The Cold Hard Facts of Bryce Harper

Let’s face it, if you want Bryce Harper or if you would prefer he stays far, far away from the Chicago Cubs or signs with the Cubs (or whichever team you cheer for), the constant back and forth and predictions are tiresome. We have stories suggesting there’s little money available, then Cubs are the favorites, to the Cubs aren’t a favorite, to experts suggesting the Cubs will land him. All along, Cubs fans bicker with each other on whether they will or even should get involved in the Harper sweepstakes.

When guessing where Harper lands, the conversation begins to get cloudy. The New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Cubs have all suggested publicly that they aren’t in the market to spend a ton of money this offseason. The only two teams that have explicitly expressed absolute interest in Harper has been the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies. Thus, the odds that Bovada released back at the beginning of the offseason have certainly changed.

Updated odds for which team Bryce Harper will be on for the first game of 2019 (@BovadaOfficial):

Cubs EVEN
LAD +500
PHI +550
NYY +600
WSH +700
BOS +1100
LAA +1200
SF +1600

— OddsShark (@OddsShark) October 4, 2018

Regardless of the talk, there’s a real question on if Harper is worth a decade of spending $30 plus million a year for.

Just looking at Harper’s career stats, he hasn’t been the offensive force which he’s stated to be. Well… kinda…

Misleading stat lines

The first overall pick in the 2010 draft, Harper sits at the 12th most valuable player in baseball since he came into the league (according to fWAR). But if we tighten that window a bit, the luster begins to tarnish even more.

From the 2015 season, Harper’s MVP season, he ranks 11th in baseball in fWAR. This is behind guys like Manny Machado and Josh Donaldson, both of whom are (were) free agents in 2019 as well. While Machado and Harper are looking for large multi-year deals, Donaldson signed a one-year contract in Atlanta for $23 million.

While, yes, Donaldson is coming off an injury-plagued season, he had also earned baseball’s biggest arbitration increase when he agreed to a $23 million deal in Toronto. Now, Donaldson is betting on himself by signing the one-year deal. There was certainly a multi-year offer out there for the slugger, but with fear that soft-tissue injuries would eventually rob Donaldson of his power, range, and speed – team’s weren’t willing to put up Harper and Machado-esque dollars for the 33-year-old.

Regardless, a one-year deal to Donaldson, who has produced more Wins Above Replacement than either Machado or Harper will certainly be something team’s can point to when negotiating with either superstar. Teams will also point to Machado’s “Johnny Hustle” comments in an effort to talk his representation down, and all of it can be used to talk Scott Boras and Harper’s demands down.

But, it’s really the numbers that can play the biggest role in shrinking the expectations on the massive deal Harper can sign. I’ve mentioned WAR, which is only part of the equation. There are more pressing concerns in any Harper conversation based on statistical value.

Harper is 22nd in baseball since 2016 in wRC+ (132), which was behind teammate Daniel Murphy, NL East competitors Yoenis Cespedes, Giancarlo Stanton, and Freddie Freeman, as well as behind NL Central players Tommy Pham, Matt Carpenter, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Joey Votto.

He also ranks only 17th in OPS (.897), 19th in wOBA (.375), has only played a “full season” (more than 150 games) twice, and while having one incredible season, he’s only posted another All Star level season in his career.

At this point, Harper is looking more and more like a very good player, that happens to be in the middle of other superstars in the league. But, much like the Jason Heyward contract, whoever signs Harper is signing him to what he is going to do, not what he has done.

Is he worth it? Can teams afford it?

Before we justify why Harper will get a $300+ million deal, I have to say this… no player is *worth* that much money. But, in the context of MLB and professional sports, and their finances, there are players that earn $300 million contracts.

In 2000, Alex Rodriguez signed a 10-year $252 million deal. He then again signed a 10-year $275 million deal in 2007 after opting out of his original contract. At the time, the average of the top-25 salaries in the game was $12.25 million, and the total revenue of the MLB in 2001 was $3.58 billion. The top 25 salaries in 2001 was approximately 8% of baseball’s revenue.

Fast-forward to 2018, and the total revenue in MLB was $9.46 billion (almost triple the revenue in 2001) and the top 25 player salaries ($26.38 m) was equivalent to 7% of baseball’s revenue. Meaning, the player’s *take* in baseball’s revenue has shrunk while teams and owners have pocketed more.

This is one of the reasons a lot of fans are incorrect when they relate player salaries to ticket prices. With baseball teams nearly tripling their revenues, of which ticket prices are a part of, player salaries are less and less a factor in ticket prices, otherwise their pay would have increased at the same rate as baseball’s revenues.

If we measure from 2008, the first season under A-Rod’s second record-breaking deal, MLB’s revenue increased from $5.48 billion to $9.46 billion, average ticket prices increased from $25.43 to $32.44, but average player salaries only increased from $2.8 million to $4.5 million.

