Bryce Harper signing reached Phillies’ Gabe Kapler, players from fans during spring training game
The Phillies manager said a group of four fans with buzzing phones gave him and the team the details on the latest addition to the lineup.
CLEARWATER, Fla. - It was just another Thursday afternoon in spring training as the Phillies played out the string of a rather dull Grapefruit League game against the Baltimore Orioles.
And then the phones began buzzing.
“We had some fans behind us who were sharing moment by moment tweets with us,” Gabe Kapler said when asked how he found out the Phillies had signed Bryce Harper. “Literally four fans right behind where we were sitting were telling us terms and who was tweeting what. We were like ‘Who is making the reports?’ We had to make sure that this person is credible.”
The rest of that 5-5 tie with Baltimore became even less significant. The Phillies signed Harper to a 13-year deal worth $330 million.
Here’s what his new manager and some new teammates had to say:
“It’s good to not answer the questions anymore,” Aaron Nola said. “It’s exciting. It’s really exciting for all of us. He’s a superstar. Our team is already better without him. But now that we got him, it takes it up a notch.”
What $330 Million Is Worth
Here’s a look at how much money Bryce Harper could make over the next 13 seasons, on average, based on his performance so far in his major-league career:
Per pitch seen
Per plate appearance
Per game
$11,132
$44,906
$191,685
Roughly equal to the annual salary of a minimum-wage worker in Pennsylvania who works four days a week ($12,064)
More than the median household income in Philadelphia ($39,759)
More than annual salary of a newly elected member of Congress ($174,000)
SOURCES: baseball-reference.com; U.S. Census Bureau; Congressional Research Service
JOHN DUCHNESKIE / Staff Artist
What $330 Million Is Worth
Here’s a look at how much money Bryce Harper could make over the next
13 seasons, on average, based on his performance so far in his major-league career:
Per pitch seen
$11,132
Roughly equal to the annual salary of a minimum-wage worker in Pennsylvania who works four days a week ($12,064)
Per plate appearance
$44,906
More than the median household income in Philadelphia ($39,759)
Per game
$191,685
More than annual salary of a newly elected member of Congress ($174,000)
SOURCES: baseball-reference.com; U.S. Census Bureau; Congressional Research Service
JOHN DUCHNESKIE / Staff Artist
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“You’ve seen him. Everybody has seen him. You know what you’re going to get,” Andrew McCutchen said. “He’s intense but in a sense of wanting to win and wanting to succeed. That’s something that you love to have. He’s a competitor and he’s going to battle you. He’s a threat in the lineup. It’s exciting stuff.”
“One thing we know about Bryce is that he’s an intense individual,” Kapler said. “He plays the game especially hard. He cares deeply about winning, has historically cared deeply about his teammates, and has historically produced on the baseball field. One of the best players in baseball.”
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“If Bryce Harper were to be a part of our lineup, the sky’s the limit for him,” Kapler said. “There’s really no ceiling. We saw what he could do in 2015, arguably one of the best seasons of the last 20 seasons at the plate. Citizens Bank Park is kind of tailor-made for him. If the reports are true and Bryce Harper is a Phillie, we’d be really excited because of the damage he can do in that ballpark.”
“I came over here excited for the team and excited for the path that they were on,” McCutchen said. “For them to continue to keep making moves and make moves like this shows you the direction that they’re moving in. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
» READ MORE: Fans celebrate Bryce Harper becoming a ‘Phillie for life’
“We’re getting another tough out, that’s for sure,” Zach Eflin said. “All the guys we signed this offseason, you look across the board, and they’re all tough outs. Especially, Harper. He puts on a great at-bat and to be able to add that in the middle of the lineup is pretty special.”
“We already had loads of confidence coming into this year with the guys that we got and the way we played this year and the way we know we can play,” Eflin said. “Just to add that hitter and that kind of teammate to an already rock-solid team is definitely going to mean a lot.”
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