he averaged 6-7, 4.10 with 114 strikeouts and more than half as many walks.

Seaver flummoxed batters from age 22 to 40, earning three Cy Youngs and six other top five finishes. His 106 career WAR is twice that of Koufax. The record is nearly identical for Maddux, whose peak was slightly higher but who tailed off more before retiring.

Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson also have strong cases against Koufax. Longevity and consistency matter: Koufax was a phenomenon, but far short of the greatest living pitcher.

The rule that every team gets an All Star representative is less popular than Congress, but its impact was minimal this year. Even the worst teams -- Milwaukee with KRod, Philly with Papelbon (or Hamels), Colorado with Arenado and Tulo, Boston with Holt (or Bogaerts), Oakland with Gray and Vogt and so on, provided legitimate candidates. 

The biggest stretch is probably Justin Upton representing the Padres, hitting .253 with 14 dingers. But Upton has a history of good play, faces a daunting ballpark for hitting and offers excellent outfield defense and 17 of 18 steals.  There's not much to complain about there.

Hearing Bryce Harper laud Mike Trout's speed burst around third was priceless. It'd be like Carlos Santana marveling at Eric Clapton's axe grinding.

If Ryan Braun can get selected to an All-Star game, it's time to drop the artifice and welcome Pete Rose back into the game; fold up the placards decrying Alex Rodriguez; and elect Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and the rest into the Hall of Fame. Instead of bestowing such an honor on that unapologetic disgrace, the NL manager should select Braun's cynical spin doctors, handlers and script writers.

Passing Along This Great Fangraphs Article

I have little to add to this amazing revelation about how Bryce Harper has remade himself even in the middle of his breakout season, so I will simply recommend it.  Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs stands atop the pile of Internet sports writers.

By the way, on June 10 Harper finally faced a pitcher younger than him in his fifth year in the Majors when Yankee reliever Jacob Lindgren retired him on a fly ball. Lindgren, a rookie, is seven months younger than Harper.

Where Are the All-Time Greats?

A recent spate of Hall of Fame retirements has transformed today's Major Leagues from a repository of the enshrined to a roster of stars whose exact composition is a mystery. Players who are Hall of Fame locks right now number three: Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki and Miguel Cabrera.

Compare that to 10 years ago when Alex Rodriguez could have cruised into Cooperstown with hardly a dissenter. Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Derek Jeter, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Mussina, Kurt Schilling, Greg Madduz, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine were all dancing their waltzes into baseball history.

Purely on the merits, of course, ARod is a no doubter, just as Bonds and Clemens were. The forecast for any of them seeing their bust carved is partly dubious with a chance of impossible. Illicit performance boosting may also work against the borderline case of David Ortiz. Infielders Chase Utley and Adrian Beltre have to rate as probably nots, barring late career second acts (or third acts in Beltre's case.) Carlos Beltran's candidacy depends on how much voters have evolved to appreciate all-around skills, and then which way their coins toss.

Of course, there are some mid-career probablies out there. You have to like Buster Posey's chances, particularly if he can remain behind the plate. On top of his lifetime .300+ batting average, he owns a Rookie of the Year, an MVP and three World Championships. In his sixth season, at age 28, Posey is at it again, posting a .314 TAv.

Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw and Craig Kimbrel are on promising trajectories as well, though Kimbrel has been lit up in 16 innings this year and Kershaw's powers seemed to have disappeared, Samson-style, with the loss of his hair, in his case facial. Those last three names illuminate how wanting the Majors are today in pitching greatness. The top active hurling careers belong to Mark Buehrle, Tim Hudson, Adam Wainright, Chris Carpenter and Joe Nathan, fine moundsmen all, but hardly bronze material.  Other than King Felix, there will not be a single legitimate pitching candidate for a decade or so after the current backlog clears out.

Then there is Yadier Molina, who needs to keep hitting in the sunset years of his career to be considered this generation's Ivan Rodriguez. Twenty-nine-year-old Evan Longoria has a shot if he returns to the form of his first five full seasons. Joey Votto would have to maintain that consistent excellence for another decade to earn Hall stripes.  And we can always dream on the second and third-year players like Puig, Cespedes, Harvey, Abreu and their ilk. But potential outnumbers fruition by a healthy margin.

