Los Angeles Dodgers reportedly back in the mix for Bryce Harper

According to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez, the Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the mix for Bryce Harper, and Los Angeles executives were spotted in Las Vegas on Sunday.

Reportedly, the Los AngelesDodgers have re-entered the bidding for Bryce Harper after meeting on Sunday night, so what does this mean for the rest of the potential biddings?

Phillies owner hopped on his team plane and flew to Las Vegas to meet with Harper, and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale said that Middleton did not want to leave without a deal.

There were multiple reports after the meeting occurred that the meeting was not about getting a contract done, but more about getting to know each other more, so Harper can trust ownership as he did with the Nationals ownership.

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The deal did not take place, as Middleton is now in Florida with his big league club, so the Dodgers took the opportunity to meet with Harper to see what he is thinking.

There are reportedly five teams still in the mix for Harper including the Dodgers and Phillies, and I would assume the San Francisco Giants are still interested and the Padres seem to still have an outside shot depending on if Harper likes what he is seeing with the growth in the system after the Manny Machado signing.

The Padres’ chances of signing Harper are diminishing after a report by the San Diego Union-Tribune stating that the Padres never made a formal offer to him.

The Phillies did not get Machado because GM Matt Klentak said that there has to be a point where the front office says that they cannot afford to spend the amount of money he was asking for.

But the part that confuses me then is why are they in on Harper? Manny Machado got $300 million, so if the Phillies cannot spend $300 million on Machado (who they wanted more than Harper because he is a better overall player), then they should not be spending over $300 million on Harper either.

Bryce Harper has not signed yet because he was waiting to see what Machado got to make sure that he was going to get much more than that, and I am thinking he and Scott Boras will be trying to get more than Giancarlo Stanton‘s record $325 million deal.

I am not expecting the Giants to want to sign Harper to a long term deal, especially because Farhan Zaidi just came from the Dodgers, so he is probably going to come into the same mindset of not wanting to get locked into a long term deal.

The Giants are also going into a rebuild, so Zaidi should want to save that money when they are at the bottom of the division, so he can spend when they get better.

The Dodgers are still expressing that they want a short term deal, as they gave a shorter deal to A.J. Pollock and extended Kershaw for three more years, so it seems like they want to save up money and stay under the luxury tax threshold to spend for Nolan Arenado or bigger players in the next couple of off-seasons.

With the Los Angeles Dodgers re-entering the bidding war, I do not see much changing for other teams like the Phillies except possibly getting too antsy, and ownership is tired of this game, so they want to get a deal done, but other than that the Phillies seem to be the only team that will be willing to meet Harper’s price along with giving him the long term deal.