For most of us, the Bryce Harper Story began almost a decade ago with a headline: "Baseball's LeBron." In Tom Verducci's profile of a Las Vegas teenager who was so much better than everybody else, we were offered that rarest of baseball phenomena: the predictable prospect.
Sure enough, Harper's journey through the next 10 seasons justified the confidence. He was the Golden Spikes winner in his lone year of college, then the first pick in the MLB draft, then the game's top minor league prospect, then the Rookie of the Year, then the MVP of the National League, and now (after a moderately surprising delay) he has landed the biggest contract in baseball history.