{"id":633493,"date":"2026-03-20T13:02:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/633493\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:02:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:02:27","slug":"bryce-harper-on-wbc-his-chase-rate-and-chasing-a-world-series-nbc-sports-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/633493\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Harper on WBC, his chase rate and chasing a World Series \u2013 NBC Sports Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 Bryce Harper returned to Phillies camp Thursday with a video camera that contains what he estimates is 100 hours of black-and-white footage from his World Baseball Classic experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harper captured his Team USA teammates on the team bus, in the clubhouse and on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be good on my TikTok,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no footage of Team USA lifting a trophy. Harper and his mates were beaten, 3-2, by Team Venezuela in Tuesday night\u2019s riveting title game in Miami.<\/p>\n

And, so, Harper is still looking for the championship he wants so dearly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been so close as a team,\u201d he said of the Phillies. \u201cI\u2019ve been so close as an individual player, as well. Obviously, that\u2019s the remaining thing on the mantel. Winning a gold medal in the WBC would have been incredible, but winning a World Series trophy is what you play for, what you dream about, so I look forward to hopefully doing that this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper was just 6 for 28 (.214) in seven games at the WBC. But his final at-bat was a big one, a memorable one. He drove a home run over the center field wall with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning to tie the game at 2-2, giving the ol\u2019 Red, White and Blue hope before the Venezuelans answered back with the game\u2019s decisive run in the top of the ninth.<\/p>\n

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Hitting that home run brought Harper back to a happy place \u2013 Bedlam at the Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking up into the stands, it felt like Game 5,\u201d he said, referring back to his dramatic home run against San Diego that delivered the Phillies the National League pennant in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to kind of put a country on your back and make something happen late in the game was huge for our team. Obviously, it didn\u2019t come out the way we wanted it to. All congratulations, Venezuela; they played great. It was a great championship game. I think baseball won in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper went on to say something that would seem to bode well for his readiness for the Phillies’ season, which is just a week away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had a week left in that tournament, I feel like I would have turned the corner and been pretty good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt great the whole time. My timing was just a little off. My swing felt great. I was getting to 3-2 a lot of the time. I missed some pitches over the plate, but it all came down to timing. My swing feels very good right now. I feel like the pitch recognition is pretty good right now. I\u2019m controlling the zone pretty well, also. It\u2019s just timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper will get three more Grapefruit League games to shine up his timing. He will play Friday against starting pitcher Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers when they visit Clearwater. He will also play Sunday against the New York Yankees and Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays. Both of those games are in Clearwater.<\/p>\n

Individually, Harper\u2019s goal for the new season is to reel in his strike zone, chase fewer pitches out of the box and walk more.<\/p>\n

Last season, his chase rate was 35.6 percent, up more than 10 percent from his MVP season of 2021. Harper walked 100 times that season, or 16.7 percent. Last season, he walked at a rate of 12.1 percent. He swung at a career-high 54.1 percent of first pitches. His OPS for the season was .844, the lowest it had been since 2016. All this, of course, led to the \u201celite\/not elite\u201d discussion that dominated the winter.<\/p>\n

Now 33, Harper is hellbent on showing the world that he\u2019s still elite in 2026. It starts with swinging at strikes and only strikes. He\u2019s committed himself to being more disciplined this spring. In a small sample size, his chase rate is 27.5 in 11 games this spring between the Grapefruit League and the Classic.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust giving a crap about it,\u201d Harper said of the key to being more selective. \u201cMaking sure I do it. I think, obviously, that\u2019s a big thing for me. If I can hone in my strike zone and understand I\u2019m really good when I walk \u2026 It\u2019s just buying in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear where Harper will hit in the lineup. There\u2019s a chance he will hit second with Kyle Schwarber behind him. That, along with a more selective approach, could lead to an elite season from Harper, who said he\u2019d like to walk 140 to 150 times, which is a lot considering only Juan Soto (145 in 2021) has eclipsed 135 walks the last five seasons. Harper\u2019s career-high in walks came in 2018 when he had 130 with Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to make sure I walk and it\u2019s not just I want to get hits all the time,\u201d Harper said. \u201cI want to hit, I want to be there, obviously. I want to hit homers and doubles and all those things, but sometimes it\u2019s better for me if I walk, and I want to do that more this year. The main thing is to make sure I stay within myself and stay in my zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Harper can do that, the Phillies will have a better chance of adding the only thing missing from his baseball mantel. Because no matter how many images he captured on his video camera at the WBC, the one he wants most is of himself lifting the World Series trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 Bryce Harper returned to Phillies camp Thursday with a video camera that contains what he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-633493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116261640900870897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633493","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=633493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}