One of the sad truths of the 2021 Phillies season is that Bryce Harper’s amazing campaign just sort of fell by the wayside. It was wasted with a squad that finished second place in Major League Baseball’s worst division. An individual season that wasn’t enough to get this franchise over the hump and into the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

It’s a shame, because Harper raked in ’21. He raked to the tune of 35 home runs, 40 doubles, 100 runs, and 100 walks, becoming just the fourth outfielder to ever put up those numbers. The others are Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Stan Musial.

Harper slashed .309/.429/.615 this year, which is incredible. He led Major League Baseball with a 1.044 OPS, beating out Vlad Jr., Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Shohei Ohtani. His .309 average was sixth in the league and nobody ripped more doubles than he did. He probably did enough to win NL MVP, which would be a nice individual honor to salvage a crap team season otherwise.

Posted by fatguyrd on 10/4/2021 4:19:00 PM (view original):

One of the sad truths of the 2021 Phillies season is that Bryce Harper’s amazing campaign just sort of fell by the wayside. It was wasted with a squad that finished second place in Major League Baseball’s worst division. An individual season that wasn’t enough to get this franchise over the hump and into the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

It’s a shame, because Harper raked in ’21. He raked to the tune of 35 home runs, 40 doubles, 100 runs, and 100 walks, becoming just the fourth outfielder to ever put up those numbers. The others are Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Stan Musial.

Harper slashed .309/.429/.615 this year, which is incredible. He led Major League Baseball with a 1.044 OPS, beating out Vlad Jr., Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Shohei Ohtani. His .309 average was sixth in the league and nobody ripped more doubles than he did. He probably did enough to win NL MVP, which would be a nice individual honor to salvage a crap team season otherwise.

Posted by fatguyrd on 10/5/2021 5:02:00 PM (view original):
Please note that my original post is excerpted from a sports writers summary of why Harper should be MVP. While I tend to agree with him about the NLE being the worst division I have not studied the others to back that up.

Asside from Harper he felt Wheeler should by in the conversation for Cy Youn but probable won’t win.

Historical Note Ranger Suarez is the first Phillies pitcher since 1915 (Pete Alexander) to pitch more than 100 innings and have an ERA under 2.00. His was an amazing 1.36 in 106 innings. He started out the year as a long reliever, moved to closer, than moved to the number 2 starter. Fantastic year! Most improved player in baseball?