Chelsea Janes notes that Bryce Harper seemed happy for the first time in a while during the home run derby. She also does a great job of summing up what makes Harper a special player:
That Harper won the competition against a relatively depleted field is not surprising. Harper’s power has never been the problem this season. Countless people have tried to explain exactly why Harper is underachieving, how to define the extent of the underachievement, and what exactly he has been missing. But as he stormed back with nine straight homers late in the final round, as he called to the crowd to cheer him and his teammates and skipped up the tunnel, he reminded everyone of what has been missing.
“He flipped a switch. His swing, you could tell he was getting tired,” Sean Doolittle said. “He went somewhere else. That was unbelievable.”
That “somewhere else,” that ability to take things to a different level, that is what made Bryce Harper in the first place. His numbers never told his story. Other than that remarkable 2015 season, they have been elite, but not transcendent. The thing that makes Harper such a legend in his own time, the thing that elevated him to superstar status, the thing that made him seem destined for a bigger contract than anyone had ever gotten, is that ability to go “somewhere else.” Whatever the numbers explain or don’t, Harper has not gone there as much this season. The aura evaporated. His at-bats stopped being must-watch television.
Right. I’ll fall back to my comment that Harper is not adjusting as fast as he did when he was younger. We’ll see if that changes in the second half.
from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2JtBzWB
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