This is from a PURE GOLD article on Grantland:
why we can’t just smile, wave, and watch Harper have a great season instead of obsessing over how fast he runs on routine outs. We all start out as Daisy, and we all end up straight-faced and stressed. Being Daisy looks like a lot more fun.
The most maddening aspect of these episodes is that the sport’s self-appointed policers are so often unworthy of the office. Coming from a fan-taunting crotch-grabber who so often finds fault with his teammates, Papelbon’s critique was hard to take seriously. “I didn’t maybe necessarily do it the right way,” said Papelbon, who admitted that he’d made a mistake but didn’t maybe necessarily sound as remorseful as he might have. He knows he handled this wrong, but he still believes that it had to be handled.
I’d counter that Harper is smart enough to know when he can run at less than full speed. According to Baseball Info Solutions’ Range and Positioning System, batted balls similar to Harper’s on the play in question are caught 100 percent of the time. “That number is rounded and is based on a window of several years of similar batted balls,” says BIS’s Scott Spratt. “But for practical purposes, similar balls are pretty much always caught.” A .336/.467/.658 slash line doesn’t buy a player a pass, but it should buy him the benefit of the doubt. Harper has reached the level of performance at which the right way to play is “however Harper does it.”
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-washington-nationals-bryce-harper-jonathan-papelbon-fight-matt-williams/