Experience tells us that a couple of those named will slide off the list, just as Nomar Garciaparra, Tim Lincecum and Joe Mauer did. And others will climb on, following a path paved by Paul Molitor and Sandy Koufax, to name two. Still, it's likely that the ballot clogging now vexing Hall of Fame voting will not be an issue a decade or two from now.

Not All Homers Leave the Yard. Or Drink Duff Beer. Or Pitch for the Reds...

It's a bit of shooting fish in a barrel, admittedly, but local team broadcasts are always fun to pick on for their gross inanity. You can chalk up their vapidness to homerism, but these are major market broadcasts of billion-dollar enterprises.

In fact, the Atlanta Braves radio network claims to be the largest in all of professional sports. Certainly the fact that a fan in Charleston, SC can listen to the broadcasts 300 miles away is testament to their reach.

On the pre-game show before a tilt against the Nationals, one of the hosts offered that Washington may claim golden boy Bryce Harper, but Atlanta counters, at least this year, with Kelly Johnson, and he would take that match-up any day.

As well he should. In the sense that any day is as good as another in their comparison. Let's make it, just to see the depravity of his subjectivity.

Kelly Johnson is what you might charitably call a slugging second baseman who has donned the uniform of seven different teams over an 11-year career.  He has tallied 16 or more home runs in a season five times, despite rarely earning everyday status. He's an average-fielding keystoner.

For his career, Johnson has hit .250/.332/.425 with 19 HR and 67 RBI per 162 games. He's produced a .269 True Average (TAv) and 17.4 wins against replacement.

Bryce Harper is what you might call an emerging star who is still a year younger than Johnson was when he debuted. Harper has hit .274/.358/.478 with 27 HR and 73 RBI per 162 games. He's produced a .300 TAv and 11.7 wins against replacement in a four-year career. He's a highlight film in the outfield.

This season, Johnson is hitting .236, but with six dingers in just 77 plate appearances. Harper is hitting .292 and leading the league in walks. He's gone yard 11 times in 133 plate appearances.

So, to summarize, Harper is hitting for much better average than Johnson this year. He's on base at a rate 100 points higher. He's slugging a little better. He's a better fielder. Right now, Harper is a better player in every way.

For their careers, Harper hits for better average, on base and slugging, a much higher TAv, more home runs and RBIs and has accounted for six fewer wins than Johnson in seven fewer years. At the rate he's going right now, Harper will make up the difference this season. 

In short, Bryce Harper is a Hall of Fame contender; Kelly Johnson was an asset for about a four-year stretch of his career.

So yeah, any day is as good as any other to compare the two players. And if Braves' management is as utterly brainless (they're not) as an announcer blind with boosterism, they can expect their team to take permanent residence at the bottom of the standings.

A Bit O' Bryce

Note: This post was updated on 5/9

Bryce Harper, now a four-year veteran with 1400 Major League at bats to his name, has still yet to face a pitcher younger than he is at any level of professional baseball.

What he faced on Wednesday was a pair of Marlin hurlers, and he produced more than 1250 feet of home runs, turning two of the three around at speeds over 101 mph.

Of the nine players to exit the yard thrice in a game at a more tender age than Harper, five of them have busts in the Hall—Mickey Cochrane, Mel Ott, Joe DiMaggio, Eddie Mathews and Al Kaline.

Harper followed that with a two-homer game the next night and a walk-off homer the following day. No one so young has every ripped five home runs in two consecutive contests.

And he may be rounding into Hall form himself. Half of Bam Bam's hits this season are the extra base variety and he continues to pace the NL in walks.

It's early, of course, but it feels good to dream on his .380 TAv. 

A First New World Problem

"Dude, that's a First World problem." 

What a great new aphorism. It elegantly observes that most of the irritations in our lives are mere inconveniences borne of the luxury we have, to forgo the daily need to fill our bellies, elude predators and find shelter from the elements.

The pièce de résistance though, is the ignorance of the saying. These are not First World problems because we don't live in the First World. We live in the New World, which is why Africa and much of Asia is the Third World. The First World is places like Bohemia, Saxony and Prussia.

In any case, the Washington Nationals are now suffering a very first world problem, with the return of Bryce Harper from injury. Harper, who slots in at left or center, has been spelled by Ryan Zimmerman, his predecessor as "face of the franchise." Once a Gold Glove third baseman, Zimmerman has arm issues that make long throws to first problematic. 

