{"id":632797,"date":"2026-03-20T02:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/632797\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T02:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:14:24","slug":"back-with-phillies-bryce-harper-is-zoned-in-on-better-at-bats-140-walks-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/632797\/","title":{"rendered":"Back with Phillies, Bryce Harper is zoned in on better at-bats, 140-walks goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 About an hour before yet another Grapefruit League game, Jos\u00e9 Alvarado disappeared through a side clubhouse door. All of the Phillies who were at the World Baseball Classic<\/a> have now reunited in camp. The bigger prize awaits: There is a week until Opening Day.<\/p>\n

But Alvarado, who was on Team Venezuela\u2019s roster and deemed ineligible to pitch because of an insurance issue, had one more thing to do before everyone could move forward.<\/p>\n

The large lefty stormed into the clubhouse Thursday morning, proudly wearing a WBC gold medal. \u201cOof!\u201d Alvarado yelled. \u201cOof!\u201d His teammates erupted in laughter. Alvarado paraded through the clubhouse, then went into the kitchen so he could show everyone \u2014 his American teammates, especially.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the room, Bryce Harper had a vintage camcorder stuffed in his locker. He had taken it with him to Houston and Miami. He recorded, in his estimation, 100 hours of black-and-white footage. Team USA had fallen short, but Harper savored it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought baseball won in that moment,\u201d Harper said. \u201cIt was a great tournament, all the cultures coming together to play this great game, and I think people saw that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as the Phillies were concerned, the WBC was a great success. Aaron Nola pitched elegantly for Team Italy. Dante Nori, an outfield prospect, made the all-tournament team after a nice showing with Italy<\/a>. Cristopher S\u00e1nchez dominated in a quarterfinal start for the Dominican Republic. Brad Keller and Kyle Schwarber contributed to Team USA.<\/p>\n

And Harper, who might not have had the best tournament until his eighth-inning swing in the title game, had a Moment<\/a>. He returned to camp in a delightful mood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt great the whole time,\u201d Harper said. \u201cI just felt like my timing was a little off. I thought my swing felt great. I thought I was getting 3-2 a lot of the time. Definitely missing some pitches over the plate. But I think everything was about timing. If we had a week left in that tournament, I feel like I would have turned the corner and been pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Bryce Harper and Team USA celebrate after his two-run homer against Team Venezuela in the eighth inning of the WBC final. (Megan Briggs \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Phillies are fine with that. Harper will play three more exhibition games, including Friday\u2019s tuneup against Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust try to keep that momentum going into the season,\u201d Harper said.<\/p>\n

For Harper, everything is about his decisions in 0-0 counts. Last year, he swung at the first pitch of a plate appearance 53.8 percent of the time. That was the second-highest rate of 0-0 swings<\/a> since 2015 by any hitter in MLB with at least 400 plate appearances. The highest? Nick Castellanos in 2025, who swung at the first pitch 56.4 percent of the time.<\/p>\n

Harper has often said he will be aggressive early in the count because he thinks it might be the best pitch he sees. Although that might have been true in the past, teams started exploiting Harper\u2019s super aggressiveness last season. No hitter with 400 plate appearances saw a greater percentage of 0-0 pitches out of the strike zone (54.2 percent) than Harper did in 2025. But Harper has had six other seasons with a higher percentage of 0-0 pitches out of the zone.<\/p>\n

He just never swung as much at them as he did in 2025.<\/p>\n

For Harper, that meant 116 plate appearances began with a swing on a pitch that was a ball. He fouled off 33 of them. He put 17 of them in play \u2014 12 were outs, three were singles, one was a double and one was a home run. So 66 times, Harper swung and missed at an 0-0 pitch out of the zone to begin an at-bat with a self-inflicted 0-1 count. That was more than 10 percent of his plate appearances last season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an insignificant amount.<\/p>\n

This spring, during Grapefruit League and WBC games, Harper has swung at an 0-0 pitch in 19 of 42 plate appearances. Only six of those swings have been on pitches out of the strike zone.<\/p>\n

It is an improvement. What\u2019s been the key to a renewed focus this spring?<\/p>\n

\u201cMe just giving a crap about it, right?\u201d Harper said. \u201cJust making sure I do it. That\u2019s a big thing for me. I can hone in my strike zone and understand I\u2019m really good when I walk. So if I can walk 140-150 times this year, then I think I\u2019ll be right where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it something he must be more mindful of?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just buying in,\u201d Harper said.<\/p>\n

The implication is that he did not buy into that approach in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I was,\u201d Harper said. \u201cI just need to make sure I walk and not just want to get hits all the time. I want to hit. I want to be a hitter, obviously. I want to make moves. I want to hit homers and hit doubles and all those things. But sometimes, it\u2019s better for me if I walk. I can do that a little bit more this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper\u2019s 140-walks goal might be a bit ambitious, considering just 11 players have reached that mark in the past 20 seasons. The only one to do it in the last decade was Juan Soto, with 145 walks, in 2021.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a more productive mindset than the one Harper held earlier in the offseason, when he was fixated on the lack of protection behind him. The Phillies may begin the season with Harper batting second and Schwarber behind him. No matter who hits behind Harper, teams will test whether he can be patient.<\/p>\n

Harper might not have had the results all tournament \u2014 he hit .214\/.267\/.357 in 30 plate appearances with Team USA \u2014 but he liked how he recognized pitches. He just missed some. The Phillies are happy he\u2019s happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning a gold medal in the WBC would have been incredible,\u201d Harper said. \u201cBut winning a World Series trophy is what you play for, what you dream for. Hopefully, looking forward to doing that this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 About an hour before yet another Grapefruit League game, Jos\u00e9 Alvarado disappeared through a side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,4,25,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-632797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","11":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116259093420577885","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}