Let Tanking Talk Begin, Bryce Harper Will Be Draft Eligible in 2010

Fire up the Bryce Harper hype machine. The 16-year-old baseball prodigy who was recently hailed as the "Chosen One" on the cover of Sports Illustrated is poised to accelerate his path to the big leagues.

Harper, who is a rising high school junior, plans to earn a GED later this year and will enroll at the College of Southern Nevada, a junior college in Las Vegas, this fall and play baseball for the Coyotes next spring, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The move – virtually unprecedented – will allow Harper to be eligible for the draft a year early, in 2010 instead of 2011.

He was already a cult figure in the baseball world before SI profiled him. Word of his 500-foot home runs granted him that status, and a YouTube video of him clattering a record 502-foot shot off of the back wall of Tropicana Field at the International Power Showcase only confirmed it.


But Harper's legend really comes into focus when you see what talent evaluators are saying about him.

Within Verducci's piece one scouting director says he would have gone in the top five in this year's draft. Another says he would have gone second, behind only Stephen Strasburg.

"Top two," he says. "And that's taking nothing away from the guys in the draft this year. He's honestly that good. He is a once-in-a-generation talent."

Harper, barely old enough to drive a car, might have been the top pick in this year's draft if it wasn't for Strasburg, a freakish talent in his own right, and a guy some people regard as the greatest college pitcher ever.

By that measure, calling Harper a "once-in-a-generation" talent might be underselling him. Would once-in-a-lifetime be a more appropriate moniker? Let's leave that to the professional talent evaluators and the sands of time, but let's also make the (relatively) safe assumption that he will be the No. 1 draft prospect in 2010.

That's an assumption which brings us right to the door of the Washington Nationals. There isn't a sadder sight in baseball on most nights than the Nationals. They are a staggering 16-45 on the season, a full 9 1/2 games worse than the next saddest squad, the 27-37 Arizona Diamondbacks, and on pace to go 42-120. That would tie the 1962 Mets' record for most losses in a single season.

Drafting Strasburg was easily the highlight of the season to date, and that is unlikely to change even with 3 1/2 months left to go. (OK, maybe actually signing him will top it. You get the point.) Their former general manager, Jim Bowden, was entangled in a scouting scandal in the Dominican Republic that drew the attention of federal investigators. Current management appears on the cusp of firing manager Manny Acta. For now, he is twisting in the wind.

Attendance is poor. The Nats drew 29,005 fans per game last season, the fourth-worst mark in the National League despite the fact that they unveiled all-new Nationals Park in 2008. This year, they're drawing 20,506 fans per game, roughly 4,000 more than the perennially unwatched Florida Marlins.

Mostly, the Nationals appear hopeless.

Strasburg could change that, at least partially, if he lives up to the hype. And so could Bryce Harper one day.

The Nats, unwittingly until this point, were lapping the field in the Harper Derby over the first two months of the season. They know for sure now that if they finish with the worst record they will have a shot to draft Harper.

He catches. He throws 96 mph. He can even steal bases. He's special. And he raises a question rarely asked in baseball, where the draft is such a crapshoot that there hardly seems to be a difference between a first-round pick and a 15th-rounder, much less No. 1 overall and No. 15. (There is, of course, but the point is that there is significant noise.)

Should the Nats ensure they get a chance to draft Harper by tanking on purpose?

That might offend your sensibilities for two reasons.

First, because it is against the spirit of competition – you know, the whole reason we watch sports to begin with. It's a sentiment that is easy to sympathize with, but unfortunately it's also reality. Tanking games for a better draft pick is a part of the discussion every year in the NFL. It's a big reason the NBA and NHL went to a lottery system, but even that doesn't prevent talk from bubbling up in hockey and, particularly, basketball, where the presence of Kevin Durant and Greg Oden in the 2007 draft class led to near-constant speculation of tanking by lottery teams leading up to the draft.

So, I'm sorry that tanking is a part of the American sports lexicon. I wish it wasn't the case. But until we embrace relegation like our European brethren have, it's here to stay.

Second, you might look at the Nationals' historic rate of futility and wonder if they even need any help to get to No. 1. Washington has done plenty to show it is worthy of the top pick in 2010 already, but it isn't as bad as it seems.

The Nationals can actually hit. They rank eighth in the NL in runs and fifth in team OPS. Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler are both promising young pitchers. The team is underperforming its Pythagorean record by six games, suggesting it should perform better over the remaining 101 games. They are mostly hopeless, not entirely so.

Washington will probably finish with the worst record in the majors, but would a little nudge hurt matters, especially with such an apparently singular talent available at the top of the draft?

The beauty of the situation for the Nationals is that whether or not they wish to tank, they should proceed in the same manner over the coming weeks. Harper or not, Washington should clearly sell at the trade deadline. There are some valuable parts on its roster and on short money – Nick Johnson, Adam Dunn, Cristian Guzman, Joe Beimel – and it seems like a foregone conclusion that at least a few of those pieces will be gone come July 31.

It will save the Nats some money and could bring them some of the young, cost-controlled talent that is so vital to success these days.

If it also happens to push them closer to Bryce Harper, consider it a convenient side effect.