The Phillies Sign Bryce Harper

Welcome Bryce, stay a while..

December 14^th, 2010. That was the day Cliff Lee signed with the Phillies. That was a pretty good day.

The time of year that coincides with the baseball’s winter meetings is generally referred to as “Hot Stove Season”. This year the pilot was out despite superstars Bryce Harper and Manny Machado entering free agency in their absolute prime.

By the time mid-January rolled around I had heard enough hot takes, twitter rumors, tips from Jerry in Baltimore who’s cousin works for the Phillies’ ticket office, “Sources:” and overall bullshit that everyone was feeding on surrounding these two guys.

I knew a couple things.

I knew Bryce Harper’s agent is Scott Boras. If you’re reading this blog you probably know the name JD Drew and can surmise how I feel about Scott Boras. Call me unsympathetic to the plight of Boras and his clients but the guy is not good for the game.

I know you can’t have a player who just came off a contract year where he hit 249 flatly reject a $300 million offer from the only pro team he ever played for, and then sit idly without a team until 2 weeks in to spring training and think you are dealing in reality.

Thankfully, I know that Major League Baseball doesn't deal in reality in regard to money or fan perception.

So by early February I had told my boss Dave that I did not want to hear one more thing about Harper until he was actually signed.

As the weeks dragged on Dave made it a point to walk into my office each morning and ask me if I had heard any news on Harper as he held the sports page and chuckled.

Thursday morning, 2/28, I was on my commute to work and gave old Angelo Cataldi a chance on the dial. This curmudgeon had officially had enough of the Bryce Harper saga. Before 7 AM he was leading a crusade to gather as many people as he could to attend Harper’s first game as a visiting player to make sure he felt the full wrath of Philadelphia’s fans for toying with our fan base for months. Cataldi went as far as to call Harper a maggot for the drawn out spectacle.

Fast forward half a day later and I’m returning to work after picking up some Turkish Taffy for the office and listening to the same sports radio station 94.1 WIP when a sounder came on and broke into the live radio broadcast.

HARPER SIGNED!!!!!!!

This is the Best!

I returned to the office parking lot laying on the horn in celebration.

Man, I wonder how the crow Angelo ate Friday morning tasted. What a colossal prick.

Wow! What an offseason for our Fightin’ Phils. An argument can be made that GM Matt Klentak had already had a stellar off-season adding the likes of catcher JT Realmuto, shortstop Jean Segura, reliever Dave Robertson, and former MVP Andrew McCutchen who I think will win the award for weirdest to see in Phillies pinstripes.

Still, owner John Middleton knew as well as anyone that Gabe’s group lacked the player that would put the juice back in the ballpark that we all have missed since Ryan Howard was lying on the first base line with a torn Achilles.  

That’s why Middleton knew that he needed to give Harper, and Boras, what they wanted. You’ve heard it before, and I’m here to reiterate, it’s not our money so why should we worry about it? Baseball is such a joke it doesn’t even have a salary cap to level the playing field so spend away John.

13 years. $330 million. There is a signing bonus, I believe of $20 million this year, but I did not independently confirm that. The last 3 years will be less money than the first 10. Here is the official breakdown per MLB Reference:

Must be nice

The years, no trade clause, and the lack of opt outs tell you more about Harper than you thought you knew. Baseball is a different animal when it comes to contracts when compared to other sports. The money is guaranteed for longer periods of time and larger amounts, generally speaking. My impressions of Harper were superficial and I assumed him to be a primadonna of sorts. I thought he could pull a Lebron James and refuse to commit anywhere long term if Boras didn’t get record dollars. 

This contact tells me something different. He could have done, well, who knows what the hell he could have done but the meetings had to be crazy right? Seriously though, I have very little doubt he could have taken less years for more money a year, or at the very least structured a deal with opt outs or waiving no trade clauses. Harper did not do that. Bryce Harper has pushed all his chips in with the Phillies for the next 13 years and holy shit let’s just take it in for a minute. Let’s take a breath. Let’s embrace it and appreciate the fact that the Philadelphia Phillies were able to land the biggest free agent in the history of the sport.

In Harper, Middleton got enough juice to move a reported 180,000 tickets in 48 hours since the news of his signing. Gabe got the left handed power bat the lineup was craving.

We’ve all done it, well, I hope you’ve done it, but let’s see what this lineup looks like assuming everyone is healthy at the end of the month.

Alright Mae lead off centerfie— whoops wrong lineup.

Cesar Hernandez – 2B

Jean Segura – SS

Bryce Harper – RF

Rhys Hoskins – 1B

JT Realmuto – C

Andrew McCutchen – LF

Maikel Franco – 3B

Odubel Herrera – CF

That just sounds like runs to me. Who knows what batshit crazy lineups Gabe will wind up employing and I know there is talk about batting Harper in the 2 hole. I’m not with that camp. The analytics have their place and I do believe they give you an edge but your best hitter needs to hit 3. Harper needs to be the Phillies best hitter. Rhys Hoskins batting 4 and cleaning up should be the perfect protection for Harper to get pitches to hit. Most guys are going to make better contact on pitches in the strike zone. If there are people on base and people on deck the pitcher does not want to face then the guy at the plate is going to see more pitches in the zone.  Baseball is not rocket science; there’s a component of people who will tell you I’m the asshole when I don’t fully embrace the analytics revolution in baseball and I’ll live with that. But if you didn't think Chase Utley got better pitches to hit because Ryan Howard was on deck you weren't paying attention.

Honestly, the way the lineup gets filled out does not matter all that much. It will be nit-picking for the sake of it with the names that will fill it out in 2019 after the names that have filled it out for the past 5 years. Most importantly, we can expect to see Bryce Harper penciled in until my 5 year old daughter is headed off to college.

Catch you guys wearing number 3 Phillies jerseys drinking $9.75 light beers at the ball park.

Let's go PHILS!!!!