Phillies

Chase Rate Does Not Seem to Matter if You’re Bryce Harper

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: May 18th, 2026 · 12:34 PM EDT

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As you know, Bryce Harper is currently hitting the cover off the baseball. He’s slugging .696 in May with a 1.112 OPS and he knocked in six runs during the Pittsburgh sweep on the strength of a 6-for-12 weekend with two home runs.

He’s been elite this season, as opposed to “not-elite,” and he’s doing it while technically chasing more than he’s ever chased before.

The numbers:

Okay, so he’s only one-tenth of a percentage point higher than he was last year, but the point stands. He’s making contact more than 50% of the time when he does swing at something out of the zone, which is an improvement over 2025.

But those numbers don’t mean too much on the surface, so I asked the Sportradar AI to pull from our database the Bryce splits based on pitches thrown outside or inside of the zone:

Bryce Harper Zone Splits

Zone	PA	AB	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	2B	3B	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Out-of-Zone	83	61	11	0	5	22	23	2	1	.180	.398	.246	.643
In-Zone	112	109	37	12	25	2	11	7	0	.339	.348	.734	1.082

He’s crushing the stuff he’s getting in the zone. And he’s drawing a bunch of walks, 26 in 47 games. He’s on pace for about 90 walks this season, which would be the most he’s had since 2021, when he played 141 games. Though in terms of walk %, he’s at 13.2 right now, which is 2nd best out of his last five Phillies seasons.

It’s funny, because we look at chase rate as being a typical Phillies problem, like they can’t lay off the garbage when things really get tough in the postseason. Maybe it happens this year, maybe not. We’ve got a long way to go.

For Bryce though, he’s always one of the top Phillies when it comes to swinging at stuff out of the zone. But look at it this way – his .643 OPS on pitches thrown outside of the zone would be sixth on the entire team. It’s a higher number than what Adolis Garcia, Trea Turner, and Alec Bohm are doing against ALL pitches thrown their way.