Over the last Major League Baseball free agency period, Bryce Harper signed a record setting 13-year, $330 million dollar contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Some believe that his first year in Philadelphia was been underwhelming, based on overall offensive production, with a current slash line of 0.252/0.373/0.468 with only 18 home runs in 106 games thus far. However, relative to Harper's 2019 salary and production of other rightfielders, his production has been a bargain for this season, relative to others.
This season, Harper's salary is $11,538,462 million, which ranks sixth amongst the rightfield position, behind Jason Heyward ($22,500,000), Charlie Blackmon ($21,333,333), Mookie Betts ($20,050,000), Jay Bruce ($14,000,000), and Josh Reddick ($13,000,000), with Kole Calhoun ($10,500,000) behind Harper. Based on various offensive production metrics and analytics, Bryce Harper has been highly productive, relative to his salary positioning and his rightfield contemporaries.
Currently, Harper is ranked fourth in on-base percentage (0.373) amongst all rightfielders. Referencing the list above, Mookie Betts is the only rightfielder with a higher on-base percentage (0.395). In further analysis, Harper currently ranks first amongst all rightfielders in walk rate (15.6%), tied for ninth in weight runs created plus (118), tenth in weighted on-base average (0.353), and tied for ninth in batting average on balls in play (0.324).
Although Bryce Harper signed a highly exorbitant contract overall, his production this year, relative to others at his position has placed him as a top tier rightfielder. With his 2019 salary ranking sixth amongst his contemporaries, Bryce Harper's performance, based on the data and metrics has been worth his salary for the 2019 season.
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