Jonathan Papelbon and Bryce Harper have both come a long way since their dugout incident eight years ago. While Papelbon is enjoying retirement, Harper has led the Phillies deep into the playoffs in each of the last two years.
Papelbon joined Rob Bradford on the Audacy original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” to explain his love for Harper and keyed in on one overlooked analytic that the Phillies have going for them.
“Now this is something a lot of people might think I’m crazy for saying but you got to look at other types of analytics. One of them is looks. I think the Phillies team is a way sexier team than the Diamondbacks,” Papelbon said (11:00 in player above). “The Phillies got a lot of good-looking guys on that team. You’re talking about some GQ Style guys here. You got Harper. I mean Realmuto was a quarterback in high school, he’s a stud. Good-looking, man.”
The Phillies have embraced their style and they’re running with it. Nick Castellanos has even inspired Johan Rojas to leave the top of his jersey unbuttoned.
“The swag, man. Swag is part of it,” Papelbon continued. “When you look you, you feel good, you know the rest of it.”
Papelbon saw back in June that the Phillies had a special group in the clubhouse. He might end up in South Philadelphia if the Phillies go all the way this year.
“Then I can finally give Bryce a big hug and congratulate him the right way for finally winning it all and getting the monkey off his back instead of choking him out,” Papelbon said.
Papelbon said during last year’s playoff run that Harper would be thankful for their dugout incident.
“Do you think he will accept your hug?” Bradford asked.
“I know he will accept it. If he doesn’t accept my hug I’ll choke him out again,” Papelbon laughed.
Bradford then asked if Papelbon thought that Harper would be this good, especially in big moments.
“F–k yes, Rob,” Papelbon said. “That is the culmination of why me and him got into it that day. At that time when that was going on he didn’t accept the challenge. That’s why I got into it with him. We had a players meeting before, accept the challenge of what we’re putting out. It didn’t happen. But I knew it was there. I knew it was there. The greatness and wanting to be great. I f—ing knew it was there.”
“I’m rooting for this kid more than anybody in this world f—ing knows.”