Why?

Shame on the Philadelphia Phillies. Shame on them for not learning from the mistakes of the New York Yankees in the past.

Earlier this month, they signed former NL MVP Bryce Harper to a 13-year 330-million-dollar contract. This surpasses the 275 million 10-year contract that Alex Rodriguez signed with Yankees back in 2007.

To put it in perspective, Harper who is 26 now, will be 39 when his contract with the Phillies is up.

It’s safe to say this is a very risky contract for Philadelphia. Not just because of the length of the contract, but because of how up and down his career has been.
He came into the league in 2012 and posted consistent stats in his first two years. Batting around .270 with 20 homers.

He had a breakthrough in 2015, batting above .300 for the first time in his career and almost had 100 RBI’s as well. In that season he also led the league with 42 home runs, which helped him win the MVP award.

The following season in 2016, he was far from his MVP caliber. His stats were down in every major category. The most surprising was the dismal batting average he posted of .243.
He rebounded in 2017 with .317 batting average, while also knocking in 87 RBI’s and 29 home runs in just 420 at-bats.

In 2018, Harper was on track to have his worst season in history. In the first few months of the season, his batting average was in danger of sinking below .200. His batting average never recovered on the season, but he was able to hit 34 home runs with 100 RBI’s.
His track record in the MLB doesn’t scream someone who should get 330 million dollars. He is a great player who has freakish talent, but for how long.

I don’t think it will be for 13 years. We have already seen him regress and digress throughout his career and on top of that, he has had some injury problems in the past as well.
Within the next 5 to 6 years, he is going to regress for good or suffer some type of major injury that will hamper how effective he is.
Be a Phillies fan, I hope this works out for them and it results in a lot of championships. But looking at history and past performance, I don’t feel Philadelphia is going to get everything they expected when signing Harper.