Bryce Harper ranks top-5 in this single-season Phillies stat

Bryce Harper is putting up one of the best seasons in Phillies history

Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper is not just having a Most Valuable Player Award-caliber season, but also one of the best single seasons in franchise history.

Harper is among the Top 5 — behind two Hall of Famers — in the all-time Phillies single-season statistic for Adjusted On-base Plus Slugging Plus (OPS+). Through Tuesday’s game action against the Baltimore Orioles, the slugger’s 182 Adjusted OPS+ currently ranks fifth-best in franchise history during a season, trailing only Mike Schmidt (1981), 198 and Ed Delahanty (1896), 190; (1899), 189; and (1895), 186.

Fellow left-handed-hitting right-fielder Sam Thompson — the third Hall of Famer on this list — also logged a 182 Adjusted OPS+ in 1894, though comparing the Live Ball Era (post 1920) to early baseball is like comparing a horse-drawn carriage and a Tesla.

Adjusted OPS+ takes a player’s on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) and normalizes the figure across the entire league — accounting for external factors such as ballparks’ dimensions or altitude.

OPS+ is useful, as it helps create an even playing field. The figure adjusts to where a score of 100 is league average, and 150 is 50 percent better than the league average. Therefore, Harper’s current MLB-best 1.050 OPS is 82 percent better than the league average, with fewer than two weeks remaining in the 2021 regular season.

To put into perspective just how great Harper’s 182 Adjusted OPS+ is this season, Babe Ruth put up a 206 Adjusted OPS+ throughout his entire career and 10,626 plate appearances. South Jersey native Mike Trout impressively has the seventh-best all-time Adjusted OPS+, 176, through 5,660 career plate appearances. Back when Barry Bonds slugged 73 home runs in 2001, his Adjusted OPS+ was an impressive 259. A season later, it went up nine points to 268.

Fans do not just have to look at this figure to realize how special of a season Harper is having. Along with OPS and OPS+, he also leads MLB in slugging percentage, .621, and is one double shy of slugging 40 for the first time in his 10-year career.

What else is there to say other than “MV3”?