Fantasy Baseball: Is Bryce Harper A Top Ten Outfielder?

Is Bryce Harper a top ten outfielder?

Bryce Harper is one of my favorite players to own in fantasy baseball because of his work ethic. I also loved the ‘Is that a clown question?’ answer to the media. Some times there are players like Harper that are truly hard to measure value because of the intangibles that they possess. I look around and most people have Harper coming off the board as about the 13 or 14th OF off of the board. I think that he probably has the skills of a top five OF, but maybe some people are being scared off as he missed some time last year.

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Currently ESPN’s live draft results have Harper being drafted as the #11 OF. Some of the names that are being drafted over Harper that I would prefer to have lower than Harper include Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Brantley and Yasiel Puig. I realize that Harper only played 100 games last year, but I don’t expect him to be a guy that is injury plagued. If people are scared away from him due to injuries then we have created an incredible buy-low opportunity early on this season.

Over Harper’s career he has averaged roughly 120 games a season which really does not differ from less talented guys who are being drafted higher than him. My a little too lofty projection thoughts for Harper would have him batting around .300 with 30 HRs and 15-20 SBs which would probably have him as a top 3 OF. With a guy like Harper we don’t truly know just how good he is yet. One of the things we forget about him, I think, is that he is only 22 years old. I realize he don’t drink but he has only been able to buy a beer for a year now.

For me Harper is one of my top OFs and probably easily in the top six or seven. I will be working on getting some rankings out for positions and probably be looking at top ten lists this week. My early thoughts are to have him pretty high and for a dynasty league I would at least have him in the top four. If you have already drafted and have one of the guys I mentioned you might be able to float out an early offer and try to nab you a little gift early on. I think short of an injury Harper should easily outperform at least four guys he is being drafted after as a pretty safe bet.

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