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By Scott Lauber, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) LAS VEGAS— In between meetings this week, the Phillies’ highest-ranking baseball official said he recently had a“good conversation” for “quite a while” with the face of the franchise and “everything went well.” And with that, Dave Dombrowski declared an end to l’affaire Harper. Swell. What says Bryce Harper? “Well, look,” agent Scott Borastold The Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday at the general managers’ meetings at The Cosmopolitan, “I said from the start that [owner] John Middleton and Dave Dombrowski want Bryce Harper to finish his career in Philadelphia.” Does Harper still feel the same way? “The reason Bryce didn’t take an opt-out in that contract was because he did not want this,” Boras said. “He wanted all the players to know, ‘I’m in Philadelphia the rest of my career. Come play with me. I’m going to be here. I’m going to do it.’ “Dave and John have nothing but intentions to have Bryce finish his career in Philadelphia.” Bygones, then? Probably. Maybe. We’ll see. First, though, a recap: Midway through an end-of-season news conference Oct. 16, one week after the Phillies got booted from the playoffs in the divisional round for a second consecutive year, Dombrowski took stock of a season in which Harper batted .261 with 27 homers and an .844 OPS that ranked 11th among 73 National Leagueplayers who qualified for the batting title but was below his .905 career mark. Specifically, Dombrowski was asked if Harper’s substandard season was a down year or, as he turns 33, the beginning of a downturn. “He’s still a quality player,” Dombrowski said then. “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 [again] or he continues to be good. If you look around the league, Freddie Freeman, he’s a really good player, right? Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. Freddie is a tremendous player, and that, to me, is Bryce. 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. “I don’t think he’s content with the year that he had. And again, it wasn’t a bad year. But when you think of Bryce Harper, you think of elite, right? You think of one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don’t think it fit into that category. But again, a very good player. I’ve seen guys at his age — again, he’s not old — that level off. Or I’ve seen guys rise again.” It was an unusually candid answer in a news conference setting that doesn’t tend to yield such honesty. Maybe it was even Dombrowski’s way of challenging Harper, who often responds to being slighted. Former Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia still has a hole in his chest from when Harper stared him down after bashing two homers in a 2023 divisional round playoff game. But Harper’s camp believed Dombrowski’s critique unfairly omitted that Harper missed three weeks in June with an inflamed right wrist, an injury and an absence that partly explains his diminished numbers. Dombrowski’s comments also fueled baseless speculation that the Phillies would listen to trade offers for Harper. (Middleton, in particular, wants Harper to go into the Hall of Fame with a Phillies cap on his plaque.) It all was “disappointing,” Harper told The Athletic last month, and left him feeling “really hurt.” Maybe the chat with Dombrowski smoothed everything over. Harper is more than halfway through a 13-year, $330 million contract that was, upon being signed in February 2019, the largest in North American pro sports history. He wants to continue playing beyond its expiration and has expressed an interest in extending or renegotiating the contract. “It’s something that, it’s ongoing,” Boras said. Regardless, in seven seasons with the Phillies, from age 26 to 32, Harper’s numbers (.281 average, 179 homers, .912 OPS, 145 OPS-plus) are remarkably similar to his first seven seasons with the Nationals, from age 19 to 25 (.279, 184 homers, .900 OPS, 139 OPS-plus). Perhaps that’s indicative of how Harper will age. Boras noted the consistency of Harper’s bat speed — 74.2 mph this season, 74.0 last year, 75.5 in 2023 — as another favorable sign. “Guys who have this extraordinary bat speed,” Boras said, “guess what? Chronological age is not a factor.” Maybe not. But it was a fair question and an honest answer, even if Dombrowski could have communicated it privately to Harper. Then again, maybe he didn’t mean to. In a separate Oct. 16 news conference, manager Rob Thomson predicted that Harper is “highly motivated to have the best season of his career next year.” “He hasn’t told me this, but that type of person — and I’ve seen it before, where guys have had bad years, they will go like gangbusters during the offseason to get better because they want to get back to where they normally are at," Thomson said. “I think that’s just Harp’s mindset.” In that case, Dombrowski’s comments will be extra jet fuel. ©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
