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MLB: Bryce Harper $500 million contract is a possibility

By Jonathan Platek

May 16, 2017; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper (34) in the on-deck circle against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the fourth inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
May 16, 2017; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper (34) in the on-deck circle against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the fourth inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports /
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An anonymous MLB GM spoke on Bryce Harper‘s looming free agency, and whoever it was, they hinted at the possibility of a $500 million offer for the Nationals outfielder.

In just two short years, Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper will make the most anticipated entrance into the free agent market since Alex Rodriguez. According to an anonymous MLB GM speaking to ESPN’s Eddie Matz, a contract worth $400 million for the preternatural slugging talent “is light”.

Here is Matz’s source expounding on the subject:

"“‘Four hundred million is light,’ the GM said. ‘It’s going to be more than that. If you could sign him to a 15-year contract, you do it. I would say something in the range of $35 million a year, maybe closer to the high 30s. It could approach 40 million dollars a year.’”"

Bryce Harper could be baseball’s first half-billion-dollar man, and such a figure is not unreasonable.

Harper, 24, is 7th in Nationals (and Expos) history in WAR at 25.7 through just 705 games. He’s had less than half the career of teammate Ryan Zimmerman—4th all-time at 35.7 WAR—but already has accrued 72 percent of Zimmerman’s career production. If Harper has a season reminiscent of his 2015 MVP campaign, he could be challenging Vlad Guerrero’s spot for 6th all-time in the team’s extended history. He won’t even be 25 years old by that point.

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Of course, GM’s wouldn’t be vying to pay Harper just for his past performance. At the end of the 2018 season, Harper will still be only 26 years old, freshly so at that, not turning 27 until the end of the 2019 season. The Nationals, as well as other organizations, will be betting on the continued, perhaps increasing, production of someone already on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

Enter FanGraphs’ Dollars metric. An estimation of what a player’s production would have cost any given team on the open market. This metric does not assume bidding wars, but rather attempts to put a dollar figure on what MLB teams are paying for relative levels of performance available on the free agent market.

Harper is worth the money.

Three times in his career, Bryce Harper has flirted with a performance which Dollars rated as being worth $30 million. The metric estimated his 2015 campaign alone at otherwise costing teams $76 million. Through this point in 2017, Harper’s efforts—suspension and all—have been worth an estimated $22 million.

Now factor in a bidding war for arguably the best player of a generation, someone who might be considered, one day, the best player of all time. Also consider what extra teams might be willing to pay for the security of production Harper brings to the table: only once in his short career has his season WAR total been below 3.5, and even then he only played in 100 games. A $400 million offer almost seems insulting.

When a young player signs a long-term deal with an organization buying out his arbitration years—Jose Quintana and Chris Sale come to mind—the player is trading away a bigger payday down the road for more money and security up-front.

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Bryce Harper may be the first true inverse of that scenario on the free agent market: A player so young, and so good, that teams will be willing to pay him $37 million when he’s 40 years old, for the 10+ years that he will reasonably be capable of putting up an honest-to-goodness 10 WAR season. He did it in 2015 at age 22, and may be doing it again in 2017. Cha-ching.

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