This is dumb.
Three lessons from a completely unnecessary Bryce Harper crisis
An untrained eye may struggle to spot the problem.
Bryce Harper wants to play baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies want Harper to play baseball for them. Harper’s contract specifies that he will play baseball for the Phillies through the 2031 season, in exchange for approximately one dump truck full of cash.
Yet the two parties somehow find themselves in a situation that, according to The Athletic, “confused and upset” Harper. The New York Post says Harper is “pissed off.”
Others, predictably, now proclaim that trade rumors are swirling around Harper and the Phils. (Trade rumors being the fourth-worst thing that can swirl around a person, ranking just below a swarm of yellowjackets.)
How did we get here?
The drama began with Dave Dombrowski’s comments about Harper during his end-of-year press conference earlier this month. “He’s still a quality player,” the Phillies president of baseball operations said of Harper during wide-ranging remarks. “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 he continues to be good . . . Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer. He’s the one that will dictate that more than anything else.”
Dombrowski is a veteran baseball executive and a polished, thoughtful speaker. If he didn’t know his words would spark a media fire, he should have. And if he intended to challenge Harper he could have done so privately and directly.
Lesson number one: If you run a baseball team, don’t publicly speculate that the face of your franchise may be in decline.
Dombrowski didn’t say anything untrue. Harper’s 2025 numbers, while strong by most standards, were nowhere near MVP-caliber. But the 33-year-old first baseman was expected to be a steadying force on a Phillies team bracing for significant change. Why generate an entirely new off-season concern?
Harper, meanwhile, could have put a lid on this thing. “Dave’s right,” the superstar first baseman did not say. “I set very high expectations for myself and I didn’t live up to them this season,” Harper did not continue.
Instead, Harper said this:
“I have given my all to Philly from the start. Now there is trade talk? I made every effort to avoid this. It’s all I heard in D.C. I hated it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”
Like Dombrowski’s comments, Harper’s are accurate. The 13-year, $330 million deal Harper signed in 2019 included a full no-trade clause and was intentionally devoid of any “opt-outs,” signaling to the world that he planned to spend the rest of his playing days in Philadelphia.
“The goal was to get the longest contract possible,” said Harper’s agent Scott Boras at the time. “Bryce wanted one city for the rest of his career. That is what I was instructed to do. It is very difficult in this time to get length of contract that takes a player to age 37, 38, 39.”
In short, it doesn’t even matter what Dave Dombrowski thinks about Bryce Harper’s performance. The two-time MVP will be a member of the Phillies unless and until he decides he doesn’t want to be.
Lesson number two: Be cool.
Harper didn’t need to escalate the situation. And let’s be extremely clear: Dave Dombrowski did not say a single word about trading Bryce Harper. Harper seems to be leaning into perceived criticism and speculation. Why not brush Dombrowski’s comments aside?
Harper is, of course, a human being who reacted to Dombrowski with human emotions. That’s understandable.
But it would’ve been a lot cooler if he set his feelings aside and used the comments as competitive fuel. Or addressed his grievances with Dombrowski in a direct conversation.
Lesson number three: Communication is key.
Some problems are real and others are imagined.
I want to play baseball for the Phillies. That’s a problem because the Phils aren’t interested. The Phillies would like Shohei Ohtani to play baseball for them. That’s a problem because Ohtani plays for the Dodgers.
Bryce Harper’s problem with the Phillies? Imagined. Everyone’s interests are aligned.
But a situation can get weird when two grown-ass men talk to each other through the media.
“This thing’s got a life of its own,” Dombrowski said this week. “Now I’ve been reading that, ‘Oh, the Phillies may trade Bryce Harper.’ That couldn’t be further from the truth. We love him. We think he’s a great player. He’s a very important part of our team. I’ve seen him have better years. I look for him to have better years.”
Happy to hear that, Double-D! Now maybe tell it to your first baseman.
Tweets and skeets of the week
From Crossing Broad’s Kevin Kinkead:
This is a fair point. Dombrowski’s comments about Harper were honest. Would those of us criticizing DD prefer that he lie? Or dodge the question? How will we ever get coaches, execs, athletes, etc. to give us anything juicy?
One of the remarkable things about these particular comments, however, is that they managed to offend the team’s future Hall of Famer AND they weren’t particularly interesting. Worst of both worlds.
Baseball, man.
I’m not going to be able to handle months of Kyle Schwarber speculation. If he does leave, please let it happen quickly. And let it be for an American League team.
Only one million days left until pitchers and catchers report to spring training.
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Great read. Thank you. Honestly I blame WIP for creating a trade narrative that shouldn’t exist. Dombo’s comments were not intended to spark a war with Harper. Aside from Harper’s agent requesting a contract extension, Dombo was playing his cards in terms of Harper’s production vs. elite players.
WIP jumped on it like the scavengers that they are.
My man looking at it from both sides . Schwarber imo is back too . Too much unnecessary drama for a situation that doesn’t need it , let’s say go birds lol