Los Angeles Dodgers: The positives of not signing Bryce Harper

3. The Los Angeles Dodgers avoided Harper’s terrible defense

I know for a fact that there are a lot of fans that are rolling their eyes at this take. Home runs and offense is what sells the most in the MLB and Harper is one of the best in the league at the plate, even with his down year in 2018.

However, defensively he is downright awful and the Dodgers were going to make a major sacrifice to get him in the lineup. That sacrifice would have either been Alex Verdugo, who is an elite fielder, or Max Muncy, who is not great but was just at first.

Heck, maybe the Dodgers’ plan was to move Bellinger to first, Muncy to second and play Harper in right. Either way, Harper’s defense in right is so poor compared to the elite defensive outfield that the Dodgers will have in 2019.

Harper had a -18.1 FanGraphs defensive rating on last year; for comparison’s sake, Matt Kemp had a -9.6 defensive rating last year. Harper was nearly twice as bad as Kemp, whose defense kept him out of the starting lineup in the playoffs.

Harper had a -16.7 UZR/150 last year, Kemp -7.6 Every advanced defensive metric signal that Harper is twice as bad of a fielder. While his bat is better, Kemp arguably had a better offensive year than Harper last season anyway and that did not keep the Dodgers from sitting him.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were not going to sit Harper and he probably would have won more games with his bat than he lost with his glove. Plus, the potential adoption of the universal DH in a few years would solve all of these problems.

However, by that time, Harper might not have even been a Dodger based on the contract that the team offered him.