Baker: 'Big bass' Harper 'ain't going for the bait'
Bryce Harper has been crazy productive and abnormally patient early on this season, hitting .393 with a pair of homers and an MLB-best nine walks, and Washington Nationals manager Dusty Baker couldn't help but tip his cap to the kid Wednesday given how hard opposing pitchers are trying to get the former MVP to expand the strike zone.
"They're not walking him on purpose," Baker told MASN's Mark Zuckerman. "They're throwing him a bunch of bait. They're throwing him some bait, hopefully he'll go for the bait. And he ain't going for the bait. If you want to catch the big bass, you gotta have proper bait presentation, proper color, proper movement. And right now, he's a big bass."
Indeed, after regressing hard last year, Harper has very much resembled his old self early on in 2017 thanks to an increasingly disciplined approach at the plate. He's swinging less often than he ever has, offering at just 39.6 percent of the pitches he's seen, but Harper has also cut down his chase rate dramatically, swinging at a career-low 17.5 percent of the pitches he's seen outside of the strike zone.
| Season | Swing% | O-Swing% | Contact% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 49.8% | 33.7% | 76.2% |
| 2013 | 48.4% | 30.2% | 77.4% |
| 2014 | 50.9% | 33.2% | 72.7% |
| 2015 | 44.6% | 28.0% | 75.2% |
| 2016 | 42.8% | 25.8% | 79.1% |
| 2017 | 39.6% | 17.5% | 81.0% |
The early returns, even amid a heavy diet of pitches on the outer half of the plate, have been staggering. Eight games in, Harper is second in the National League (behind only teammate Matt Wieters) with a .541 on-base percentage, and his 4.6 percent soft-contact rate is tied for seventh-lowest in all of baseball.
In Tuesday's 8-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, Harper reached base safely in four of his five plate appearances, walking three times - a season high - while adding a double to bump his OPS up to 1.219. The four-time All-Star, who turned 24 in October, has now walked at least once in five of eight games this season, and has failed to reach base only once.