CINCINNATI — Think about what Bryce Harper usually does after he hits a ball sharply to right field. He takes off like a sprinter out of the blocks, arms and legs pumping, helmet flying, hair flowing, mind set on taking second base before he knows he can actually make it. Sometimes he slides in safely; sometimes he’s out by 20 feet. Almost always, he goes for it.
That’s basically what’s happening now with the Harper First Base Experiment.
The Phillies are down two first basemen, with Rhys Hoskins lost for the season and Darick Hall for at least two months. They’re asking third baseman Alec Bohm to move across the field against left-handed pitchers — and some righties, too, especially if .143-career-hitting utilityman Kody Clemens proves to be overmatched. The hope is to get by for a few months, until a noncontender is willing to discuss a white-flag trade.
Harper can see all of this. His recovery from an elbow ligament reconstruction in his right (throwing) arm is going as well as could be expected. Better, actually. And so, as The Athletic first reported, he approached president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski within the past few days and pitched a concept: When he’s ready to play defense again, it should be at first base.
Maybe it will work. Maybe not. Harper, true to form, wants to go for it. Full steam ahead.
The Phillies believe that it’s worth exploring, a team official confirmed late Wednesday night. There have been much worse ideas. (Moving Hoskins to left field in 2018 springs to mind.) And while not everyone can handle first base, it also requires less throwing — and from decidedly shorter distances — than Harper’s regular position in right field.
OK, let’s press pause. To be clear, Harper wouldn’t come back as a first baseman. He will be cleared by doctors for game action as a designated hitter before he will begin a rigorous throwing program, and everyone agrees the most important thing is to have his bat back in the lineup as soon as possible.
Manager Rob Thomson said Thursday that he isn’t even sure that playing first base rather than right field would spell a swifter return to a defensive position for Harper. The list of non-pitchers who have undergone Tommy John elbow surgery isn’t long.
“I don’t have a sense of that,” Thomson said. “I have never really gone through this before in all my years.”
The Phillies haven’t deviated from their intentionally vague “by the All-Star break” timetable for Harper to rejoin the lineup, even in a DH role. It has become clear, though, that his return will be closer to Memorial Day than the Fourth of July.
Harper has been taking batting practice on the field daily. Thomson said the 2021 NL MVP could probably hit in a minor league game right now, if the doctors were sure that sliding into a base or other uncontrolled actions within a game wouldn’t cause his elbow to rupture. Harper has progressed to what Thomson described as “modified sliding,” but it may be several weeks before he’s cleared for the real thing.
And it will take considerably more time for Harper to get back in right field. Marcus A. Rothermich, an orthopedic surgeon at Andrews Sports Medicine in Birmingham, Ala., said recently that non-pitchers typically return to their positions by the “eight-, nine-month mark.” That’s August or September for Harper, who had surgery on Nov. 23.
The Phillies aren’t inclined to push it. Not after seeing the impact that a DH-only Harper made last season. He batted .294/.368/.517 with 16 homers in 89 games after injuring his elbow, then hit .349/.414/.746 with six homers in a postseason for the ages. If he doesn’t play right field again before next season, well, it wouldn’t be so terrible.
But if Harper is able to play first base? Imagine the possibilities.
The Phillies could keep Bohm at third base, his preferred position, rather than shuttling him back and forth. They could free up the DH spot for Kyle Schwarber, who DH’d in eight of the first 12 games, or a rotation of multiple players. Most importantly, they wouldn’t have to overpay with a prospect to acquire a first baseman — Colorado’s C.J. Cron, for instance — in a deadline trade.
So, Harper took grounders at first base Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park. Publicly, Thomson chalked it up to “just working on his glove action.” But Harper went through longer, more intensive tutoring at first base with infield coach Bobby Dickerson on Wednesday at home and Thursday in Cincinnati.
Those sessions, focused for now on footwork around the base and fielding hops, figure to continue. Why not? Schwarber still laughs at himself over his first-base cameo for the Red Sox in 2021. But maybe Harper can do it.
“Bryce puts a lot of work in,” Thomson said. “He’s got as good as a chance as anybody to do it. He wants to do it.”
Harper did grow up playing the infield, albeit third base, in Las Vegas. Three years ago, during the Phillies’ summer training camp in the pandemic-shortened season, he pestered then-manager Joe Girardi to let him play third base for one inning in an intrasquad scrimmage.
“His hands worked out front really well, he was really accurate when he threw across the diamond, and I went up to him and said, ‘Man, you look good,’” Girardi said at the time. “He said, ‘Do you think I’ll play third one day?’ I said, ‘We’ll probably keep you in right.’”
Unless the Phillies need him more at first base.
Can Harper do it? He’s going to find out. Full steam ahead.
