As we inch closer to Spring Training, the Washington Nationals may be at a crossroads with Bryce Harper. How far will they go to bring him back?
The question of how far the Washington Nationals will go to retain Bryce Harper has been at the forefront of the offseason for a couple of months now. With rumors swirling that the Philadelphia Phillies are now the “clear-cut favorite” for Harper, the question now becomes, how far are the Nationals willing to go in order to keep Harper from a division rival?
Bob Nightengale of USA Today had the Phillies as the favorite to sign Harper way back in November. After the Phillies met with Harper on January 12th, Nightengale has gone on numerous radio stations, including 94WIP, singing the same tune.
He still believes the Phillies and Chicago White Sox are in on Harper, while listing the Phillies as the favorite and saying that the Nationals interest seems to have cooled off. Simply put, it’s tough to buy it given what we’ve seen this offseason.
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Mark Zuckerman, of MASN, somewhat refuted those statements on the Steve Czaban Show on Wednesday afternoon saying, “here’s my sense of things, I do believe they’ve had at least some contact since that initial end of season offer that they made him, and I’m not surprised by that…Scott Boras is going to come back to them at some point, and usually, when he deals with them on matters of this kind of significance, he goes straight to Ted Lerner, and so, I would not be surprised at all if they’ve had those conversations.”
On top of that, a lot is also being made of the Nationals luxury tax situation, which is not as bad as it seems. Jayson Stark of The Athletic recently sent out a tweet that said a baseball executive told him “they’d be stuck in the 90 percent tax bracket pretty much ‘forever’.” This is just flat-out wrong.
Say the Nationals signed Harper to a 10-year $350 million contract, they would be $24 million over the luxury tax, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. As a third time offender, they would be taxed 50 percent on the first $20 million overage and then 62 percent on the next $20 million.
So the Nationals would need to go $40 million over the luxury tax to pay 90 percent on overages, which they would still be $16 million short of doing. In fact, they could re-sign Bryce Harper and actually be under the luxury tax next year.
So, if it does truly come down to the Nationals and the Phillies, it’s fair to wonder how far will Ted and Mark Lerner go to make sure the Nationals don’t have to see Harper in a Phillies uniform. We don’t know if the 10-year $300 million reported offer made to Harper is still on the table, or if the Phillies have made a formal offer to Harper yet.
Until the Phillies make an offer, the Nats have no reason to up their offer or do anything until that happens. You don’t want to get caught in a bidding war against yourself, something Boras is very good at doing. Just look at Chris Davis.
If the Nationals opened the season with today’s roster, they’d have a great team, with Fangraphs projecting them to win the NL East with 92 wins. An outfield of Juan Soto, Victor Robles, and Adam Eaton would be fun to watch, not to mention it would cost under $10 million next season. There’s no way around it though, putting Bryce Harper in that outfield for the next 10 years would make it much better.
On the flip side, the Nats need to ensure they don’t go overboard. They’ve already shown they’re willing to go to $300 million, but we don’t know whether $350 million is out of the question. If the Phillies go to $375-400 million, who knows whether the Lerners would go that high.
It’s no secret that Ted Lerner wants to win and it’s also no secret that Lerner and Boras have a great relationship. That’s the wildcard in these negotiations – can Boras convince the 93-year-old Lerner, who is worth $4.6 billion, according to Forbes, that Harper is the last piece to a World Series championship? Boras has talked Lerner into signing Max Scherzer, Matt Wieters, and Rafael Soriano, among others, so it’s not out of the question.
With all the contradicting reports coming out, it’s tough to see through all the smoke and decipher what’s real and what’s not. The Phillies are in fact a threat to sign Harper. The Nationals have not cooled off on Harper and it seems that Boras will circle back with Lerner prior to making a deal anywhere else.
Interested teams know the contract terms that it will take to sign Bryce Harper. Will the Washington Nationals be the ones to fork up $350 million plus to make sure he’s wearing the correct red and white by Opening Day? That’s the question.