Bryce Harper debuted last night, and all things considered, it went fairly well for a super-prospect who made the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16. While his Washington Nationals fell 4-3 to the Dodgers in 11 innings, Harper went 1-for-3 with a double and sacrifice fly and nearly threw out a runner at home. Best case scenario, Harper’s first game proves to be a hint of good to come and his rookie season puts him in league with a handful of other iconic players.

Harper is 19. In baseball history, 20 players have had at least 2 WAR in a season at his age. Fourteen of those players have been pitchers, and of the six batters who’ve done it, three are in the Hall of Fame, and another will be shortly.

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I was the kind of kid who was often starstruck around pro athletes. I got my first autograph at eight or nine from Cory Snyder, and I don’t know if I’d have been more thrilled if it had been Barry Bonds. I once got in trouble at a high school dance because the Sacramento Kings were gathering in the same building, and I kept going up to the team. Even interviewing Jose Canseco a few years ago felt surreal. As a journalist, I’ve learned to be objective talking to players, though part of me still brims with childlike awe whenever I talk to anyone whose baseball card I may have had. Baseball has and will hopefully always hold a certain magic for me, and watching a video online Wednesday night, some feelings came back.

To anyone who hasn’t seen it, Deadspin and a number of other outlets posted a clip of a young boy bawling at a game in Texas last night after losing out on a foul ball to a couple sitting next to him. In the video, the kid who can’t be more than three or four cries and cries while the couple obliviously celebrates. I know that kid’s feeling because I once had a baseball snatched from me at a game. The only difference is that I got it back.

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I’ve been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research for about two years now, a baseball blogger for about three, and among the many things I’ve learned, certain topics raise the ire of fellow baseball researchers. Jack Morris’s Hall of Fame candidacy. Over-reliance on traditional counting stats like wins or batting average. Runs batted in.

I don’t know when the first attacks began on the RBI, a counting stat that dates to the late 19th century, though I get where some of the criticisms come from. It’s easier to drive in runs on teams that score a lot of them in good offensive eras. It’s one reason Hank Aaron had 86 RBIs and a 153 OPS+ on the 1968 Braves while Dante Bichette had 133 RBIs and a 102 OPS+ on the 1999 Rockies. By no advanced measure did Bichette have the superior season, he just was in the right place at the right time. The stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com suggests that if Aaron had played on the ’99 Rockies, he’d have had 43 home runs, 157 RBIs, and a .370 batting average.

But, as it is with Morris or sub-replacement level WAR players who manage to hit .320 (George Sisler in 1929 and Bob Dillinger in 1949, by the way), I think some of the criticisms with RBIs are unfounded. It may not be as important a stat as its proponents suggest, but it’s also not altogether meaningless or a complete fluke to drive in a run.

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In 1996, Roger Clemens had an offseason by his standards, off enough that it may have been the spur to get him on steroids.  It certainly earned him a ticket out of Boston, off to a new team and a career rebirth in Toronto, and at the time, his departure might not have seemed unwarranted. By traditional metrics, 1996 was but a mediocre prelude for Clemens to winning back-to-back Cy Young awards and going 41-13 with a 2.33 ERA over 1997 and 1998. Clemens went 10-13 with a 3.63 ERA for the Red Sox in 1996, walking the most batters of his career with 106. Pushing 35, he looked to be on the decline, a shell of his once-dominant self.

Clemens did lead the American League in strikeouts in 1996 with 257. And in hindsight, we also know that he led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings with 9.5 and finished second in WAR with 7.7. In fact, it’s one of the best  losing seasons for a starting pitcher in baseball history.

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The first season of the rest of Adam Dunn’s life begins today. Following a year of historic struggles where he hit .159 with an OPS+ of 56, Dunn and his Chicago White Sox start a new season today against the Texas Rangers. By all accounts, the embattled first baseman looks to have a new lease on his baseball life. Dunn played well through spring training, and rookie manager Robin Ventura told the Chicago Tribune that Dunn will hit third thanks to his ability to get on base.

Seemingly, there’s no direction but up for Adam Dunn in 2012, though whether he can rebound at the plate remains to be seen.  If history is any judge, though, Dunn’s best course of action might be to swing away. Throughout baseball history, many great hitters walked less than their lifetime rates among their top five OPS+ seasons.

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By his standards, Ichiro Suzuki had a down season in 2011. For the first time since his MLB debut in 2001, the Seattle Mariners cornerstone failed to collect 200 hits, bat .300, or post better than replacement level WAR. Suzuki’s .272 clip, OPS+ of 84, and -0.4 WAR last year might all be signs the end is near for the future Hall of Famer and that the 572 hits needed for 3,000 might be too tall an order. Suzuki’s decline may also have subtler implications for a trend that’s been on the rise in baseball the past decade.

Since 2003, players have had 200 hits in a season 48 times. Of these instances, players have scored more than 90 runs 40 times, or 83.3 percent of the 200-hit seasons. That’s less than the historical rate of 89.6 percent and a marked decline from 1990 to 2002 when no player with more than 200 hits failed to score 90 runs. It’s a credit to a run environment that’s declined in baseball, in general, since tougher testing rules were enacted for performance enhancing drugs and amphetamines.

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A couple of years ago, I wrote a column for my website asking if Chipper Jones was a future Hall of Famer. With news this morning that the Atlanta Braves third baseman will be retiring at the end of the 2012 season, I’m reminded of the flood of responses that came in after my post. Among the things I learned: Jones has been phenomenal for posting a .300 batting average, .400 on-base percentage, and .500 slugging percentage.

Besides a career slash line that currently sits at .304/.402/.533, Jones also has the most seasons by a third baseman of topping .300/.400/.500. In fact, it’s not even close. Of the 29 third basemen who’ve hit those numbers in a season with a minimum 500 plate appearances, just eight of these men have done it twice. Jones has done it six times.

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