No problem. Zimmerman has been enjoying the outer pasture in Harper's stead and stud rookie Anthony Rendon has taken his big stick to the hot corner. Until now. 

With Harper's return, Nats skipper Matt Williams has some decisions to make. If he returns the phenom to left, does he sit Zimmerman and his lifetime 34 wins against replacement (at age just 29) or does he slot him back at the manager's old position? If Zimmerman is back at third, does Rendon sit or move to the keystone -- which he played in the minors-- in place of Danny Espinosa? Espo's not much at the dish but he's a nifty fielder, partly responsible for the team's league-best ERA.

Or does Zimmerman stay put, Harper slide to center and Denard Span take a seat? Like Espinosa, Span's not getting it done at the plate, but the team would take a defensive hit from moving him. Maybe Harper should bump Zimmerman who should bump Rendon who should bump Espinosa who should bump Ian Desmond at short. That would get the left handed (or switch-hitting) bats of Harper, Espinosa and Span (as well as first baseman Adam LaRoche and catcher Jose Lobaton) into the lineup against righties.

In fact, every team would like this issue with its lineup. The Red Sox have to send David Ortiz to play in first base traffic during interleague games. The Tigers can't hide Miguel Cabrera's concrete shoes because Victor Martinez isn't fit for fieldwork. And God help us: Adam Dunn has taken his glove out onto the diamond 28 times this year -- eight of them, in the outfield. So Washington's extreme flexibility is refreshing.

Sensibly, the Nats seem to be employing the "every available option" approach. Sometimes Span will come in as a defensive replacement. Some games will see Espinosa on the bench. Harper and Zimmerman will get a break now and then to limit their injury opportunities and pinch hit when needed. Interleague games will provide more options. And all the nine guys into eight slots will become irrelevant as soon as one of them inevitably tears a pull, quads an oblique or hamstrings flu-like symptoms.

It all spells less playing time for bench warmers Nate McClouth and Kevin Frandsen, but neither is even replacement value in a combined 250 plate appearances this year. If anything, the nine-into-eight dilemma strengthens Washington's biggest weakness -- its bench.

Bryce Harper Isn't Good, And Don't Say He Is

In his brief Major League Baseball career, young Bryce Harper has averaged a .272 batting average with 21 home runs and 58 RBI, while scoring 85 runs. Add in some dynamic baserunning and defensive play and he's provided the Nationals with an average of 4.3 wins despite missing 23 and 44 games in his two seasons.

That is the resume of a good player -- an above-average starter on any team, but not quite an All-Star. 

But Bryce Harper is not a good player.

Bryce Harper is an all-time great player whose odds of making the Hall of Fame are somewhere in the vicinity of 50%, with the bad half of the equation due almost entirely to possible injuries down the road.

In the Minor Leagues, it makes a big difference whether a prospect is 19 or 21. A good high-Single-A hitter at 19 is an organizational star. At 21 he's a guy.

Bryce Harper has hung two big boy seasons on his MLB opponents before he could legally buy a drink. He's made adjustments, been adjusted to and made new adjustments, and he's still getting better -- and bigger and stronger. He boosted his OBP 28 points last year to .368 -- higher than Jacoby Ellsbury's -- and that was despite a knee damaged by a pair of outfield wall collisions.

To get real perspective on Harper, here is the thin air in which he flies: The most similar 20-year-olds to him are George Davis, Mel Ott, Al Kaline, Ty Cobb and Buddy Lewis. Alone outside the Hall, Lewis was a fine-hitting third baseman and outfielder who lost three critical years to WWII, but nonetheless hit .297/.348/.420 for his career. And he wasn't half the player at 19 and 20 that Bryce Harper has been.

Harper's five-tool talent and competitive fire are undeniably world class; the only question about him is whether he can harness his desire and remain on the field. And that's the profile of a great player.

This Bryce Harper Guy Is Pretty Good

In his first 162 games, Bryce Harper, now a grizzled veteran of 20, has been one of the 10 best everyday players in the majors.   

He's soon to eclipse the record for home runs before age 21, currently held by Mel Ott. See the whole Fangraphs article.

