Tonight’s the night.

Forget the slow start at the beginning of April. Forget the bullpen dominance in the second half of the month. Forget winning four-straight series. Forget being 15-15 after 30 games, including a 13-4 shellacking at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers as a result of Taijuan Walker getting torched, the latest outing in a wildly inconsistent campaign by the offseason free agent signing. Forget being 4.5 games out of first, or being in fourth place on May 2.

Forget all of that. Because the season really begins tonight.

Just 160 days after having offseason Tommy John surgery on his elbow, Bryce Harper will be in the Phillies lineup, beating initial projections by an incredible 10 weeks.

He is a miracle of modern medicine in that he is able to make the fastest return to action in the history of this surgery. And although it is easier for a position player to do so than a pitcher, it’s still crazy fast.


Inserting him will instantly make the lineup better. His reputation alone will help the batters in front of him get better pitches. He lengthens the lineup and puts players in positions where they are better suited to be productive. He adds some power to a lineup that is short on it. He makes the Phillies dangerous.

Yes, the Phillies did well without Harper a season ago when he missed six weeks with a thumb fracture, but the 2023 Phillies were missing him and Rhys Hoskins for the first 30 games, and managed to stay afloat.

Its a testament to how good the other players on this team actually are and it’s even more impressive that they’ve done it with Trea Turner looking absolutely lost at the plate, Kyle Schwarber hitting just .208, and their starting pitchers predominantly struggling to provide any length in their games.

While Harper can’t directly impact the pitchers’ ability to find length, he can directly impact Turner and Schwarber.

Let’s look at how.

Making Trea Turner Trea Turner again

When I last spoke to Turner he was talking about how he was getting frustrated because he was swinging at balls and looking at strikes and not earning pitches in the zone. In other words – the more you chase, the more pitchers are going to continue to pitch you outside the strike zone and not challenge you.

So far in 2023, Turner has chased balls out of the strike zone 37.7% of the time, per Baseball Savant. That’s the highest chase rate of his career and ranks in the 11th percentile in all of MLB – meaning 89% of major leaguers are chasing less than Turner right now. All told, in his nine seasons in the MLB, Turner has a chase rate of 27.9%. The MLB average is 28.4%.

His whiff rate is way up too. Whiff rates are the number of swings and misses divided by the total number of swings. So far this season, Turner’s whiff rate is 34.3%, also the highest of his career (he averages 23.3%.) The MLB average is 24.7%. Turner is in the 13th percentile here.

As a result of chasing and trying to identify pitches, Turner is swinging late on a lot of pitches, including strikes. which leads to more swings and misses and more foul balls and less solid contact. His contact percentage on pitches in the strike zone is 75.5% – the lowest of his career, in which he averages 84.7%.

Having Harper to protect him in the lineup, rather than Schwarber, will lessen the frequency of a pitcher’s willingness to keep stretching Turner’s box radius. In other words, if Turner starts spitting on pitches out of the zone – even a little bit, pitchers will be more reluctant to continue to pitch out of the zone because they don’t want to give Turner a free base via a walk with Harper on deck.

Why is Harper a difference-maker here? Because Schwarber is a three true outcomes batter. He’s predominantly going to strikeout, walk or hit a home run in most of his at bats, whereas Harper hits for a higher average, puts more balls in play and is more likely to have a productive out (moving runners along without reaching base). As such, pitchers would rather face Schwarber than Harper, so they can be more expansive with their options when it comes to pitching to Turner with Schwarber batting behind him than with Harper.

It might take a few games to see a difference, but look for Turner to get more balls to hit overall now that Harper will be back.

Finally Getting Schwarber Where He Belongs

As for Schwarber, he will move down the lineup into a more traditional power/RBI role and not have to be relied upon to bat in that traditional spot in the lineup reserved for the best hitter on your team. Schwarber is still on a 40-homer pace, but may get a few more moving down in the order and having a better chance to come up with runners on base and have pitchers approaching him in higher leverage situations that tend to favor the batter.

In his career, Schwarber has batted all over the lineup, but of the spots in the order where he’s had at least a decent sample size (at least 300 plate appearances) he’s had the most success hitting fourth (.274/.375/.563; .938 OPS) or sixth (.256/.369/.471; .840 OPS).

I mean, imagine more of these only with runners on base:

So, What Would Be the IDEAL lineup?

Most people would agree that the likely regular lineup is going to look like this:

  1. Stott 2B
  2. Turner SS
  3. Harper DH
  4. Castellanos RF
  5. Schwarber LF
  6. Realmuto C
  7. Marsh CF
  8. Bohm 1B
  9. Sosa 3B

It makes a lot of sense. It mostly alternates righties and lefties, gets Harper back into his favorite spot in the order, puts Schwarber in the middle and makes the lineup deep when you are batting Bohm out of the 8-hole.

But, might this one be a little better?

  1. Turner SS
  2. Harper DH
  3. Castellanos RF
  4. Schwarber LF
  5. Realmuto C
  6. Marsh CF
  7. Bohm 1B
  8. Sosa 3B
  9. Stott 3B

It really puts a lot of pressure on pitchers right off the bat getting the guys who should be the three best hitters in your lineup an at bat in the first inning.

Why is that important? Well, across major league baseball more runs have been scored in the first inning (508) than any other. Additionally, first inning batting averages (.263), on base percentages (.339) slugging percentages (.442) and OPS (.781) are higher than any other inning. So, why not ensure pitchers have to face that gauntlet every game right out of the gate?

I know the Phillies would be reluctant to move Castellanos considering how great he’s been in the four hole, but he wouldn’t have to change his approach at all and he still provides Harper great protection while Harper protects Turner.

The other complaint I’m likely to hear is dropping Stott to the bottom of the order, but let’s be real for a second here. Since being moved into the leadoff spot, Stott is slashing .261/.301/.375 with a .676 OPS. That’s not good enough for what you need out of the leadoff hole. You need a guy who can get on base more frequently as well as a guy who compiles more total bases. Moving him down puts less pressure on him, and allows still allows him to be productive by being the guy who turns the lineup back over to the big guns and yet still has the possibility of coming through himself.

My lineup also keeps the mostly alternating lefties and righties concept in tact and really never gives an opposing pitcher a breather.

Anyway you slice it though, Harper coming back today is huge. And even if it takes him a little time to actually be Bryce Harper, his impact is sure to be immediate, and only for the better for the Phillies.