Phillies rumors: Team remains “heavy favorites” for Bryce Harper
By John Town
As the baseball world waits for the signings of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, the Phillies remain the favorite to land the star outfielder.
Since Manny Machado‘s agent came out and criticized the media for false reports about contract offers for his client, few, if any, reports have come out surrounding Machado or Bryce Harper‘s free agency. While there has been little to come out, the Phillies reportedly still remain in the lead for Harper’s services.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that Philadelphia is still the “heavy favorite” to sign Harper with little changing in the last month:
Three weeks remain until position players report to spring training and little has changed the last month. The #Phillies still are the heavy favorites for Harper and the #Whitesox for Machado while everyone awaits to see who blinks first on the final pricetag.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) January 28, 2019
Nightengale also notes that the White Sox are the favorite to land Machado. This coincides with the notion that Philadelphia has turned their attention to Harper since their meeting in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. He and manager Gabe Kapler hit it off during the meeting and the front office returned sounding positive about how everything went.
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The club has stated that they will only sign one of the two star free agents, so if they do prefer Harper and wind up signing him, that will leave Machado for the White Sox or whichever other team jumps in.
While Nightengale is sold that Harper is going to Philadelphia and Machado is going to Chicago, Las Vegas is not so certain. In odds updated a week and a half ago, Washington remained the favorite to sign Harper.
Philadelphia was second for Harper and the favorite for Machado.
As Nightengale mentioned, spring training is drawing near, so both sides are waiting to see if the other will give in first. Each is remaining patient to try to get as good of a deal as they can get before the season starts. The start of spring training is an arbitrary deadline to sign, but they will likely remain free agents until well into February and potentially even March.
Next. Is Matt Klentak done with the bullpen?. dark
All we can do now is continue to wait, but things are still looking good for the Phillies.