Bryce Harper Injury Fallout

Bryce Harper Injury Fallout

On Saturday night, Nationals fans held their breath in unison as their superstar right fielder Bryce Harper landed awkwardly on his leg after slipping on first base. On Sunday morning, the MRI revealed that there was no ligament damage, but there was a significant bone bruise in his knee that would sideline him for an indefinite amount of time.

Bryce Harper has a significant bone bruise in his knee but no ligament or tendon tears, Rizzo says. Nats optimistic he’ll play this season

— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) August 13, 2017

As expected, World Series and pennant odds were originally taken off the board. However, they essentially didn’t move when re-opened at the sharp offshore book 5Dimes. Before the severity of his injury was announced on Sunday morning, the Nats were +635 to win the World Series. On Tuesday, they were +650 — just a 0.28% worse implied probability. If they expected Harper to miss the playoffs, you can bet your bottom dollar that their odds would be significantly worse than that.

It honestly doesn’t matter to Washington if Harper has to miss most of the remaining regular season. They are basically already locked in to their spot in the playoffs. They can’t catch the Dodgers so they don’t need to worry about the first seed and home-field advantage. They also won’t be caught by the winner of the NL Central and will therefore be almost guaranteed to have home field advantage in the NLDS and in all likelihood, face the Cubs. It seems like the books are thinking the same way unless news comes out that the injury is worse than expected and he will miss part (or all) of the playoffs.

From an individual standpoint, Harper’s hopes of winning another MVP this season are significantly hurt. He had been the -145 favorite to win the award before his injury and re-opened on Wednesday morning at +500 — third best odds in the NL behind Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado.

Although he hasn’t been ruled out by the oddsmakers, I would be very surprised if his odds don’t get worse as each week goes by that he is out. With so many other players having great seasons, it’s tough to make the case that Harper deserves the award if he misses a month or more.

You can make the case for a handful of Dodgers players, especially if they can get to 110 wins or more. Harper’s teammate, Anthony Rendon, has had a better season according to fWAR. Both Goldschmidt and Arenado are helping their teams overachieve in the stacked NL West. Meanwhile, Joey Votto and Giancarlo Stanton are having absurd seasons at the plate for crappy teams. If Harper only ends up playing 125 games or so, I just can’t see how he’s worthy of winning MVP.

If you’re a Nats fan, are you still worried?

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