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Editor's note: This week, on the NBC regional sports networks, we will take a closer look at some of the best free agents in baseball. Monday is dedicated to national hitter Bryce Harper.
Ready now, safe on the ground, the end approaching, Bryce Harper sat down in front of his locker and looked up. In his usual outfit – gray sleeveless hoodie with "BH" on the front in red letters – Harper was packing up flying objects in a locker he'd been taming for weeks. There were only a few home games left in 2018. Finally, he was willing to talk about various topics, emotional, personal or otherwise. Except one.
"Did you put your hands away from your face when you stabilized after the All Star break?"
"I do not want to talk about that."
A common interview tactic is to start with something benign. Work in the most difficult things. Do not ask about separate failures or what someone previously said they would not want to talk about or leave the room. Which meant in this case, trying to start a quick discussion about hitting before the $ 400 million future comes up.
But Harper did not want to answer those questions either. He was afraid to start thinking about his swing. The concern was right since the changes that he has made to both the swing and the approach after the break of the star game have resurrected his season before the start of the crazy season. Almost everything that is positive has increased. Only the homers have come down. The changes were notable in the middle of the launching angles era, an initiative launched by the national coach by hitting his coach Kevin Long. Harper's change could mean a more general change for the Nationals and the league. Everyone had become too Dave Kingman and not enough Tony Gwynn.
Harper was tormented in two simplistic ways during the first half of the season: the other teams rarely presented him, and when they did, he often missed his chance. His touchdown percentage in the end zone was 5% lower than his career average. It was 10% below this number for a large part of the season.
On May 1, he explained his anxiety on the plate following a 37-week march in April.
"At 25, you want to play baseball," Harper said at the time.
Harper claimed that he had never been frustrated. He said it at that time and at the end of the season when everything was better, leaving a shadow on the truth. He simultaneously stated that he was not angry and that he was desperate to strike.
What is clear is the shift in his hands once he has stopped before the presentation of a throw. They moved away from his face, eliminating almost any loading loop in his hand. The result was a more direct path to baseball via a shorter swing. An extra fraction of a second. Combining this with the acceptance of what National Director Davey Martinez has been preaching throughout the season – "Hit through the middle" – has allowed Harper to produce a spring break after the season. stars. He is also very good at his baseline. It helps too.
"Just being that player," Harper spoke of what was better in the second half. "I think for me, it's just being consistent, going out there, having driving grounds, going for a walk, really not missing any of the pitches or anything like that. I think that stay the course and knowing that I had about 82 games left, there were 81. Really not worry about what I did in the first half and try to finish as hard as possible. "
Harper hit .300 after the break from the stars. His home runs total dropped from 23 to 11. However, he recorded only three fewer hits in 104 fewer hits as a result of the festivities held at Nationals Park. Its exit and run-out rates have stabilized, disrupted by their post-April distortion. However, his final totals still showed previous ugliness. Harper eliminated 169 times during the season, including 31 percent of his strike attacks before the break. This total exceeds any mark of a season for Kingman without selectivity.
Eighteen players were hit farther than Kingman's worst season, in 1982, as he led the league with 156 shots, in 2018. Long a benchmark for the all-or-nothing player, Kingman, nicknamed simply "Kong", scored 442 free kicks and was struck 1,816 times. He did little else.
The Kingman framework represents the current state of the game. An all – or – nothing phase (the HRK era, if you will) has been installed. In 2015, only one team, the Chicago Cubs, eliminated more than 1,500 times during the season. That shot up to three last season, as the Chicago White Sox were just six goals in the past year, less than 1,600 goals per game. The total number of battles per team at the top of the league has increased every year since 2013.
Home races have also come. One team hit more than 200 homers in 2013. Seventeen teams passed the bar in 2017. Ten did last season, an interesting drop that suggests, like Harper, that the league could retreat somewhat towards a more balanced plan. .
One figure that appeared throughout the season in tackling Harper's plaque issues was 25, and it was always a warning. Long included in the discussions on struggles. Max Scherzer emphasized it when he was told about Harper. Harper also mentioned his age when he stressed his anguish. To relieve some of his accumulated entrenchments, he once chose to train early on the field and to shoot as many homeruns as possible. He traditionally exercises in the batting cage under the stadium. Not that day. He wanted to be young again and just hack. Forget the discipline for 15 minutes.
Scherzer, still deciphering, looked at Harper for the last four seasons. His first insight was the year of the MVP. Three difficult but successful years followed. Harper is achieving a .952 OPS since Scherzer became the highest paid player in the history of the Nationals, a distinction that the pitcher would be delighted to forgo this offseason.
"Like all players, we all have highs and lows," said Scherzer. "Bryce is no different. I am not different. We are all human. But, watch how the league always fears him and how he still has patience – he has the eye to be able to hit during the strikes. This is an amazing trait for someone who is six years old in the league and who is also young. Sometimes you had to step back and say, "At 25 or 26, it was very different." I know how much I grew up after the age of 25. It's there that when you watch him play, you see how good he is already and what he can do at the plate can really change a baseball game in the swing of a bat. "
The intention and delivery of these swings have changed after the break of the stars. With the revisions, a sacrifice of domestic power was sacrificed, but an increase was found in the other categories, including average, basic percentage and slugging. Is this the mold that Harper will continue to follow? We will have to look to find out because he will not talk about that.
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