![]() ![]() ![]() Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw bested Rodriguez’s average annual sum when he signed a seven-year, $215-million extension with his team. Rodriguez’s two monster contracts might not have had an initial ripple effect on player salaries, but a handful of elite players eventually caught up to the high-water mark he’d set for average annual value. It took seven years for baseball to see a comparable deal, and that one happened to belong to A-Rod once again-a 10-year, $275-million extension he signed with the New York Yankees in 2008 (the team had acquired him via trade after three seasons in Texas). At the time, the biggest contract across all four major North American sports belonged to Kevin Garnett, who’d signed a six-year, $162-million deal with the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves in 1997.Ī-Rod’s contract wasn’t just unprecedented-it was considered way, way out of line in terms of what teams were prepared to spend on player salary. The most jaw-dropping contract in the history of baseball was signed in 2001, when a 25-year-old Alex Rodriguez, who’d spent his entire career with the Seattle Mariners, inked a 10-year, $252-million deal with the Texas Rangers. If so, it’s helpful to consider what precedent there could be for that kind of valuation. While Harper’s performance already puts him in elite company, half a billion dollars might seem like an absurd figure. Every other player on that list-including Williams, Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle-is in the Hall of Fame, with the exception of Shoeless Joe Jackson, who is ineligible as a result of the Black Sox scandal. If you expand that list to the top-10 OPS+ seasons by players 24 years old and younger, Harper comes in eighth all-time. His OPS+ of 197 last year-97 percent better than the league average-ranks second amongst 22-year-olds since the start of baseball’s modern era in 1901 (Harper is one spot behind Ted Williams’s 1941 season, and a spot ahead of Ty Cobb’s 1909 performance). In 2015, Harper’s WAR of 9.5 was the highest of any player in the majors. Since his call-up in 2012, when he won Rookie of the Year honours, he has appeared in the All-Star Game in every season except 2014 (he’d injured his thumb in April of that year and required surgery). Making the case for the extraordinary nature of Harper’s career to date is easy. And the right-fielder’s arrival on the market will come at a time when there’s more money in baseball-and more data about player performance-than ever before. Several MLB player agents who spoke to Sportsnet for this story called it a “perfect storm” of factors: Harper will reach free agency following the end of his age-25 season, which means his best years should still be ahead of him. Harper’s ability to land such a deal rests partly in his already-historic talent and partly in his timing. ![]() It seems clear that Harper will set a new benchmark, but is he really worth half a billion dollars? In recent months, Harper’s been the subject of debate about the possibility that-given his performance, his position as arguably the face of the game and his representation by uber-agent Scott Boras-he could land a record-breaking deal in the vicinity of $500 million when he reaches free agency after the 2018 season. The Las Vegas native is on a well-publicized campaign to “make baseball fun again.” He also wants to get paid. Last year’s National League MVP-he was the youngest player ever to win the award unanimously-has been making headlines and earning accolades since he entered the league as a 19-year-old. It also happened to be the 23-year-old’s first major-league grand slam-so you can forgive him for overthinking the moment. The attention to detail was understandable: Harper had just hit his 100th career home run, making him the eighth-youngest player to reach the milestone. And then he’ll touch ’em all!”Īs it turned out, Harper maybe hadn’t missed first base after all-he later explained that he’d tagged the bag with the back of his heel but, wary of how the replay might look, opted to return for insurance. “Harper missed first base!” yelled Charlie Slowes, the Washington Nationals’ radio play-by-play announcer. When Bryce Harper launched a scoreboard-shattering home run into the right-field stands during a game at Nationals Park in mid-April, something peculiar happened: Partway through his home-run trot, Harper abruptly stopped and reversed course. ![]()
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