After Bryce Harper headlines go viral, sports writer defends his analysis

Stats from Bryce Harper's 2015 season made a big difference in assessments of the superstar's value.

Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper watches the baseball during batting practice on Sunday, March 3, 2019, at Spectrum Field in Clearwater, Fla.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

Published March 5, 2019, 11:10 a.m. ET

With Phillies fans in euphoria over the signing of superstar Bryce Harper, catnip for social media outrage emerged when a popular Twitter account retweeted screenshots of headlines on two stories by the same Washington Post writer.

On a first side-by-side look, the two headlines (originally shared by one of sports analytics writer Neil Greenberg’s Washington Post colleagues) are pretty contradictory. The first, “Bryce Harper would be a bargain for Nationals at $500 million," was written in November 2017, nearly a year and a half before Harper would ultimately sign with the Phillies. The second, written last week, reads, “Even over 13 years, Bryce Harper isn’t worth $330 million in this market.”

The inference is clear — Greenberg wrote glowingly about Harper’s value when there was a chance he might stay in Washington, but didn’t think the superstar was quite as valuable after he decided to trek up I-95 to Philadelphia.

But the articles — written more than 15 months apart — reveal the difference in Greenberg’s assessment of Harper’s value was the superstar’s 2015 season, when he batted .330 and knocked in 42 home runs, earning the National League MVP award. Of significance in Greenberg’s analysis was the 9.8 Wins Above Replacement Harper earned that season, as calculated by FanGraphs.com (Wins Above Replacement is an advanced metric that attempts to measure a player’s value compared to a replacement player at the same position).

“Typically what I use is a weighted three year average … So my 2017 story included Harper’s 2015 season. You take that away and his Wins Above Replacement have been 3.0, 4.8 and 3.5,” Greenberg told the Inquirer. “It all comes down to what the inputs are, and I have a way of forecasting that I’m comfortable with. Those are numbers that I came up with in 2017 and 2019, and I stand by both.”

Greenberg isn’t upset that people don’t agree with his assessment. What stands out more is that Phillies fans didn’t even bother seeking out the columns themselves before blasting him on Twitter, a common behavior on social media that led to a number of fans getting duped by fake Harper stories.

“The hard part is reading, learning and understanding. The easy part is to see a screenshot of two headlines and just think they’re the first original person to send it out there in the world and be like, ‘Oh, look, I caught this Washington Post guy doing something wrong,’” Greenberg said. “It’s pretty silly.”

It’s also worth pointing out that Greenberg’s analysis was focused solely on the current free agent market, and whether the Phillies were forced to overpay for Harper. In fact, Greenberg wrote another story last week that wasn’t included in the viral meme in which he explained why he thought Harper would be a good fit in Philadelphia:

“There is no denying Harper’s impact on a Phillies squad that ranked 11th in the National League in runs last season: He has 12 home runs and a .966 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 40 games at Citizens Bank Park. Plus, with the short porch in right field, it’s possible Harper’s projected batting line of .267 with 34 home runs and a .927 OPS for 2019 is a bit low: If we look at his fly balls hit at Nationals Park over his career, 22 of them might have been home runs in Philadelphia.”

Neil Greenberg, Washington Post

“I think lost in all this is I think it was a good baseball move for Philadelphia. I just think that they paid too much. And that’s okay, both of those things can be true,” Greenberg said.

It could even end up becoming one of the best deals in baseball, he said. “We’ll just wait and see which one’s correct.”