It's Time to Admit It, Phillies' Bryce Harper's Superstar Status is in Danger

There's a line between the right and wrong way to deliver a hard truth. And last October, Dave Dombrowski crossed it.

No member of the Philadelphia Phillies should have gone in front of a bunch of microphones and called Bryce Harper out for not being elite anymore. That it was the president of baseball operations who did so is a special kind of mind-boggling. Or, as Harper put it, "kind of wild."

Yet what's really wild is this: Though Dombrowski was in the wrong with how he said it, what he actually said wasn't wrong.

For anyone who didn't read the fine print, Dombrowski merely questioned whether Harper could become elite again, while otherwise praising the two-time MVP as a "quality player" and an "All-Star-caliber player."

If that doesn't sound like a fair assessment of what Harper is right now, then you haven't been paying attention.

Harper's Star Is Fading in More Ways Than One

Harper is 14 years into his career, and it's remarkable how different his seven years with the Phillies look from his seven years with the Washington Nationals.

Whereas he had three 1-ish WAR seasons in Washington, his only one of those in Philly happened in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. He has averaged 3.8 rWAR over the last seven years, a figure he topped three times in Washington.

The last four years, though, have largely been a case of Harper trying and failing to live up to his MVP-winning season in 2021. It was his league-leading 1.044 OPS that did the trick for him that year, whereas he's averaged a .880 OPS since.

Last year wasn't bad by any stretch, but it certainly wasn't elite. Harper posted 3.1 rWAR with a .844 OPS and 27 home runs. He had basically the same season as Yandy Díaz, who might best be known for those pythons attached to his shoulders.

All of this is happening against a remarkable backdrop, in which the bar for superstardom feels higher than when Harper won his MVPs in 2015 and 2021.

The word "superstar" calls to mind Shohei Ohtani, who's making history and winning World Series rings. It also calls to mind Juan Soto, who's now a 40-40 threat in addition to an OBP god. And of course, best-of-the-best sluggers like Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh and Harper's current teammate, Kyle Schwarber.

The Phillies' place in the public consciousness isn't doing Harper any favors either. Schwarber, reigning NL batting champion Trea Turner and Cy Young Award runner-up Cristopher Sánchez are going strong, but a pattern of diminishing returns in the playoffs has taken hold anyway. And despite back-to-back NL East titles, October is what really matters.

The vibe is of a team that may have already missed its best shot. And if Harper is no longer the superstar around which everything still revolves, then how much hope do the Phillies really have?

Harper Faces an Uphill Battle for Redemption

You can, of course, dig deeper and find more granular threats to Harper's star power.

At least one of these seems fixable, and it merely requires Harper to make better use of his eyes. He's long been willing to take his walks, but he's been weirdly less willing to do so in the last few years:

2015-2021: 17.0 BB%
2022-2025: 12.5 BB%

This is not a case of Harper suddenly seeing more strikes to hit, as his 42.9 percent rate of pitches in the zone since 2022 is lower than even Javier Báez. He has simply become more prone to expanding the strike zone, with his 2025 chase rate landing in the 11th percentile.

Yet even if Harper makes that fix, another big one won't be as simple.

His exit velocity and hard-hit rates have fallen from the top 10 percent in 2021 to the 70th-percentile range in 2025. Any attempt to Sherlock Holmes how that happened inevitably leads to a likely culprit: His bat speed is down 1.3 mph since 2023.

Research on bat speed is still young, but the aging curve presented by Tom Tango in 2024 indicates it's relatively stable through age 31. After that, it declines rapidly.

Last year was Harper's age-32 season, and he turned 33 on October 16.

Ultimately, projections for the 2026 season don't forecast a return to superstar form for Harper. ZiPS, for example, has him down for 24 home runs and 3.1 WAR. There are 46 hitters projected for more homers, and 61 projected for more WAR.

Harper's Place in History? It's Complicated.

Then again, does it matter if Harper has entered his post-prime years?

Mike Petriello of MLB.com pegged him as a future Hall of Famer in January, and that does jive with the trajectory of his career. Even setting aside the accolades—not just the MVPs, but his Rookie of the Year, eight All-Star selections and four Silver Sluggers—he stands among the best hitters ever for his age.

To date, Harper has a 142 OPS+ and 363 home runs. He's one of 22 players all-time to hit those marks through the age of 32. Of the others, 14 are in the Hall of Fame and three (Harper, Mike Trout and Giancarlo Stanton) are still active. That leaves just two future Hall of Famers (Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera) and three steroid-era cases (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez).

Where things get tricky is with whether Harper is one of those "he could retire right now" future Hall of Famers.

The Jaffe WAR Score System doesn't rate him as a Cooperstown-worthy right fielder, and the picture is largely the same for his new home at first base. And as Roger Maris, Dale Murphy and Juan González can vouch, a pair of MVPs is not an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame.

Harper still has time to add to his legacy, including reaching 400 or, even better, 500 home runs. He's a lock for the former, but getting to the latter could well hinge on him aging gracefully.

A ring (or two) would also help. As impressive as it is that he has a .986 OPS and 17 home runs (shoutout to the swing of his life) for his playoff career, he famously missed out when the Nationals won the World Series in 2019 after he left for Philly. The Phillies came up short in his one and only trip to the World Series in 2022, in which he went 4-for-20 with one homer.

According to him, Harper isn't motivated by what Dombrowski had to say. It's frankly hard to take that at face value, at least in the sense that he would want to shut his boss up.

Even if it came across in the worst possible way, it was a fair challenge that went out last October. If Harper would rather not hear it again, he knows what he has to do.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.