Phillies Meeting With Bryce Harper In Las Vegas: What To Know

The Phillies are set to meet with free agent superstar and longtime Washington National Bryce Harper on Saturday.

Here's what you need to know about the meeting.

A large Philadelphia contingent is making the trip

Phillies owner John Middleton, along with several members of the Philadelphia front office, will travel to Harper's hometown of Las Vegas to meet with Harper, his wife Kayla, and his notorious agent Scott Boras.

This won't the first Harper-Phillies related meeting this offseason

General manager Matt Klentak met with Boras about Harper during the Winter Meetings, an annual offseason summit where many of the year's trades and free agent signings are completed. Harper was not present at the meeting.

There's no telling exactly what they'll discuss

Nor is there any way of knowing if the Phillies will even make a formal offer on Saturday. During meetings with other teams over the winter, Harper reportedly asked detailed questions about the respective team's minor league systems and their plans for the future. Boras is infamous for the binders he compiles for his clients extolling their virtues, and for his stump speeches of flowery, obscure grandiloquence. Of Harper, he told the Chicago Tribune last month: "Well, certainly Harper's bazaar has begun. It's fashionable, it's historical, it's elite, global, certainly. And certainly it has inspirations that deal with gray shoes and gray hair, inspirations on the part of Bryce."

So Middelton, Klentak, and company are likely to hear something along those lines Saturday. The Phillies contingent could discuss their farm system and Klentak's plan for sustained success. They'll probably point towards recent acquisitions: Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen, and David Robertson, as indications of their willingness to spend enough to surround Harper with a team that can win the World Series. And they'll likely pitch their young core: Rhys Hoskins, their young outfielders, Aaron Nola, and a deep and talented young rotation.

The other teams involved are the Chicago White Sox and Washington Nationals, and possibly the Los Angeles Dodgers to some degree

The Nationals reportedly offered Harper a 10-year, $300 million extension at the end of last season, which he declined. They seemed to distance themselves from his pursuit in the weeks following, making several other major aquisitions including Patrick Corbin, Anibal Sanchez, and Brian Dozier. In the past week there have been rumors that the Nationals had made Harper another offer, greater than the first offer, but nothing's been verified.

The White Sox and Dodgers are the only other teams known to be pursuing Harper, though only the White Sox have been up front about their interest.

Chicago, trying to re-emerge from a rebuild and coming off a 62-win year, has the most money to spend after the Phillies. The defending National League champion Dodgers have been known to spend big, but rumblings indicate they won't be handing out a record deal this winter. The Nationals history suggests they could give out such a contract, and they're surely motivated to keep the face of their franchise, but their 2019 salary is inching closer and closer to the luxury tax threshold of $206 million, which they probably want to avoid and which Harper would probably take them over.

He probably won't sign Saturday, despite what you may hear

But it's not impossible. The feeling throughout the industry is that fellow free agent superstar Manny Machado will sign first, clarifying Harper's market and giving Boras a clear number to shoot to exceed in negotiations. There are still several weeks left before spring training, and Boras isn't afraid to let the clock run down; another Boras client, Jake Arrieta, didn't sign with the Phillies until mid-March last year.

The Phillies still want Manny Machado

The trip to Las Vegas does not mean the Phillies have given up on Manny Machado, who they met with at Citizens Bank Park last month. The expectation for quite some time now has been that the team would pursue both Harper and Machado, though they will probably only sign one of them.

In fact, the Phillies reportedly prefer Machado over Harper, if they had to pick one, due to Machado's elite glove at third base, and the Phils' dire need to improve their league-worst defense from 2018.

Harper's offensive ceiling is slightly higher, though, which is why...

Most believe Harper will earn a record payday

Wherever he signs, Harper will probably eclipse, if not in total years at least in total money Giancarlo Stanton's MLB record contract signed back in 2014: 13 years, $325 million.

Harper is one of the best players of his generation

Although baseball has multiple superstars, rare indeed is the player that reaches free agency at such a young age. That's because Harper (like Machado, and Mike Trout) entered the league for good when he was still a teenager, something that's almost unheard of nowadays.

He was an All Star at 19 in 2012, and won Rookie of the Year that season. He's been named to six All Star teams in his seven year career, and won the National League MVP Award at age 22. He has a career slash line of .279/.388/.512 and is well on track to the Hall of the Fame.

However, he has been maddeningly inconsistent.

After his MVP year of 42 homers and a .330 average, he plummeted 87 points to a .243 average and 24 homers the year following. Still good, but not elite. He followed that up with a .319 campaign and 29 bombs in 2017, and then down to .249, though with 34 homers, last season. His 2018 was a microcosm of his career, with a dreadful June slump where he hit .188 bolstered by elite numbers most of the rest of the season.

That inconsistency translates over to the basepaths: he stole 13 last year, 21 in 2016, 18 in 2012. But he tallied only 4 in 2017, 6 in 2015, and 2 in 2014. It also translates to his glovework. After stellar showings as one of the league's premier defenders from 2015-17, his defensive statistics cratered in 2018 (though the argument has been made that he played more cautiously to prevent injury before his free agency year).

Inconsistency though, to some degree, is part of any sport. And more importantly, the most amazing thing about Harper is that he will be just 26 for the entirety of the 2019 season. He's only six months older than Rhys Hoskins, and just entering his prime. He's as likely to earn multiple MVP awards over the next several years as anyone.

Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images