Bryce Harper very well could be on his way to becoming the greatest Phillie of all-time, a topic and discussion that seems to pop up every October now.
"I had no confidence that this team would bounce back and the man who made it happen was Bryce Harper," former Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said during his appearance on Monday's 94WIP Morning Show.
"He let that entire team exhale, man. This guy is going to go down as—maybe other than Mike Schmidt—as the greatest Phillie of all-time."
With the Phillies seemingly lifeless trailing 0-1 in the NLDS and 0-3 in the bottom of the 6th in Game 2 against the Mets, Harper smoked a two-run home run out of no where to get the Phillies going. Of course, Philly would go on to win the game 7-6 on a Nick Castellanos walk off hit, saving their season.
Harper, who turns 32 in nine days, just completed his sixth regular season with the Phillies where he has averaged a slash line of .285/.391/.533 with a .924 OPS, 33 home runs ad 96 RBI per season. He has reached two All-Star games and won one NL MVP over that time period.
But more impressively, is how clutch Harper has been. Now in his third postseason with the club, Harper has a franchise-tying best 12 home runs (Kyle Schwarber also has 12) in 32 games while slashing .327/.448/.727. His 1.175 OPS is second in Phillies' playoff history only to Lenny Dykstra, who has just 12 postseason games played.
In 36 playoff games, Mike Schmidt slashed .236/.304/.386 with a .690 OPS, four home runs, 16 RBI, and nine doubles. Schmidt, of course, won three NL MVPs, reached 12 all-star teams, played his entire career with the Phils, and most importantly won the World Series in 1980 where he was named World Series MVP.
On top of that, Harper has countless clutch moments that almost seem impossible from "Bedlam at the Bank" to yesterday's two-run homer to everything in between.
"He changed the whole franchise," Joe DeCamara said on Monday. "He's an all-time baseball player. He's an all-time historic player."