Bryce Harper

is a Nat in 2011. And it’ll be for less money

but less then strasburg

The polished product is always going to get more, and while Harper might be extremely polished, he’s still going to be farther from the majors.

One thing that hasn’t been addressed is that Harper might be lowering his leverage by entering the draft next year. He’s making a big move by leaving high school early, and will have greater pressure on him to sign. If he doesn’t, what does he do? Play JuCo for another year? I don’t think a four year university would accept him. Not that they can low ball him, but they can probably push him a bit more based on everything he’s already put into entering the draft early.

As Kevin Goldstein has said, while Harper is a very nice prospect, he’s not even the best prep prospect of the decade. He’s got a great set of defensive tools with plus-plus power, but hype aside, nobody’s really sure just how polished he is. At his age, he’s only now getting exposed to pitchers at a stage of maturation at which you can begin to consider them as major league prospects.

Among just the position players, I would have taken Justin Upton over Harper. Cameron Maybin was immensely talented coming out of high school as well if overshadowed by Upton. Eric Hosmer got some impressive grades coming out of high school and would have been in contention. You might wish to throw a few other names out there – most notably Jason Heyward, who was probably the victim of overscouting and nothing more. But my point is: Harper’s not really THAT unique. We saw a very similar process take place with Robert Stock a few years ago and he got a pretty good reality check in college.

1. I don’t think anyone is saying Harper is a better baseball player than Justin Upton right now. That would be foolish. What people are discussing, in what is a great argument, is whether Bryce Harper is a better draft prospect than Justin Upton was coming out of high school in 2005. What Justin Upton has done in his awesome career since getting drafted really has no bearing on an argument about the two players as pre-draft prospects.

2. If we’re going to bring up a random BA line without a link (looking at you mrkupe), let’s at least post BA’s real answer to this exact question that was posed to them only one month ago, where they said Harper was the better prospect.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/ask-ba/2009/268554.html

Q: Justin Upton and Bryce Harper both were head and shoulders above the rest of their high school class. Who was the better prospect if you match them up head to head?

A: It’s close, but I’d go with Harper. At the same stage of their careers, they had comparable hitting ability but Harper has more power. That’s saying something, because Upton had well above-average power.

You tried to argue Upton over Harper and threw out a wacky backwards argument using bits and pieces of what BA may or may not have said to help support your point. I counter your point by showing that BA has already discussed this exact topic, where they said unequivocally that Harper is the better prospect.

You respond to this not by admitting that you may not know enough about Harper, or arguing that BA is wrong and presenting a thoughtful argument to support your case, but by calling me Harper’s mother.

Congrats on providing a terrific example of how to come off like an interwebz douchenozzle.

guys, when evaluating if Harper is/will be better than J-Up I think you need to consider 2 factors.
1). Talent Level
2). Likelihood

Now from what I’ve read Harper has more talent at 16 than J-Up did. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I think he’ll be a better hitter than J-Up. I mean lets look at International Signees. In the past most of the successful 16-yr olds who signed were not the ones who were paid top signing bonuses as a 16yr old, most of the ones who were paid the higher bonuses didn’t become successful. You could also use Delmon Young as an example. At age 18 and 19 he was considered a future superstar, a ton of potential, but fast forward a few years later and he’s barely considered an average player (if at all). So while I agree that Harper at 16 had more talent than J-Up at 16, we don’t know if it’s just cause Harper’s body matured faster, or if he really is a more talented physical specimen. Any projection in the future for Harper is based purely on a gut instinct. Sure he’s ahead of J-Up at the same age, but my gut is saying the likelihood of him being as good or better than J-Up is less than 50%.

He’s not getting more money than Strasburg. Justin Upton didn’t even sniff Mark Prior money. If Harper gets ~60% of Strasburg, a la Upton and Prior, he’s done really fucking well for himself. We’ll see.

Upton over Harper. Personally, the only HS prospect better than Upton this decade was Mauer.

I miss posting here as much as I used to.