Kyle Schwarber's remarkable season completely changed the Bryce Harper narrative

The Phillies are steamrolling toward the playoffs, a first-round bye, and possibly the best regular season record in baseball this year. So, what better time than to pit two of the team's best players against each other? Bryce Harper or Kyle Schwarber, who ya got?

This question would have seemed laughable not too long ago, with Bryce Harper being the kind of player you build franchises around, and someone that you eventually erect a statue of after his playing days are over. Kyle Schwarber, meanwhile, was a nice slugger and lineup fixture, but came with holes in his game that would relegate him to a somewhat lesser status. At this point, however, it's a lot closer than we ever could have expected.

Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper: Who is the greater Phillie at this juncture?

In one corner, you have Harper, the former teenage phenom turned MVP who defected from a division rival and put his confidence in the Phillies organization by signing an almost unheard of 13-year deal in free agency. By next season, Harper will have spent as much time with the Phillies as he did with Washington. He's added another MVP award during his tenure with the Phils, and his career splits are almost exactly in line with what he produced with the Nationals. His slugging percentage and OPS have even increased by a notable amount. And he's doing this as he nears age 33, which is no small feat.

And in this corner, you have Schwarber, who blew past 300 career home runs earlier this season and now has over 180 of them in less than four years as a Phil. He has a four-homer game and is now a member of the 50-homer fraternity, which does indeed cement him in Phillies lore. His first season with the team also coincided with the Phillies' return to the playoffs after a decade-long drought, and they have been contenders ever since.

Schwarber has shown up in a big way, blasting 12 homers in 34 playoff games as a Phil. The only concern with him is that his contract is up after this season, and fans are saying that the team is dragging its feet trying to lock him down. Schwarber has a sterling resume with the club to this point, and hopefully his time in town will extend beyond 2025 so he can build on the legacy he is creating.

In terms of signature moments, Harper's famous 'Bedlam at the Bank' blast in Game 5 of the 2022 NLCS is almost impossible to top. He also has numerous other big hits and home runs to his credit, as you would expect from a player of his caliber. But Schwarber's tidy work (50 homers in a season, four homers in a game) in a sport where numbers mean everything and define a player have set him up as a go-to trivia answer for decades to come. His accomplishments may live on in the public consciousness even more than Harper's, even though Harper will be able to point to a filled trophy case and some great career numbers when all is said and done.

Harper has a chance to reach 400 career home runs and 2,000 career hits as soon as next season. Given his career WAR, two MVPs, a Rookie of the Year award, and other accolades, he'll be a Cooperstown lock by that point. Schwarber in all likelihood won't make it there to join him, but all bets are off if he can make it to 500 home runs eventually, so don't count him out just yet. Yes, he'll carry a career average in the .230s and probably way fewer than 2,000 career hits when he calls it a career, but he'll make an interesting test case for Hall standards by that point. His supporters can point to his multiple times leading the league in home runs and his OPS proclivity, and his playoff heroics could tip the scales in his favor, as well.

Circling back to the central question of "Who is the greater Phillie RIGHT NOW?", the answer has to remain Harper at this point in time, but it's pretty close. Schwarber gets extra points for stamping his name on team history as just the second Phillies player to ever hit 50 home runs in a season and the fourth to ever pop four in a game. He's also in some rarified air — Ruthian territory, even— when it comes to players who have hit the most home runs in their first four years with any team in MLB history. If Schwarber somehow manages to pull off the NL MVP this season, this race might just be neck-and-neck by that point.

In terms of what these players have actually produced thus far, however, not only did Harper have a three-year head start with the Phillies before Schwarber arrived, but he's done it while playing the field a large majority of the time while Schwarber has been almost exclusively a designated hitter. Harper's ailments and IL stints are about the only knock on him, although they have only served to tamp down only his counting stats, and not his overall effectiveness when healthy. As a result, his WAR blows Schwarber's out of the water. And don't even bother talking about championships, because Harper and Schwarber will either win together or they won't. Titles won't be a tiebreaker.

In the end, there will be room for both Harper and Schwarber in the team's Wall of Fame and the collective memories of fans who lived through and witnessed their accomplishments with the team. They will both go down as great Phillies, though the final degree remains to be seen. In a perfect world, they'll ultimately carry the label of World Champions and find themselves immortalized among the very best that the organization and its fans have ever seen. Let's hope to all meet up at the statue unveilings.