Bryce Harper is 18-years-old. Most guys his age will just be getting drafted next month or heading to college in the fall. As such, he is painfully young to be playing full-season A-ball right now, but there he is in the Sally League. And he’s making a mockery of it.
Yesterday he went 4-for-5 with a grand slam. He currently has a 15-game hitting streak going. Overall he’s at .396/.472/.712, with a league-leading 1.184 OPS. Eight of the top ten guys in that league in that department are 22 or older. Indeed, the only other player in the top 100 in OPS in that league who is 18 is Manny Machado, and he at least played rookie ball last year.
This doesn’t change the call-up calculus. The Nationals aren’t going to win the division with Harper there this year so they can fail to win the division him still in the minors too. But it does remind one that, if you want to see Bryce Harper play in the minor leagues, you best get to it while the gettin’s good.
