{"id":121694,"date":"2026-05-11T21:32:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=121694"},"modified":"2026-05-11T21:32:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T01:32:29","slug":"phillies-star-is-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/11\/phillies-star-is-elite\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Star Is Having An Elite Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies star is elite this season<\/a> as Bryce Harper is in MVP form at the plate. This comes following an offseason where Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski called out Harper publicly for his play. During the offseason the drama between Harper and Dombrowski<\/a> dominated the headlines surrounding the Phillies. However, Harper is playing like the star player that he is so far this season. Harper seems to have taken the comments made by Dombrowski personally. The Phillies are getting a better version of Harper this year. This helps the team be at its best. Harper being good helps the team play better.<\/p>\n

In 2025 Harper had a .261\/.357\/.487 line with 27 home runs and 75 RBI in 132 games. Harper also recorded a 131 wRC+ and a .292 BABIP with a .361 wOBA as well as a 0.58 BB\/K rate. The batting average, slugging percentage and wRC+ were the second worst Harper has had in a full season with the Phillies behind 2019, The on-base percentage Harper recorded last season was the worst Harper has had in a full season with the Phillies. Harper also spent time on the injured list<\/a> with wrist inflammation in 2025 which could have contributed to the struggles at the plate. The injury likely bothered Harper before landing on the injured list.<\/p>\n

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Phillies Star Is Elite<\/h2>\n

A Breakdown Of 2026 Numbers<\/h3>\n

Harper is elite again<\/a> in 2026 with a .281\/.376\/.562 line with 10 home runs and 24 RBI in 41 games. To add to that Harper has a 159 wRC+ and a .279 BABIP with a .405 wOBA as well as a 0.88 BB\/K rate. Harper has improved from an .844 OPS in 2025 to a .938 OPS so far in 2026. Furthermore Harper has improved his strikeout rate from 20.9% last year to 15.3% this year and his walk rate from 12.1% last year to 13.5% this year. Harper has decreased his swing rate from 54.1% in 2025 to 53.2% in 2026 while making contact at a higher rate. Last season Harper had a 71.1% contact rate compared to a 75.3% contact rate this season.<\/p>\n

How Harper Fits Into 2026 NL MVP Conversation<\/h3>\n

Harper ranks sixth in the NL in home runs and eighth in wRC+ as well as ninth in BB\/K rate among qualified players entering play on May 11. In addition to that Harper has the sixth best OPS among qualified NL players entering May 11. While it is still relatively early Harper is someone to watch in the NL MVP race. Harper has to maintain this success to win NL MVP and fend off other competitors. The Phillies star is elite again and that is what matters most for the franchise. Interestingly Harper has an outstanding 1.192 OPS in the Phillies 19 wins compared to a .722 OPS in the Phillies 22 losses.<\/p>\n

How The Success Has Helped The Team<\/h3>\n

While the Phillies fired Rob Thomson<\/a> after a slow start the team has started to turn things around under Don Mattingly. Harper has a .333\/.451\/.714 line with four home runs and six RBI in 12 games since Mattingly took over as interim manager. To add to that Harper has a 217 wRC+ with a .303 BABIP and a .490 wOBA in that span. As a team the Phillies have a .275\/.324\/.470 line with 19 home runs and 67 RBI in 13 games since Mattingly took over. The team has a 119 wRC+ and a .306 BABIP along with a .346 wOBA during this span. Additionally the Phillies have a 10-3 record since Mattingly took over for Thomson.<\/p>\n

Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies star is elite this season as Bryce Harper is in MVP form at the plate. This comes following an offseason where Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski called out Harper publicly for his play. During the offseason the drama between Harper and Dombrowski dominated the headlines surrounding the Phillies. However, Harper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":121698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,23],"tags":[315,475,274],"class_list":["post-121694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-phillies","tag-bryce-harper","tag-dave-dombrowski","tag-don-mattingly"],"modified_by":"Ben Rosen, Staff Writer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121705,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121694\/revisions\/121705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}