We Knew That Bryce Harper Couldn't Keep It Up

Could Bryce Harper really be as good at age 20 as he was at 19? No way. He's better. After picking it up in the power department during last year's second half, he's now pounding NL pitching with seven home runs and .353/.421/.706.

Mike Trout was poised to swallow a big old helping of regression pie after his age-20 season. After bullying his elders in 2012, he's off to a .291/.337/.481 start with just two jacks. On the other hand, he's swiped three bases without a misstep, bringing his career record to 56 steals, five outs.

Both will be challenged to accumulate the value they did last year, as each has moved over from stints in center field to a more or less full-time gig in left.

It's too early to tell exactly what the contours of their season will be. But if you thought 2012 was just a voting-age fluke for these two, well, OPS of 1127 and 818 say otherwise.

The Meaning of "Spring Training"

Spring Training is a Dominican phrase meaning "people being idiots." ("Ring" = thing people wear, +"p" = just the people + "s" = plural, so Spring = many people; "training" = hoping to know something someday, but currently quite stupid.)

This is borne out by a report from the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues I read yesterday, written by a veteran journalist not heretofore known to be a moron. It said, among other things, the following:

This spring, scouts are raving about how much Bryce Harper has improved. He is hitting .444/.459/.806 with three home runs in 37 plate appearances this spring.

It seemed like the Indians were really reaching when they signed lefthander Scott Kazmir as a minor-league free agent over the winter. Kazmir has not pitched in the major leagues since the first week of the 2011 season, and he posted a 5.34 ERA in 64 innings for the Sugar Land Skeeters in the independent Atlantic League last season.  However, Kazmir has yet to allow a run in eight Cactus League innings this spring and also pitched three scoreless innings in a B game. In his eight official innings, he has given up just five hits and one walk while striking out eight. 

(In the same article, the author refers to a player who couldn't master the game's "basic fundamentals." The writer could use a lesson in mastering the "basic fundamentals" of covering Spring Training.)

There's actually only one "basic fundamental" about Spring Training: it rarely matters. Bryce Harper is hitting .444 in 37 plate appearances against fellow 20-year-olds whose training wheels are being adjusted so they can be successful for the Double-A West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx this year.

Scott Kazmir threw 11 good innings spread over three starts, at least one of which was against ball boys and hot dog vendors. That is supposed to have more weight than two years of evidence that he's no longer among the top 400 best hurlers in the world.

Dear writer, here's how you know when Bryce Harper and Scott Kazmir are ready to break out: when they blow off Spring Training. When they use it to master a mechanical change or experiment with a new grip -- that's when they've really made it.

That theory, however, does not apply to Roy Halladay. Phillie fans should be creasing brows about his first Spring Training start. It's not that Halladay got lit up like doobie at a hipster party; it's that his velocity, which has dipped each of the past two seasons, ebbed again below 90. That is portentious in two ways:

1. There is a point at which a lack of fastball velocity can sap the value of every other pitch. If your heater is 89 and your change is 85, no one's getting fooled, not even Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds.
2. The Phillies are already little more than three great starters and the cast from Jurassic Park. If Halladay is no longer effective, Philadelphia's quest for a .500 season is in jeopardy.

So okay, Spring Training can mean something. Halladay's next two starts will determine whether the first one was another sign of the apocalypse or just a fissure in Doc's space-time continuum. But before more of those Kazmir stories get written, can we please use a little judgment?

Mike Trout's Getting Rooked (Or He's Not)

Shortly after Marvin Miller took command of the baseball players' union he discovered to his horror that the baseball card companies -- well, company: Topps -- were inducing rookies and minor leaguers to essentially give away the rights to their likeness by offering  a handful of coins and Major League blandishment. Miller proposed to Topps that they negotiate a deal that would more fairly compensate the players for the millions that Topps was reaping.

Topps told Miller they had no reason to negotiate with him. "We don't see your muscle," they told him.

So Miller visited every MLB camp the following spring and exhorted the players not to sign the deals no matter their affinity for baseball cards. In return, he promised the players he would get them a better deal.

When Topps ran into a series of brick walls, they called Miller. Seeing his "muscle," they worked out a new deal that doubled player royalties and earned their union hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars, specifically 510 of them, is the amount that Mike Trout will "earn" in 2013, thanks to a four percent raise from his employer. That is his reward for one of the most extraordinary seasons in baseball history. Trout will take home $20K above the minimum salary for second-year players.

