Bryce Harper is one of the MLB’s premier stars despite championship aspirations that culminated into one shortcoming after another while he was playing for the Washington Nationals.
Harper made his MLB debut in 2012 at 19 years old and was selected to the All-Star game, becoming the youngest player to ever perform in the coveted game. After underwhelming expectations, Harper and the Nationals felt it was best to mutually move on from each other.
Harper landed the biggest MLB contract in history but here’s why it’s embarrassing for him.
With a dynamic power hitter like Bryce Harper and a pitching crew that was undeniably one of the best in the league, it seemed like a no brainer choice.
The same exact thing was said about the Washington Capitals ever year until they finally won it all last season.
It must be a Washington D.C. sports curse.
But as expectations didn’t shake out for one of the premiere players, Harper finally settled on moving north up the 95 corridor to sign an extraordinary 13-year $330 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies.
However, when you examine it closer through a magnifying glass, it’s almost embarrassing.
For the record, multimillion-dollar contracts are never per say, “embarrassing”, when you get paid that much to play a sport but the finer details were a little demeaning.
The 26-year-old was indecisive about several teams who came out as frontrunners. Those teams were the Phillies, the Dodgers and the Giants.
But before the Nationals moved on, what was initially reported last season that the Nationals offered him an extension of 10-year $300 million, reporter Jim Bowden tweeted that it was “much more than the $300m being reported by the media.”
Harper was likely banking on the fact that his contract could likely land in the $400-500 million dollar range, which is what Angels’ Mike Trout might receive when his contract is up.
Unfortunately for Harper, he’s nowhere close to the level as Trout who is producing at an all-time level.
The Dodgers reportedly offered Harper a short-term $45 million contract for the chance to play on a championship level team, while the Giants also offered a massive 12-year $310 million.
Clearly, he wanted the most amount of money over the longest period of time from his future team.
Why would he do that when the market value for players like him continues to go up?
In four years, after he cashed in on the Dodgers contract, then he would get paid with another massive contract because he would only be 30yearsold at that time.
Instead, he’s locked into a 13-year contract, which will make him 39yearsold and likely be where he spends the rest of his career.
To add fuel to the fire, during his first press conference for the Phillies, Harper flubbed with a bit of a Freudian slip when he said he wanted to “bring a championship to D.C.”
Whoops. Maybe deep down he regrets not taking that contract with the Nationals a year ago.