Alright, this is getting a little out of hand.
Let’s acknowledge the biggest elephant in the room, which were the comments made by Dave Dombrowski about Bryce Harper at his end of season press conference.
The comments “hurt” Harper. Those comments that were made were as follows:
“Of course, he’s still a quality player,” Dombrowski said Oct. 16. “He’s still an All-Star caliber player. He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past. And I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or if he continues to be good. I look around the league … Freddie Freeman. He’s a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. Freddie’s a tremendous player. And, that to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer.
“Really, he’s the one who will dictate that more than anything else. That’s what it comes down to. So I don’t think he’s content with the year that he had. And, again, it wasn’t a bad year. But when I think of Bryce Harper, you’re thinking elite, right? You’re thinking of one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don’t think it fit into that category. But, again, a very good player. I have no idea. I’ve seen guys at his age — again he’s not old — that level off. Or I’ve seen guys rise again. We’ll see what happens.”
When asked in the above linked article about these comments, Harper was honest about how they made him feel. Specifically, he talked about the trade winds that have been swirling around him once those comments were digested by people that talk about the game for a living.
“I have given my all to Philly from the start,” Harper told The Athletic on Saturday. “Now there is trade talk? I made every effort to avoid this. It’s all I heard in D.C. (with the Nationals). I hated it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”
Harper said he was hurt by Dombrowski’s original comments, which were made at his end-of-season media availability. The Phillies’ president of baseball operations has since said he was not challenging Harper.
Now, we notice that nowhere in those comments did Dombrowski ever actually mention the possibility that the team would place Harper on the trade block. Sending him packing would deal the team a decent sized blow with the impending free agency of Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto, so moving on from Harper as well would dampen the ability of the lineup to “slug.” Yet that hasn’t stopped people from around the game to think that maybe there is another team in the league that might be interested in putting something together to bring the superstar to their own town.
So let’s put this thing where it needs to be, once and for all.
Bryce Harper isn’t going to get traded.
Why would they? Coming off of, for his career at least, something of a down year, Harper was still one of the more productive players at the plate. We’ve gotten used to his hitting certain thresholds on his back of the baseball card numbers that when he does not reach those heights, it can look like something was amiss. He did not hit 30 home runs. He did not drive in 100 runs. He did not slug .500. These are the benchmarks that we have set up for Harper as measures of success, so when he doesn’t get there, eyebrows and concerns are raised.
But the offensive environment is changing. It’s getting harder and harder to hit the pitching that is constantly being run out by the opposition each night. Relievers that are made from a production line where each one seemingly throws 95+ with a slider that touches 90 miles an hour. Starters that are going full max effort knowing that that assembly line will be in production in short order each night. We’ve seen comment after comment from big leaguers talking about how hard it is to hit, yet Harper’s 131 wRC+ was still top 25 in the sport. Was Dombrowski wrong in his assertion that Harper may not be among the elite? Not necessarily, but he’s still a damn great hitter.
Yet speculation is rampant that the team wants to trade him. A simple Google search of “Bryce Harper” shows the word “trade” as the first choice in the automatically text completion. Finish the actual search and you’ll see click bait article after click bait article speculating about where Harper is headed next.
It’s complete nonsense that should probably be buried. Dombrowski came out and said as much. We all know the news cycle that surrounds this team will perpetuate the idea that a trade is a possibility, but it isn’t.
Bryce Harper isn’t going anywhere, no matter what sports talk radio says.
