Friday, July 15, 2016

Bryce Harper Is Having An Historically Large Dropoff This Year But It Might Not Be A Long Term Concern

Last year, at age 22, Bryce Harper had an OPS+ of 195. The only player to ever have a higher OPS+ at age 22 or younger with 400+ PAs was Ted Williams who had 235 in 1941, the year he batted .406.

But so far this year, Harper's OPS+ is just 134, a drop of 61. To see how this ranks historically, I used the Baseball Reference Play Index to call up all the seasons since 1900 when a player 23 or younger had an OPS+ of at least 170 (I first tried a cutoff of 180 and using players 22 or younger, but that was a short list). Again, a minimum of 400 PAs was used.

Then I found their OPS+ the next year and ranked them by how much their OPS+ changed, with the biggest losers listed first. That is all in the table below. Harper does not have the biggest decline ever, but he is close.



Player
OPS+
Year
Age
Next Yr.
Change
Boog Powell
176
1964
22
112
-64
Reggie Jackson
189
1969
23
127
-62
Bryce Harper
195
2015
22
134
-61
Arky Vaughan
190
1935
23
148
-42
Mel Ott
174
1932
23
138
-36
Eddie Mathews
170
1955
23
143
-27
Eddie Collins
171
1909
22
152
-19
Ted Williams
235
1941
22
216
-19
Albert Pujols
187
2003
23
173
-14
Jimmie Foxx
173
1929
21
161
-12
Mike Trout
179
2013
21
168
-11
Ty Cobb
206
1910
23
196
-10
Mike Trout
176
2015
23
169
-7
Frank Thomas
180
1991
23
174
-6
Stan Musial
177
1943
22
174
-3
Eddie Mathews
172
1954
22
170
-2
Shoeless Joe Jackson
193
1911
23
192
-1
Ted Williams*
216
1942
23
215
-1
Willie Mays
175
1954
23
174
-1
Ken Griffey
171
1993
23
171
0
Eddie Mathews
171
1953
21
172
1
Stan Musial*
174
1944
23
183
9
Ty Cobb
193
1909
22
206
13
Mickey Mantle
180
1955
23
210
30


*The next year for Williams and Musial in these cases was actually after they returned from military duty. Williams had three years in between and Musial had one.

There are 18 players on this list. 13 are in the Hall of Fame. Those not in the Hall are Albert Pujols, Harper, Mike Trout, Boog Powell and Joe Jackson. Trout and Pujols both have good chances to make it. Jackson might be in if not for the 1919 World Series scandal.

Boog Powell is probably not Hall worthy but he still hit over 300 career HRs and won an MVP award later in his career. He had a couple of seasons with an OPS+ in the 160s and two more in the 150s. He had a total of six seasons in the top 10 in OPS+, including the 176 at age 22. So a good career.

Powell, along with Reggie Jackson, are the only two guys here to see a drop off of 60 or more in OPS+. Jackson is in the Hall and, as seen above, Powell had a pretty good career. So even with the big decline so far this year, Harper's future still looks pretty good.

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