This Might Prevent Phillies Star Bryce Harper from Winning Third MVP

Bryce Harper is one of the favorites to win the MVP award this season, but there's one thing that might prevent the Philadelphia Phillies star from doing so.

Jun 25, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Philadelphia Phillies first base Bryce Harper (3) in the dugout before the game against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. / David Reginek-USA TODAY Sports

Philadelphia Phillies superstar Bryce Harper will always be in the MVP conversation when healthy, but with the Los Angeles Dodgers getting tons of attention with their three-headed monster of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman leading the way, it was the West Coast team who was dominating all the attention.

That especially was the case when Betts got off to an incredible start and Harper came out of the gates slowly, something that normally doesn't happen during his career.

But, with Betts now missing an extended period of time, it seems like it's going to be a two-horse race between Ohtani and Harper to win the NL MVP award this season.

With the Phillies owning the best record in the National League, and tied for the best overall entering Wednesday's slate, it stands to think that could give Harper the upper hand, however, in most of the betting markets, Ohtani is the favorite.

That's for good reason.

When taking a look at the stat comparison between the two, Ohtani has a better bWAR, more hits, home runs, and RBI, plus a higher batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+ right now.

The only category Harper is leading in is on-base percentage -- .402 compared to .398.

One thing the Philadelphia star has going for him is that he's the hottest hitter in the NL during the month of June, leading in batting average (.390), OBP (.468) and slugging (.756), while also having the most extra-base hits (16) and third-most homers (7).

Because of this incredible stretch, Harper is in the mix to win his third MVP award.

But, there's a chance the slow start he had comes back to haunt him when the votes are tallied.

Despite Ohtani not playing in the field, he has a higher bWAR than Harper, which is extremely rare for a designated hitter to accomplish. Much of that comes from the rough beginning of the year that the Phillies slugger put together.

There's a chance he can overcome that, but he's going to need to continue playing defense at a Gold Glove level so he can jump the Japanese phenom in overall value brought to his team.

The other issue is, for how incredible Harper is performing right now, Ohtani has started to heat up during this time period, leading the NL in homers and boosting his overall profile to stay on par with what Philadelphia's star is doing.

Since Harper didn't accrue gaudy numbers at the beginning of the year, he's going to have to stay red-hot with his bat and hope Ohtani faulters a bit during the summer months.

But, if that doesn't happen, Harper can look back on the slow start he had this season and point to that as the reason why he doesn't have his third MVP award.