Bryce Harper, "The chosen one"

andres3000

andres3000

Member
http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=955764

Does anyone else think this is the stupidest thing a kid and his parents could do? He cant even see rated R movies without his parents, but they think he can manage to play major league ball. Reminds of that movie, Rookie of the Year."

He needs to finish high school. Enjoy being a kid. Then maybe rethink the decision when he graduates. I still think everyone should go to college if they can, but that's another point.

Soon enough, we will be drafting middle schoolers who take steroids...
 
meh. it's his choice. maybe he will regret it later or maybe it will pay off big. it's not that hard to go back and get your high school diploma either.

now i know nothing about baseball but they made it sound like he's pretty good. if i had a pretty good chance about getting big in the sport i loved i'd probably do it too. but if this really is a longshot then yes he is stupid
 
a 16 year old shouldn't have to make that decision. It shouldn't even be a question. Every other major sport has age restrictions. And I don't think you can just go back and get your high school diploma. A GED doesn't even go a long way.

And what happens if he gets hurt? Not only would he be left without a degree, he wouldn't have even completed high school...
 
true. but about the diploma thing. my friend is taking a math course and hes graduated just to up his mark. its not in school its like off in this building to the side. and there are kids in there who are like 26 taking courses. i dunno if its to grad or just to up there mark like him but thats why i said that.

but yeah your right. i just kinda understand where he's coming from. if i had a chance to go big in a sport i loved i'd take some risks too. it also says to be eligible you have to complete high school. so i don't really get what he's even doing. is passing your ged equivalent to completing high school.
 
This whole story is crazy to me considering i played against him when I was 11, 12, and 13 up in steamboat at the triple crown world series. He played on a different team all three year (one from nevada, one from colorado, and one from california) and because of him all three years that team won the division 1 championship. I don't know how many of you played triple crown tournaments but that is extremely impressive. He was the starting pitcher in the 12 year old championship game and he was clocked at 82 mph consistently. That's fucking rediculous. When he was 11 he hit 3 home runs in the first game of the tournament on 350' fences. I think his decision is stupid but i honestly say I've never seen anyone play as good as him at the same age. The question will be to see if he's already peaked. Definately a crazy story though.
/claim/story
 
.626 and 14 yacks? thats fuckin impressive, especially in a competitive baseball area such as the vegas area. but catching is much more than just hitting the shit out of the ball, does anyone know his pop time? or ability to block balls and be the anchor behind the plate that a team needs? im interested to see this kid play.
 
CLAIM ALERT:We beat him. We played them in a preseason game in St. George. Best part of the claim: I got him out!!!!1!!!one! he popped up to me in right. He was pretty fuckin impressive though. He didnt pitch he caught and played short. He gunned a kid from his knees, and that kid was the third fastest on our team.... He also went 3 for 4 for 2 doubles...one was a rope off the wall over my head and i swear to god it didn't get more than 10 feet off the ground the whole way.
That said: he's a fuckin prick. He sat in the dug out instead of coming out for the post game handshake. And all the shit he said in that article about how he wants to be the best ever to play the game and shit...his head is so swollen. He needs to get over himself.
[/CLAIM]
 
our team is judge memorial catholic high school in salt lake city if you wanna check up on that story too...sorry i dont have pics to prove it happened. haha
 
I saw thsi shit in SI I was pretty impressed .... he's young but he's got a long way tog go.
 
I'm not surprised you bring that story up that he is cocky. His decision to leave high school shows that. I bet he has no friends at school
 
yeah a kid in our team played with him at this showcase called the area code games and said he couldnt have been more of a douche. he gave everyone on the team, including his coach, an autograph on the last day and said "you will all remember playing with me one day." the fucker thinks he is god's gift to mankind.
 
i've heard about this kid a lot from friends who play baseball. he was in SI mag and all this shit, hes like a man child and he could play major league ball right now if he wanted to
 
jesus christ. ive seeen him in action, he has major league material. but i really hope he ends up regretting his decision to quit high school
 
jesus christ. ive seeen him in action, he has major league material. but i really hope he ends up regretting his decision to quit high school
 
this may be coming out of left field (no pun intended) but this story reminds me a lot of what happened with Michelle Wie. Now she never quit high school but her parents really ran her career into the ground and made her make some pretty poor decisions. Say what you want about womens sports as a whole, but she was a fuckin phenom and just 6 years later she missed qualifying for the us open.
it seems to me like this could be a very very bad decision. and in a best case scenario and is a major league stud, he's now lost his credibility to be the type of role model he could have been down the road.
 
he's going to a jc to play ball, his brother is transferring there to "mentor" him, but he will still be able to go to dances/social things with his highschool class.

the reason this is even an issue is that baseball prospects from outside the united states can and do reguarly sign contracts with multi-million dollar bonuses at 15, 16, 17 years old. his (and his family's) contention is that he is basically being "punished" for being from america, not the DR or another similar country with lots of young talented prospects.

in other sports that have large leagues in europe such as soccer, basketball, athletes are able to sign pro contracts at very young ages. soccer is a classic example, signing kids to youth acadamies at ridiculously young ages, and then letting them turn pro so young. even freddy adu got to do that and he is a us citizen playing in a us based league when he did.

or look at ricky rubio. projected top 5 nba draft pick has been playing pro ball since he was 14 years old. you don't think it was better for his athletic progression to be playing pro ball instead of the aau 14 and under he would have been forced to play here?

figure skaters, gymnasts, and athletes in other sports that represent the us on a world stage are basically "washed up" when they hit hs graduation age. it is more common for a 15 year old to make the olympic gymnastics team than a 19 year old.

Harper may be a douche (way to go Judge Memorial, that will be a story to tell your kids someday if he becomes a big league star!), but if other kids younger than him can have the opportunity to be paid to play pro ball, why should he have to wait until he reaches the arbitrary age? it is a double standard, and if he thinks he is good enough, they should let him try and prove it.

 
From what I read in SI the kid seems like a complete douche. He is so full of himself and talks about how fucking amazing he is, and how he can't wait to be the greatest player ever.

All of this seems like it is really getting to his head. Good thing he is playing one of the most individual team sports there is.
 
i read his pop time was about 1.1, which is ridiculously fast for anyone, even pros. he played on the Cincinnati red's area code team last summer at 15 which is insane, those who don't know what an area code team is its basically the best 50 kids from a group of states all on one team.

the kids a huge d bag though. hes so cocky, everything he said in his espn article is all bs
 
there is no way his pop time is 1.1. Pro prospects out of high school are usually in the 1.9 range and the most elite are at around 1.7, which is about the equivalent of an elite major league catcher. 1.1 would be almost cutting a major league catchers pop time in half.

kid is a beast, his swing is ridiculous and he's going to get bigger and better, sucks hes a pompous douche bag though, wouldn't be surprised if that caught up to him somehow down the road.
 
you are walking right around the point and using prime examples to prove how stupid this is. Americans don't agree with chinese gymnasts because they have no lives. They force them to work all day then they get a great chance at gold. What happens after that? You are left with a kid in their early twenties who had little to no education, no life skills and only the ability to flip around a bar.

Harper is going to find very quickly that he will have missed his youth. He is not mature enough to stand the rigors of pros (Strasburg isn't even yet...) He will get tired too easy and if he gets hurt, goodbye career. There is something to be said about letting someone stop growing and maturing before you trust them in society.
 
the difference between chineese gymnasts and harper is that the gymnasts don't really have much of a choice in the matter.

from every indication he is completely aware of the risks, and he should be allowed to be developed the same as any other baseball prospect outside of america, if he and his family want.
 
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