You might not have noticed, but one of the major narratives of the Phillies’ off season was whether or not Bryce Harper is still an elite player. After Dave Dombrowski (correctly, but curiously) said that Harper’s 2025 season was not up to his previous standard, that set off a lot of people talking, including Harper himself.

If you’re sick of the “Is Harper elite?” discussion already, I have some bad news for you: It’s not going away. My prediction is that every single home run that Harper hits this season will prompt many “Elite” or “Still looks elite to me” posts on social media.

Harper has suggested that one of the causes for his non-elite season was the lack of adequate protection in the Phillies’ lineup. Harper saw a lot of balls out of the strike zone in 2025, and he swung at far too many of them. It’s not hard to infer that Harper feels he could take more of those pitches if he had more faith in the hitters behind him in the lineup.

Protection is not a problem for Harper in the WBC. He’s been batting second in the Team USA lineup right in front of Aaron Judge. And immediately behind Judge is Kyle Schwarber, which means that Harper has 109 home runs worth of power backing him up in the lineup.

Despite that prime spot in the lineup, through four games, Harper is just 3-15 with no walks, no extra base hits, and five strikeouts. He wasn’t in the starting lineup on Tuesday (largely because the manager is an idiot) and then popped up in a pinch-hitting appearance.

Obviously, it would be ridiculous to make any judgements based on 15 at bats in the month of March. Harper could very well go on to have a great season, and all of this elite/not elite talk will seem silly.

But if he doesn’t have a great season, it will likely be on him more than a lack of protection. For one thing, Harper needs to regain the ability to catch up with fastballs.

He also needs to stop chasing pitches. Maybe Alec Bohm isn’t the 20+ home run threat he’d prefer behind him, but Bohm has been a quality hitter the past two seasons, so Harper needs to have more faith in him. (Ironically, if anyone should have been complaining after the NLDS, it was Bohm. With Harper going 3-15 in front of him, and the players behind producing little, Bohm was walked six times in the series.)

If Harper keeps getting himself out by chasing pitches out of the strike zone, then it’s not helping anyone. And it might also have a detrimental effect on the hitters behind him who might additional pressure to come through after Harper did not.

I don’t have numbers to back this up, but the Phillies’ offense often feels momentum-based: When things are going well in a game, they continue to go well, but if they struggle early, it seems to snowball. We all remember those stretches when the Phillies strand countless base runners and struggle to score runs. And then, they’ll have a game where one guy comes through in a big spot, and the whole team seems to relax, resulting in a double-digit outburst.

Hopefully, Harper can fix what ails him when it comes to chasing balls and hitting fastballs. Because while Team USA can overcome a down performance by Harper, the Phillies likely can not.