Bryce Harper Is Breaking Baseball, and It's Amazing

Purveyors of baseball mythology are fond of repeating how perfect the sport is. The 60 feet and six inches between the mound and home plate, the 90 foot distance to first base, the size of the ball; by chance it all fits flawlessly, like finding a piece to a jigsaw puzzle on the street and discovering that it completes the puzzle you've been working on. The game is perfect, unbreakable. George Will says this to himself every night before going to sleep.

Then Barry Bonds came along. In 2004 Barry Bonds won the MVP award. He hit .362 that season, with a .609 on-base percentage and a .812 slugging percentage. That's an OPS of 1.422. One way that Bonds was able to reach base in nearly 61 percent of his plate appearances that year was that opposing managers were so terrified of Bonds they intentionally walked him 120 times. That's nuts. That's Usain Bolt entering a kid's charity run at an elementary school nuts. That's a 12-foot-tall guy playing basketball nuts. That year Barry Bonds was so nuts he broke the game.

Over the last two weeks, Bryce Harper has been better than that.

Since May 6, Bryce Harper has hit .564/.653/1.385. Slugging percentages are supposed to start with a decimal point, not the number one, but then really good OPS's are supposed to start with a one, not a two. Harper's OPS over that time is 2.038. He's being a jerk about the rules.

Harper has turned a barroom discussion of how he's doing into a mathematician's recitation of crazy numbers. So fine. Let's do this. Here's some fun with what Bryce Harper has done over a very small sample of games.

• If Harper keeps doing this for the rest of this season he will hit 113 home runs.
• If he hit like this for a full 162 game season, he'd hit 132 home runs.
• At that rate he'd break baseball's home run record in five years.
• He'd have 828.
• He'd be 27 years old.
• He'd be the first player ever to break 800 homers.
• If he did it for one more season he'd be the first player ever to break 900 homers.
• Another season and he'd be the first player ever to break 1,000 homers.
• He'd do all that before his 30th birthday.
• If he plays like this until he is 40, he'll finish his career with 2,427 home runs.
• That would be 1,665 more home runs than Barry Bonds' 762.

So Bryce Harper is having himself a good couple weeks. And hey, he homered again Tuesday night so there's another log on the fire.

But we expected this, right? Sure you did. We all did. It's like the number of people who claimed they were there for Ted Williams's last game. Baseball Reference says it was 10,454, but we all know the entire region of New England was there. Just ask 'em, they'll tell you. Or just wait, it will come up.

Harper has had otherworldly talent since he burst onto the national scene as a 16-year-old. He was expected to hit like Babe Ruth at an age when Babe Ruth was primarily a pitcher.

Harper spent three seasons in the majors at an age where most top prospects are still in the minor leagues. But despite all this age-inappropriate competition, Harper didn't hit like Ruth. He hit like a slightly-above average outfielder, but he was not to be confused with Ruth, or Williams, or any of the other all-time greats to which he was compared before he could legally drink a beer. Or vote.

People didn't want to hear it. They wanted Harper to be what he is now then. They wanted Instant MVP, just add milk. Sometimes being there isn't enough. Sometimes players need some time to acclimate themselves. That seems to be what Harper was doing. I'm not suggesting Bryce Harper is going to hit this well, or even half this well, going forward. It's fun to look at his numbers and extrapolate them out because they're so bananas, but sadly he's not this good because nobody is this good.

He's good though. Very, very good. He's a National League MVP candidate this year and every year going forward. He's a contender for the home run title this year and every year going forward. If he stays healthy, he's a contender for just about every home run milestone going forward.

And maybe more importantly—because, really, who can predict the future even two years ahead, let alone 20—if Harper can do this at age 22, how good can he be next season at the wrinkly old age of 23? When Barry Bonds was 23 he hit .283/.368/.491. Bryce Harper may make that look weak. He is here and he's silly bananas. Let's enjoy it.