Harper has not been piling up the homers or extra base hits over the last few months.
It’s no secret the Phillies offense has floundered for much of the season thus far. Despite ranking near the top of the league in walks and on-base percentage, the Phils have struggled to hit for power this April, with the third-fewest home runs in the Majors (22), a slugging percentage (.375) that is 22nd and an isolated power (.126) that is 25th.
Only five players entered Tuesday’s series opener with the Nationals with more than one home run: Kyle Schwarber (7), Bryce Harper (5), Nick Castellanos (3), and Bryson Stott and Max Kepler (2, each).
Only Schwarber is a real threat to hit more than 40 bombs this season, but the hope was Harper’s power numbers would tick up a bit from the 30 homers he hit a season ago. Unfortunately, sitting in the all-important third spot in Rob Thomson’s lineup, Harper’s power stroke and overall offensive numbers have yet to emerge with any kind of consistency.
In 28 games, Harper is slashing .231/.370/.423, with a wRC+ of 122, 16 RBIs, 17 runs scored and six stolen bases. That .370 OBP is nice, as is his 18.1% walk rate. He’s only striking out 19.7% of the time, so that’s fine, too. But in holding down a spot in the lineup that cries out for run production, his .423 slugging percentage leaves us wanting a bit more, especially from the team’s one and only true superstar.
It feels unfair to criticize Harper’s production, because even when he’s not on his game, he’s still doing many things well. His defense at first base remains among the best in the league, and his on-base skills allow those hitting behind him in the order opportunities to knock in runs.
But what the Phillies really need is for Harper to be that guy. They need him to slug the baseball and put together more than just half a week of productive offense, which unfortunately is all he’s been able to manage so far here in 2025.
Zooming out, this isn’t just a this year problem. Since July 1st of last year, Harper has hit 15 HRs and knocked in 45 runners over hist last 97 games. That prorates to 25 homers and 75 RBIs over a 162-game season. Those 15 HRs are tied for 50th out of 140 qualified hitters over that time frame, and the 45 RBIs tie him with Heliot Ramos and Ezequiel Tovar for 77th. His .804 OPS is tied for 40th, and his 2.3 fWAR is tied with Otto Lopez, Masyn Winn, Willy Adames, Ian Happ and Randy Arozarena for 48th.
These are fine numbers if you’re Nick Castellanos, and ironically, Castellanos actually has a higher OPS (.811) with the same number of dingers (15) and 14 more RBIs (59) than Harper over that stretch. But Harper is the team’s No. 1 superstar. They don’t have an Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr., Francisco Lindor, Shohei Ohtani or Elly De La Cruz. Harper is their guy.
Last week, Harper hit three home runs in four games against the Giants and Marlins at Citizens Bank Park, but that production appears to be more of a flare-up than a true hot streak. Harper has just five multi-hit games this season, and has yet to notch three or more knocks in a game so far in ‘25. Prior to hitting all those dingers during the last homestand, Harper told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki:
“I think I’m on time. I think I’m not swinging too much at the slider as much as I did early in the year. I said to [hitting coach Kevin] Long about a week ago, ‘Give me 10 days and we’ll be good.’ So, we’re about on the seventh day right now. We’ll see.”
Harper homered and walked on the ninth day of his 10-day timeline on Tuesday. He homered, singled and walked twice on the 10th day on Wednesday. On the 12th day, he crushed a two-run home run into the second deck in right field in the first inning and walked in Friday’s 7-2 victory.
That breakthrough was short-lived. After that four-game blitz, Harper has gone homerless in his last 38 PAs and is hitting .156/.289/.250, with three doubles and five hits total. He has missed hittable fastballs and chased breaking pitches out of the zone. The last road trip was particularly frustrating, going 2-for-28 in New York and Chicago.
Understanding that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing anyone in professional sports can do, Harper went from being locked in at the plate in those four games, to totally lost almost with the flip of a switch.
To be fair, Harper got off to a slow start last year, too.
In April, he pounded out a three-homer game against the Reds in the fourth game of the season, then didn’t hit another bomb for 13 games. There were just four games last April in which he went deep, and also added a mere five doubles. He then caught fire and won back-to-back Players of the Month awards in May and June with an OPS of .990 and 1.166 in those months, respectively, but followed that up with a .598 OPS in July, and only nine home runs in 64 second half games.
This is not to say Harper isn’t a quality offensive player, because he is. Is it fair to ask for more productivity from a player who’s already done so much for the franchise? Is it fair to ask the most important hitter in the lineup, the lynchpin of the entire offense, to generate more run production than he has over the last over the last four months of games he’s played?
The lack of production from the lineup is not all Harper’s fault, and his teammates have done him no favors by offering little, if any, protection for him in the lineup. Phillies’ cleanup hitters have a collective .663 OPS this season, 25th in MLB. They have just three homers from players hitting cleanup, all of them by Schwarber, who has received the lion’s share of the PAs (68) in that role. Castellanos is 3-for-19, Bohm 1-for-17, and Realmuto, Max Kepler, Kody Clemens and Rafael Marchan all failed to record a hit in 15 PAs when they hit behind Harper.
As the team’s designated superstar, Harper is expected to do more than the average “good” player. It is perhaps an unfair expectation, but it is what it is. Same for Trea Turner, whose offensive inconsistencies should earn their own article in the near future.
Harper is not having a bad season, but it would be incorrect to say it’s been a good one, either. For this offense to take off, and for this team to win games more consistently, they need Harper’s power consistency to arrive, and hopefully for it to last longer than half a week.