Phillies' Bryce Harper: "I Let The City Down"

The Philadelphia Phillies missed the playoffs in 2021 and their MVP candidate isn't happy about it. Outfielder Bryce Harper took the miss personally and feels it's on him. 

Harper, obviously not happy about the whole situation met with the media on Friday and had this to say about his team missing out:

After those three games (against the Braves), I feel like I let my team down. I feel like I let the city of Philadelphia down. You talk about the first winning season. When I signed up to play here, I wasn't worried about winning seasons, right? You sit there, and you think it’s going to happen, no matter what. You think as a team, as an organization, you build it to be great. As we sit here, we have our first winning season in a long time. And that's great for the Phillies. But I don't want it to be like that. I don't want to just sit here and think to ourselves, 'Hey, this is great. We have a winning season. Whatever that number is at the end of the year, we need to be better. As a team, as an organization, what we need to get better at, how we need to get better. Looking ourselves in the mirror, wondering as a team, as an organization, what do we want the Phillies to be? How do we want to build it? How good can we be next year?

Harper is expected to be the NL MVP this season but it was not enough. Look for the team to spend some more money in the offseason upgrading their pitching staff. As for Harper, he continues to develop into one of the elite players in the league and looks like he could become scary good next season in what he hopes is a playoff year.

Photo credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports