‘The game is where it needs to be’: Bryce Harper wants compromise (and no salary cap) to keep sport thriving

Bryce Harper hit 20 home runs through the Phillies’ first 88 games, a pace that would put him on the doorstep — but not quite over the threshold — of 400 for his career.

And wouldn’t that spice up opening day 2027?

Well, assuming it doesn’t get canceled.

Can you see the storm clouds on the horizon? Baseball’s biggest stars are about to converge on South Philly for the 96th All-Star Game, a celebration of the best talent in the sport. And once they leave, the threat of an ugly, protracted, self-destructive work stoppage will begin to creep ever closer.

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It’s impossible to ignore, even though owners, players, and everyone stuck in between will try their darndest to pretend they don’t see it during the two-day All-Star festivities.

But it’s almost inevitable that the owners will lock out the players on Dec. 1, when the collective bargaining agreement expires. And unlike five years ago, when a 99-day lockout preceded a mid-March settlement and a briefly delayed start to a full 162-game season, the disagreement this time is over the fundamental structure of the sport’s economic system.

The owners are proposing a salary cap, a concept the players have rejected for, well, forever. The players are calling for changes to how revenue is shared between the clubs that they believe, in theory, would improve competitive integrity.

It’s as if one side is speaking French and the other is replying in German. Until they converse in English, progress will be virtually nonexistent.

And depending on how long that takes, the 2027 season — or at least a portion of it, if a deal isn’t reached before the middle of March — could be in peril.

“I hope that we can come together for the sake of our game and for where our game is right now, the direction that it’s going,” Harper said recently in a conversation with The Inquirer. “I don’t think it’s ever been, in the years that I’ve played, it’s never been [as good as] this.

“We need to both come together and understand what is best for both sides to make it work and us to play baseball because the game is where it needs to be right now. And I just see it getting better and better.”

Indeed, there’s momentum from last year’s epic World Series and the well-attended, highly rated World Baseball Classic in March. Rules changes, including the pitch clock and automatic ball-strike system, are wildly popular. The Padres recently sold for $3.9 billion, a record price for an MLB team by about $1.5 billion.

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By most projections, baseball is a $13 billion industry. And in 2028, MLB will negotiate new national television deals that figure to pour even more money into the pool.

“When you’re in a position where you’ve had record attendance, record revenues, when you go through all this ... we’re in a completely different place than we were five years ago,” agent Scott Boras said on The Inquirer’s Phillies Extra podcast. “We also now have a presence in Asia that is completely different; we have a presence in Canada that’s completely different. Netflix paid $100 million just for the rights for the Japanese feed for the WBC alone.

“So, when you’re seeing that, we’re in great prosperity, revenue-wise, attendance-wise. … I think it’s very difficult for anyone to say that we’re not in a far better position than we were five years ago in every category.”

A work stoppage, especially if it drags into next season, could be catastrophic for business.

It could also detract from players’ legacies.

Take Harper, for example. Since 2022, when the Phillies broke a decadelong playoff drought, he has chased an elusive World Series crown with a familiar group of teammates, notably J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Kyle Schwarber. Trea Turner joined the pursuit in 2023, when Cristopher Sánchez reached the majors for good.

According to Baseball-Reference, the Phillies have the second-oldest group of position players (average age: 30.1 years old) in the majors this season. Realmuto is 35; Harper, Schwarber, and Turner are 33. On the pitching side, Wheeler is 36 and Nola 33.

Playing careers are finite. Father Time is undefeated. And losing a season because of a labor dispute doesn’t help.

Just ask the NHL players whose careers spanned two shortened seasons (1994-95, 2012-13) and one that was canceled entirely (2004-05). The stoppages probably cost Jaromir Jagr close to 100 career goals.

As much as any player, Harper realizes the impact on a career. He’s closing in on 400 homers, and with a desire to play beyond the five years left on his contract, he’s a good bet to reach 500 and maybe even 600.

But there wasn’t any recouping, say, 20 homers from the pandemic-shortened 60-game 2020 season. If all or part of the 2027 season is lost, it could deprive Harper of another 30 homers … or Schwarber of his bid for 500 homers … or Wheeler in his pursuit of Hall of Fame numbers.

“Yeah, for sure,” Harper said. “Obviously missing those games, it’s possibly 30 more homers or an MVP or a World Series, right?”

And yet, it’s a sacrifice he says he’s willing to make.

» READ MORE: Winning a World Series ‘changes everything.’ And the Phillies legacies for this veteran core are riding on it.

The son of a former union ironworker who laid rebar to help build Las Vegas casinos, Harper is an influential voice within the MLB Players’ Association. When Rob Manfred visited the Phillies last July as part of his annual meetings with each team, Harper confronted the commissioner over what he perceived as an attempt to sell players on the idea of a salary cap.

“Individual numbers, getting later in my career, all that kind of stuff has to take a back seat,” Harper said. “We all think that. At the end of the day for us, it can’t be about one individual or anything else. There’s a fine line of wanting that over what Curt Flood did for us and what the guys did all through the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s.

“All the guys that sat out, went through strikes, went through situations that I couldn’t fathom — missed checks, missed meals, all that kind of stuff — way back when. I don’t want our decisions to be a negative for what those guys did for us. I couldn’t fathom being part of the group that took [a salary cap proposal] and was like, ‘OK, yeah, we’re good.’"

So, Harper will do his part as one of the bigger stars in the sport to help keep the players unified. But he won’t be a hawk, either. Mostly, he wants a compromise.

“None of us want to miss games,” he said. “But at the end of the day, if we do miss games, there’s nothing we can do at that point until the two sides come together.

“I understand where the commissioner’s office is coming from; I understand where the players are coming from. I understand both sides. But also we can’t, as owners or as players, come in and go, ‘We’re not doing this, we’re not doing this.’ We need to both come together and understand what is best for both sides to make it work.”

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Ricky Bottalico spouts opinions each day on sports-talk radio and the Phillies' television pre- and postgame show. But before all that, he had a solid career as a relief pitcher, even representing the Phillies in the 1996 All-Star Game at Veterans Stadium. With the baseball world set to descend on Philly again in a few weeks, Ricky Bo joined "Phillies Extra" to re-live his All-Star experience. Watch here.

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Previous episodes: Preston Mattingly | Caleb Cotham | Larry Bowa | Joe Maddon | Rhys Hoskins | Terry Francona | Aaron Rowand | Hunter Pence | Paco Figueroa