Mike Trout's MVP-level season was worth roughly $60 million on open-market last year, based on his 12+ WARP and a market value of nearly $5 million per win. For that performance, he earned the MLB minimum of $480,000.

Trout is unlikely to come close to repeating that in his sophomore season, but even if he's half as valuable, he's still outperforming his salary by $29.5 million.

What Angel management understands is that he has no "muscle." The Collective Bargaining Agreement signed by the league and the union gives teams total control of players until they reach salary arbitration in year three. This is designed to compensate teams for the substantial investments they make in player development.

Angel owner Arte Moreno is hardly known for austerity. He's made Google-sized investments in Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, and has a Lehman Brothers deal with Vernon Wells. He could have thrown Trout an extra hundred grand -- couch cushion change for the franchise -- to reward him for propelling the team to contention and ingratiate the franchise to the player come free agent time. But he didn't have to. And so, Trout will earn all year what Alex Rodriguez will "earn" in three games -- three games, that is, that ARod won't play. 

But even a 21-year-old knows that "my time will come," and possibly soon. L.A. brass of Anaheim may already be working on a deal with Trout's representatives to buy out arbitration and a year or two of free agency. It may be wise to lowball his current compensation to create an incentive to sign a long-term deal. Arte Moreno didn't turn a half-million dollar ad agency into an $8 billion asset by making bad business decisions.

And when Trout gets his consolation prize -- whether he's 21 or 23 when it happens -- it will be in the Powerball range. In the meantime, he's the highest-paid 21-year-old this side of ... well, Bryce Harper, whose leverage is apparently greater. Harper earns $2 million this year, a mere $23 million below his value.

Who Is Baseball's L.A. Lakers?

It's said that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. Does every baseball player and team have a twin in another sport? As the NBA interrupts its interminably unproductive regular season for an All-Star exhibition, it's a good time to determine where there are analogs across leagues.

For example, which MLB team is most likely to repeat the work of the 2012-13 L.A. Lakers, a Ferrari of assembled talent playing like a jalopy? It seems as if the Toronto Blue Jays are setting themselves up for that, having imported the failed Miami Marlins' roster for a run at an AL East title. But it feels different with the Blue Jays, perhaps because they're no longer commanded by General Footshooter and perhaps because they are a year removed from novelty.

MLB's Angelinos are both candidates for this comparison because both have spent lavishly on talent and are expecting upper echelon results. Of the two, the Dodgers seem more vulnerable to under-performance because their imports seem less strategic and they're starting with a weaker base.

This year's Miami Heat is the MLB squad with a world class roster and championship-or-bust designs. Perennially that would be the Yankees, but management's efforts to put the payroll on a diet have trimmed some of the excess talent from the Bombers this season. The L.A. Angels feel like the team built for both the short and long haul and most likely to elicit yawns for winning the World Series.

The baseball version of the San Antonio Spurs is the St. Louis Cardinals. Both franchises have been successful for two decades despite small-market profiles and middling payrolls. They both have management with aptitude and vision, strong on-field (court) leadership, a culture of modesty and excellence, and star players who act like professionals. The Spurs no longer have the most talent, but they have the best record in the NBA so far. The Cards never had the most talent, but won two titles in six years and got to Game 7 of the pennant last year after losing the best player on the planet to free agency.

The Phoenix Suns are a once-proud franchise now in some semblance of disarray.  Their 17-36 record so far this year looks a lot like the Boston Red Sox' final month of 2011. Also like the Sox, they have no pitching.

It's too early to tell who will be baseball's version of the Chicago Bulls, treading water until their ascendant superstar's triumphant return. But their opposite is in New York. The Yankees are hoping to make waves while avoiding the return of their dimmed star.

We won't even mention the Charlotte Bobcats and Pittsburgh Pirates. Their fans have suffered enough. 

LeBron and Kobe have no equal in horsehide. Prince Albert still generally needs a last name, has never been a brand and is no longer the unquestioned king of the game. But Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg appear to be the Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose of baseball. Like Rose and Durant, the baseball trio has made the All-Star team every year they've spent in the league. Maybe the Bulls should have shut down Rose in last spring's playoffs to avoid catastrophic injury.

