Bryce Harper is meeting with Padres officials tonight in his hometown of Las Vegas.
Ken Rosenthal reported in multiple tweets this morning that San Diego Padres ownership officials will be present during the meeting with Bryce Harper.
#Padres officials meeting today or tomorrow with Bryce Harper in Las Vegas, sources tell The Athletic. Meeting expected to include ownership representatives.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 31, 2019
Last week, there were reports that the Padres have ‘checked in’ on Harper and others including Manny Machado, but there were no reports of anything really serious between the two sides until this morning. Jon Morosi reported yesterday that a Machado deal is not imminent and the Padres have not yet met with Machado.
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According to Rosenthal, Harper has met with other teams “in recent days”, but there are no deals that are close.
As I wrote in a previous article, the Padres are not in a dying need of another outfielder. Right now as things stand they have six outfielders competing for three spots. The options are Wil Myers, Franmil Reyes, Manuel Margot, Franchy Cordero, Travis Jankowski, and Hunter Renfroe.
If they were to sign Harper, that would enable them to ship Manuel Margot and/or Hunter Renfroe to a suitor in exchange for a player like J.T. Realmuto.
The Padres are not a team known to spend big on the free agent market, but just last offseason they went out and signed the second best available free agent in Eric Hosmer to a 8 year, $144 million deal for him to be their first basemen.
A Harper signing would most likely be double the amount of Hosmer’s contarct and triple the one of Myers’, which is at $83 million.
Adding Harper would not be as bad to the payroll as it seems since Hosmer’s contract is front loaded, so he is earning $21 million over the next four years, but then drops to $13 million for the rest of the contract, and Myers is owed just $5.5 million in 2019, but bumps up to $22.5 million the next three years, but you also have to remember it is much smaller contract than Hosmer’s so it should not be such a big deal.
What also helps San Diego is they have rising stars coming up like Fernando Tatis Jr., MacKenzie Gore, Logan Allen, and they already have top catching prospect Francisco Mejia at the big league level. Since they are just coming up to the big leagues, they are still on rookie contracts meaning the Padres do not need to worry about paying them for a few more years.
Then, let’s assume they include opt-outs in the Harper contract, and he wants out after a few years, then they can sign Tatis, Gore, and Mejia to extensions.
Just think everyone believed that the Red Sox could out bid the Padres for Hosmer last year, but they didn’t, so no one should count out A.J Preller.
The financials of the contract are definitely enlightening for San Diego Padres fans, and a meeting on Thursday night is a step in the right direction.