Bryce Harper, Kris Bryant Met All Hype in 1st Matchup Between NL's Top Phenoms

No one should be disappointed.

For all the clamoring, anticipation and attention, the first major league series featuring Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant lived up to the hype.

The two biggest hitting prospects on Major League Baseball’s marquee this decade, players who grew up as childhood teammates and phenoms, finally met at the professional level. And their performances left everyone wanting more, but it was not because they failed to produce to the level of their preceding reputations.

It was because their series against each other left baseball fans everywhere salivating for more:

"

Can we have Harper vs. Bryant for every remaining game this season? Please?

— Woe, Doctor! (@woedoctor) May 28, 2015"

The series went to the Washington Nationals, in part because of Harper’s outstanding offensive performance. He went 3-for-10, with home runs in each of the last two games.

Bryant’s line was nearly identical for the Chicago Cubs. He went 3-for-10 with two homers as well, including a Game 2 shot in the eighth inning that either hit or cleared the new scoreboard atop the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field. That homer tied the game and eventually helped the Cubs get their lone win in the set.

Harper’s team won the series, and that was expected. They are the far more complete team, one eyeing a National League pennant this season, while the Cubs are a mostly youthful roster trying to live up to massive expectations in its first full season together. While they are teams on different courses, their two biggest stars are looking to be right on par with one another.

For the two Las Vegas products, this was just the start of their adult rivalry, which should be big enough to carry the game into its next generation of superstars.

“The game is going to see these guys for a long time,” Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer told ESPNChicago.com’s Jesse Rogers in a podcast. “I hope as an organization we get to the level [the Nationals] are at right now where we have a ton of veteran talent, a ton of young talent. ...

“The Bryant and Harper thing is a nice subplot of that. I think that’s pretty cool. ... One guy was drafted No. 1 in the draft, one guy was drafted No. 2. There’s a reason guys that get drafted that high have success.”

Harper has already had success as a major league hitter, and this year he has shot his game to a completely new level. He is among baseball's best offensive players and arguably the best to this point of the season. Defensively, he has been among the best outfielders in the game.

At 22 years old, Harper is fulfilling the promise that was evident when he was a kid in Las Vegas.

“He was always bigger than the competition,” Bryant, 23, told reporters of Harper earlier this week. “He was always just better, and he was younger. It was crazy to see that, how advanced he was at such a young age. Even now, in the big leagues, he’s still very young.”

Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Harper’s personality, style and swagger are equally good for a sport desperate for younger fans and exposure in different demographics. While the game does not need to stick one of its most polarizing players under the permanent black hat, it should embrace his differences from Bryant, even for as similar as their talent and backgrounds might be.

This series did not highlight most of the differences, but Harper has established himself as an all-out, boisterous, sometimes short-tempered player with enough flair for his entire roster in his four seasons. Meanwhile, in the brief time we have seen Bryant in the big leagues, he’s shown himself to be a calmer, more vanilla player, but with just as much talent and upside as Harper.

Gregory Bull/Associated Press

While MLB was wise to let the players’ games hype this first meeting on their own, it would not be a bad thing if it played up the underdog team and low-key player vs. the established World Series contender and its at times over-the-top star.

Other sports market games and series around individuals all the time. It’s time baseball did the same, as this could be a selling point when the two teams and players meet again in D.C. in about a week, June 4-7.

This previous meeting will still be fresh in the country’s mind. Pumping up the second series and making sure every game is on national television would only give more pizzazz to the Harper-Bryant storyline.

That way, if these two teams happen to meet in the postseason, the story then sells itself. The hype can be taken to an entirely new level. Expectations will rise, fairly or not. The entire series will become a marketer’s dream, with Harper and Bryant as focal points.

This is, after all, entertainment. And if baseball plans to fully entertain a new generation of fans with its new generation of players, Bryce Harper vs. Kris Bryant is a better place than any other to start. This week already proved as much.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Stats are courtesy of FanGraphs, unless noted otherwise. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.