Tim Duncan and Derek Jeter are sports doppelgangers. Bright, beloved, biracial, respectful Hall of Famers with lots of team-based jewelry. Neither ever says anything controversial. Neither has been able to reach a grounder hit six feet to his left for eight years.

Jarvas Varnardo averages less than a point per game for the Heat and less than a third of a rebound as the last guy off the bench for Miami. But he and Dwayne Wade will sport the same ring if Miami repeats as NBA champs. That would make him the Eli Whiteside of basketball. The 32-year-old catcher backed up Buster Posey last season for the World Champion Giants -- which is like being Robert Deniro's understudy. Whiteside got into 12 games with a double, a walk, a .396 OPS and a ring. And then he got waived.

Finally, Charles Barkley has Curt Schilling, the retired great who can't seem to shut up. Actually, Barkley has Barkley and Schilling has Schilling, which might be the crux of the issue. 

Hits and Misses

Jo-Yawn

Ending a 51-year drought in anything is noteworthy; my alma mater winning a league title in football would set the herald angels to singing and serve as muse to decades of nostalgic poets.

So bravo for fans of the Flushing Nine who finally got to witness a no-hitter by the blue and orange. The achievement, notched appropriately by Johan Santana, the best hurler to wear a Met uniform since Tom Seaver, was instantly denigrated by the pop group Mr. Obvious and the Contrarians. 

It's true that Santana needed a defensive gem in left field and a bad call on a Beltran double, but all no-hitters require a matrix of defensive mastery and luck.True also: Santana wasn't dominating. He walked five, fanned eight and got scorched a couple of times.

That no-hitters are just lucky seven-hitters is cliche, and long ago stripped them of their glossy finish. A novelty is not worth regretful eruptions. Santana has surely pitched more impressive games during his illustrious career. The blown call was a good turn of luck, but in a sport that is 30% luck, railing against it is as railing against the day turning to night.

What's scary, as the Mets' adept manager Terry Collins noted, is that Santana's shoulder, a year removed from major surgery, endured 134 pitches in order to notch the no-no. Collins was fighting the demons of history, but he'll deeply regret the accomplishment if Santana can't life a beer mug to his lips a week from now.

Panic At the Disco

Remember that awful start by the Red Sox? They're two out of first place despite the loss of Pedroia and Ellsbury. The day the Yankees were in last place? They're a game out and awaiting the return of their best middle reliever and their top speed threat. Reports of the decline and fall of the Phillies' empire? They're over .500. The scorching start in St. Louis? Third place. Cleveland's pennant hopes? 2-5 last week.

Yeah, it's a long season.

An 82-Game Pre-season

Last year, the Washington Nationals finished a game under .500. The L.A. Angels claimed sixth in the AL with an 86-76 record. Had they faced off in the World Series, they would have eliminated five teams with 95+ wins and seven others that had out-performed them during the season. Are you ready for some football?

That's the Stanley Cup Finals this year, except that the L.A. Kings weren't even as accomplished as the Nats. When the #6 seed plays the last seed for the championship, the question is begged: why play a regular season?

It's too bad, because the playoffs have been scintillating and the Kings are crisper than Pringles.

Babes In the Hall

After Sammy Sosa hit .233/.282/.404 with 15 homers in his third season in the majors, eight percent below average, stat guru Bill James wrote that history suggested greatness. "Below average" for a 21-year-old at the world's top level suggests prodigy-level skills. James' research showed Sosa had roughly a one-in-three chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Age is the fulcrum here; in the early years, each year earlier a player holds his own against Majo0r League pitching adds logarithmically to his projected performance. A 24-year-old is much older in baseball terms than a 21-year-old, who is as much older compared to a 20-year-old.

Which brings us to 20-year-old Mike Trout of the Angels and 19-year-old Bryce Harper of Washington. If Harper's .274/.357/.504 (31% above average) and Trout's .309/.370/.537 (53% above average) are representative of their abilities -- and scouts vibrate like an oboe reed when discussing these two -- at least one of them is Hall-bound.

A third of a season is a short resume (Trout actually got a 40-game rehearsal last year with mixed results), but the early returns, combined with minor league domination, support the greatness thesis for these two outfielders. Both demonstrate power, speed, a good batting eye, strong defense and maybe most of all, an ability to learn and adjust.

b