Statistics Show Harper, Hoskins Could Benefit From Shortened Season

The coronavirus pandemic has done very little to affect Major League Baseball positively. In fact, it hasn't done anything positive at all. 

It's brought massive unrest between the players and the owners, exposing and enlarging the pre-existing rift that separates the two parties. It's made the owners look bad at times, it's made the players look bad at times, and it's forced us, as fans, to view the operations of the league with a different perspective. It's put the season in question for too many reasons to count, and though financial issues continue to be the main aspect of the ongoing negotiations, there's also a, um, massive pandemic that we'd still have to factor into whatever return plan is eventually enacted.

But every cloud -- even a huge, murky, seemingly impenetrable cloud full of big egos, billions of dollars, and contagious viruses -- has a silver lining. There's a reason Silver Linings Playbook was filmed in Philadelphia, after all. 

And ESPN's Paul Hembekides, a.k.a. Hembo, may have found that silver lining for us. Interestingly enough, his silver lining nugget came during the Baseball Tonight podcast with Buster Olney, on the same day that Olney delivered this thought over the WIP airwaves:

"I gotta say, I think while not having any baseball at all would be an absolute disaster for the sport, this is a close second."-- @Buster_ESPN on the possibility of a 45-50 game 2020 MLB season --https://t.co/HsNyUbZFLa

But, again, there is always a silver lining. And Hembo's finding was that in a shortened season, there may not be a player with a bigger advantage than Philadelphia's Bryce Harper.

"Bryce Harper is historically a fast starter," Hembo said. "He's one of seven players in Major League history with an OPS north of 1.000 in the months of March and April."

Fact check? Let's see what Baseball Reference has to say.

And before I begin -- and this seems so unbelievably obvious that I hesitated as to whether I should even write it -- no, it doesn't matter that these stats are from March and April, while the beginning or entirety of this season would be played in different months. It's because these are the first at-bats of any given season. I probably didn't need to clarify that, but you never know.

First, Babe Ruth, at 1.089. Williams just one one-thousandth behind him is the runner-up. Then, behind Barry Bonds, Jimmie Foxx, Mark McGwire and Rogers Hornsby, sits Bryce Harper, with a 1.025 OPS for his career in March and April. That's some pretty good company to be in, no? A little further down the list you'll find familiar names like Lou Gehrig (No. 8), Dick Allen (No. 11), Mike Trout (No. 14) and, of course, the great Jim Leyritz sitting in the nine hole.

Nice find, Hembo. Let's dig deeper.

There are only 10 players today with a March/April OPS of over .900, including the aforementioned Trout alongside Miguel Cabrera, Freddie Freeman and Albert Pujols. Harper sits atop all of them.

If you look at the statistics from just the past three years (min. 200 plate appearances), Harper's 1.042 OPS ranks sixth in the Majors, behind the likes of Trout, Bellinger, and Aaron Judge, and his 23 home runs are tied for third among all big leaguers in that span. One slot behind Harper in March/April OPS, in seventh, is Rhys Hoskins. Could the shortened season be all that Hoskins needs to break out of his massive slump?

As difficult as Hoskins was to watch last season, it was largely a second-half breakdown. He hit eight home runs with a .279 average and a 1.001 OPS in March and April of 2019. In 2018, he had similar success with four home runs, a .303 average and a .985 OPS. Though it's a small sample size, it seems like Hoskins' trend of early-season success could be more than just a coincidence. The shortened season could and should only be viewed as a temporary fix to a problem that will need to be resolved for good if Hoskins wants to up his game to the next level.

There's also his fielding… but we'll put that aside for now.

It might be nothing. But it might be something. And with fans desperate for this team to live up to and maybe even surpass expectations, the Phillies could take advantage of a shortened season, should that ultimately become the only way for a 2020 season to occur.