Baseball is making more than it ever has, yet the player’s share of those dollars are less and less.

This alone isn’t a reason to hand players like Harper or Machado $300-$400 million contracts, but it does begin to explain why deals like this are affordable. It should also start to show why the players aren’t ridiculous for asking for a deal of this size.

If we look only at the Cubs, they have increased their revenue by more than double since 2007 ($214 million to $457 million in 2017). The team’s payroll in 2007 was $99.67 m, or 46% of their revenue. The Cubs payroll in 2017 was $172.2 m, or 37% of their revenue.

Now of course the Cubs have invested a lot of their revenues in other areas of the ball club. There was nearly $600 million invested in the 1060 Project alone. Now that the club is on the back nine of their renovations, and a TV deal set to start after the 2019 season, it isn’t an insane thought that the Cubs would begin to invest more and more of their money in improving the on field product. Which, yes, it sounds as weird typing that as it might sound reading it, especially knowing this is a roster that won a World Series and make four consecutive postseason trips that included three straight NLCS appearances.

Is paying Harper the smart play?

The question still comes back to, is Harper the right guy to give that money to?

Personally, I say yes. It is my belief that he is the single best free agent hitter to hit the market since Barry Bonds signed in San Francisco. But, while I have had a pretty decent track record on my opinions, you didn’t click to read them. Another, perhaps biased opinion, is that of Boras, who in a detailed 118-page document spells out why any team would want Harper, for baseball and financial reasons.

While speaking with Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Boras laid out the game plan, how meetings are run, and why Harper is worth the investment. Boras also notes:

“The way to articulate this in true business form is look at the Nats’ franchise. It was worth $480 to $500 million before he got there, and now it’s worth more than $2 billion. TV ratings have tripled.

“Every GM in baseball wants him because he fills a need, but the owners are pursuing Bryce Harper because they know he can also make them a billion dollars over a period of years.”

Now, to be fair, a lot happened to the Nationals organization over the seven seasons Harper was there. They manufactured one of the best pitching staffs, they acquired a lot of young and impressive talent, and finally they won a lot of ballgames. Harper does get some credit here, after all, he was a major piece of their success for the past several years, but according to this value curve it looks as if their value explosion is tied more to winning that the arrival of Harper.

Over the past four seasons, Harper has only trailed Stanton and Nolan Arenado in slugging percentage in the National League. He is also third in the NL in OBP, behind Votto and Paul Goldschmidt. His 17.4% walk percentage is second in baseball. Even missing as much time as he has, since the 2015 season he is second in the NL in HR (158) and has scored the fourth most runs (400). This is a guy that at 26, owns a .900 career OPS, 139 OPS+, .512 SLG, and those numbers don’t change with runners in scoring position.

That last point would be a reason the Cubs should seriously consider Harper. A team that scored one or fewer runs in a game 40 times, which was tied for worst in baseball, adding a true run producer would be gigantic. What do I mean by a true run producer?

Harper owns a career .899 OPS with RISP, add two-outs and his OPS still sits at .858. Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs most prolific run producer, has a .872 OPS with RISP and that reduces to .800 when there are two-outs. Kris Bryant, who gets a bad rap for his inability to hit in big spots, has a .853 OPS with RISP and .814 when there are two-outs.

When the moment is bigger, and in what Baseball-Reference considers “High-Leverage” Bryce has a .876 OPS. This just continues to show, when the money is on the line, Harper comes through.

Will it pay off now, and in 10 years?

The next question is, which it has been for most of the past two seasons, is Harper worth it?

This is a question that only MLB front offices can answer. Boras will do his best to pitch his player as a guy that teams should invest that much money in. He will pitch the idea to teams that with Bryce comes additional marketing dollars, another player that isn’t just capable of bringing in local advertisers, but nationwide deals like his promotional deal with T-Mobile. Things like this, in today’s climate, are almost as important as how many additional wins a player can bring a team. That additional exposure helps whichever team that signs mega-stars.

Whoever signs Harper is going to get the prime years of his career. That’s saying something for a guy that is already one of the most feared bats in all baseball. That means something. That means teams will have to use their best crystal balls to predict what they can expect from the slugger over the next eight, nine, or ten years. That can be fool’s gold for some players, but it isn’t far-fetched for a guy of Harper’s pedigree.

This will be a very difficult decision for anyone to make, and one of the hardest parts is in predicting what they will get out of Harper. Teams knew that they would get a ton of value out of a guy like Alex Rodriguez, but it’s a bit more difficult to guarantee that with Harper. You can look at things like “Steamer” where they predict Harper to hit .267/.399/.527 and 35 homers, but does that include protection that a Cubs lineup could provide, or is it in the Phillies up-and-coming offense, or is it in Washington?

The only guarantee I have in this whole Bryce Harper story is, it will become even more annoying in the next several days/weeks than it has been over the past two years.