Where Has Bryce Harper's Power Gone?

Bryce Harper hasn't hit a home run in 88 days. What's happening to the Philadelphia Phillies' slugger's power?

Author:
Ben Silver
Sep 6, 2022 6:00 PM EDT

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Two home runs in his first rehab game should have been a sign, but we were all too giddy to notice. When Bryce Harper strode to the plate in Allentown, Pa. for his Aug. 22 Triple-A rehab game, he popped a home run to right field in his first at bat. Hours later, he doubled the feat with a home run to left field.

It was too good to be true. Barring his rehab stint with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Harper has not homered in 88 days.

Well, you say, Harper was injured for two months, surely this stretch isn't unprecedented. Yet, even as far back as 13 days before Harper broke his thumb, he had yet to hit a home run.

Going back to 2014, Harper has never gone this long without a home run. In his Phillies' tenure, Harper's greatest previous stretch without a homer was 18 games in 2020. That span was particularly bleak, Harper slashed .136/.333/.170 with 22 walks and 16 strikeouts.

Despite an excess of walks in that period, his BABIP was .182. Harper wasn't hitting the ball far, and he wasn't putting it in play often. Even when he was, he wasn't getting lucky. Harper's 2022 homer-less streak has been a little different.

He is still walking, Harper has 17 in the 22 games since his last home run, and he's not striking out often either, a total of just 10 since his last homer on June 9. Overall, Harper's slash in his last 22 games is .347/.466/.403. But when he is putting the ball in play, he's getting very lucky.

Harper's BABIP is .403 during the current stretch compared to a career rate of .322. So what happens when that luck begins to dissipate?

With the way the Phillies are playing right now, they can't afford to lose Harper's production from the lineup. Especially with Nick Castellanos' hot bat out of the lineup for the foreseeable future, Philadelphia is in dire need of some power.

During the six-game West Coast road trip, that saw them drop five of six with a -14 run differential, the Phillies hit just four home runs. A team home run rate like that won't cut it going forward.

The Phillies live and die by the long ball. They've hit 166 in 2022, that is a little under one and a quarter per game. When Philadelphia hits a home run, they have a .637 winning percentage. The Phillies have lost only 11 games all season when they hit two home runs.

Even in the midst of Harper's worst homer-less streak in almost a decade, he is still second on the Phillies in home run rate at 4.8%. On June 9, Harper was homering at a 6.7% clip. In over 650 plate appearances, that's 43 home runs a year, enough to break his career record.

Overall, the Phillies will gladly accept that kind of production from their superstar. But something is undoubtedly bothering Harper still, whether it's mental or physical.

There are a multitude of potential causes that could be plaguing Harper right now, thus making him uncomfortable at the plate. Foremost of those is his thumb injury. Harper had the pins removed from his hand barely a month ago, his thumb could still bother him, though it likely wouldn't sap too much power from his stroke.

There's also Harper's UCL injury. That hasn't gone away in the months since he injured his thumb, and it may have even gotten worse. Initially, Harper planned on a September return to right field, but through several sessions tossing the ball in the outfield, his pain worsened. Now, Harper will forgo fielding at all for the remainder of the 2022 season.

However, the injured ligament is in Harper's right arm. Since he's a left-handed hitter, the right arm serves to provide bat control, not power. Though UCL discomfort during the swing could be weakening his contact ability, the injury probably isn't lowering Harper's power numbers.

Finally, he could just be going through a slump. It happens to everyone. This outcome would be the most fortunate for the Phillies, as Harper doesn't have to wait for a slump to heal. And thankfully, he's still getting on base and driving in runs without the help of the long ball.

He will need to solve these problems in the offseason if he intends to return the same player who won MVP in 2021, but even in his current form, Bryce Harper is still one of the league's most dangerous hitters.