What Does Bryce Harper’s MVP (and Zack Wheeler’s CY Runner-Up) Mean for the Phillies?- By: Justin Dorazio

Photo Cred- MLB.com

It’s officially official! Bryce Harper is your 2021 NL MVP! After leading the majors in SLG (.615), OPS (1.044), and OPS+ (179) Harper managed to beat out his former Nationals teammate Juan Soto and Padres SS Fernando Tatis Jr. for the award. This will be Harper’s second NL MVP award, winning his first award way back in 2015 with the Washington Nationals. 

It’d be a crime not to mention the incredible year Zack Wheeler had as well finishing 2nd in Cy Young voting (runner up to Corbin Burns) Wheeler showed dominance at the mound, at a level of which we have not seen in Philadelphia since the late great Roy “Doc” Halladay. Touting an impressive 2.78 ERA over a league-leading 213.1 IP! 

Photo Cred- Bleacher Report

Having the NL MVP and the NL CY young runner-up is great and all, but what we as fans want isn’t individual accolades. We want to watch October baseball! Now, this isn’t to downplay these individual accolades because to even make it to October, these are the types of players we need on our team, players that will be in the conversation for MVP or CY young yearly. 

Harper winning the MVP is about so much more than just celebrating his performance. It’s about the way it brings the clubhouse together and creates a winning mentality. Let’s face it, this Phillies team doesn’t know how to win, and that’s simply because they haven’t done it. There are no real veterans in the clubhouse that we can consider winners from previous organizations. Looking back on the last great era of Phillies baseball, we can see it was jump-started by a MVP season from Ryan Howard in 2006, what followed was an MVP year for Jimmy Rollins in 2007 and a World Series championship in 2008. Of course, it would be crazy to believe this Phillies team will follow the same path, but it is undeniable that a player winning MVP creates buzz around the locker room, which can lead to strong relationships in the clubhouse. 

These fantastic seasons from Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler should be enough for President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski to convince top free agents on the market, that Philadelphia is the team they want to be on in 2022 and beyond. Harper and Wheeler both have some considerable time left on their contracts (Harper is under team control until 2032 and Wheeler until 2025), which makes them both very attractive centerpieces to build a team around. 

The Phillies have been linked to some big-name free agents like OF Starling Marte (Yes please) and SS Trevor Story, we can only assume Dombrowski will be waving Harper and Wheeler in free agents' faces trying to get them to sign, and we can only hope it works.

-Justin Dorazio- Olde City Sports Network