How Bryce Harper’s 2021 compares to his 2015 MVP season

Bryce Harper, by many accounts, is having an MVP-caliber season for the Philadelphia Phillies, especially over the last few months.

He leads MLB in OPS and has led all of MLB in wRC+ (a more comprehensive and indicative offensive stat) since June 11.

Harper has stiff competition from Fernando Tatis Jr., Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, and Trea Turner, to name a few of the other names currently in the NL MVP conversation. But in a way, he’s also competing against himself, as Harper has already won the NL MVP award, back in 2015.

So let’s make some comparisons: Harper to himself, Harper to his competition, and Harper to the defending NL MVP’s 2020 season.

How does Bryce Harper’s 2021 performance compare to his 2015 MVP season?

Comparing Harper’s current season to his 2015 season makes sense by the logic that if those numbers won him the award then, they can inform his chances now. Basically, is Harper an MVP by his own MVP standards?

In 2015, Harper led the NL in runs scored and home runs, and led MLB in on-base percentage, slugging, OPS, and OPS+. This season, he leads in OPS and OPS+.

Harper’s has only played 112 games so far, so here’s how his numbers line up with his first 112 games from 2015:

2015: .327/.454/.634, 1.088 OPS, 126 hits, 26 doubles, one triple, 30 HR, 73 RBI, 88 BB, 98 SO, 5 SB

2021: .305/.418/.589, 1.007 OPS, 120 hits, 32 doubles, one triple, 26 HR, 63 RBI, 74 BB, 105 SO, 12 SB

By most metrics, Harper doesn’t measure up to his 2015 self, though he comes fairly close. Luckily, he’s not his competition, merely an interesting angle for analysis.

How does Bryce Harper compare to other top NL MVP candidates?

Harper is undoubtedly the most valuable player on the Phillies, and the MVP award was originally created by the American League in 1922 to honor “the baseball player who is of the greatest all-around service to his club.”

Then there’s the fact that he leads not just the NL, but all of MLB in multiple offensive categories, and ranks highly in most others. We’ve already established that he generally outranks Freeman.

Harper is tied with Muncy for 9th in runs scored, tied for third in doubles, tied for sixth in home runs. Tatis leads the NL in home runs (36) and MLB in slugging (.638), but he’s also only appeared in 102 games due to injury.

While Harper’s RBI count is low (which also falls partially on his streaky teammates), he’s walked more than every other NL batter besides Juan Soto. He’s also struck out far less than Tatis (121), the frontrunner for the award, but has played in more games than the young Padres star. Before the break, Harper struck out 70 times in 68 games; he’s only struck out 35 times in 44 games since.

Will the Phillies have a Cy Young and NL MVP this season?

For much of the season, Zack Wheeler was a favorite to win the NL Cy Young after Jacob deGrom’s injuries waylaid another phenomenal season. He leads MLB pitchers in innings pitched and strikeouts, though certain absurd rankings leave him out.

Wheeler’s award conversation has waned while Harper’s has waxed; while the pitcher has struggled in recent months, the slugger has only improved as the season progressed.

Harper was slashing .282/.378/.520 with a .899 OPS in 68 games before the break. In 44 games since, he’s hitting .342/.479/.705 with a 1.184 OPS. He has more doubles and walks in fewer games in the second half than he did in the first half, and his strikeout rate has plummeted.

Wheeler had a 2.26 ERA over 18 starts before the All-Star break and has 4.43 ERA over 9 starts since the break. The sample sizes are obviously unbalanced, but recency bias also reigns supreme in this game.

With a little less than a month left of regular-season baseball to go, fans will have to wait for a number of questions to be answered:

Can Wheeler win? Can Harper? Can the Phillies?