Categories: Phillies Nuggets with Tim Kelly

Bryce Harper: ‘I want to play well into my 40s’

Bryce Harper is entering his fifth season with the Phillies. (Cheryl Pursell)

When Bryce Harper’s 13-year/$330 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies concludes after the 2031 season, he will have played in parts of 20 Major League seasons.

But don’t get it twisted, the two-time National League MVP isn’t planning to walk away from the sport at the conclusion of said pact.

Deep in an answer reflecting on why he didn’t want any opt outs in his contract when he became a free agent after the 2018 season, Harper dropped an interesting nugget.

“…I want to play well into my 40s, that’s always been the dream and the goal,” Harper revealed in a media session Wednesday morning in Clearwater. “I’m here until I’m 38, so we’ll see what happens.”

It’s obviously too early to tell right now whether that will end up being a realistic goal for Harper, and if so, if it would come as a Phillie or with another franchise.

Still only 30 years old, Harper has a career slash line of .280/.390/.523 with 285 home runs, 817 RBIs, a .913 OPS and 44.2 WAR, per FanGraphs. He also now has an NLCS MVP on his resume, in addition to being one of 32 players in MLB history to win multiple league MVPs. It would be hard to believe that by the end of his age-38 season, Harper wouldn’t have secured his place in Cooperstown.

At the same time, it once felt like Harper was certain to reach 500 home runs over the lifetime of his contract. Between the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and a slew of injury-shortened seasons — which will continue in 2023 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery — that isn’t a slam dunk anymore. It may still happen, but if Harper is sitting at 480 home runs at the end of his current deal, one would think he would like to hang around and get to 500, at the very least. And it would be difficult to envision the Phillies letting him walk and record that milestone in another uniform.

Beyond personal milestones, Harper remains in pursuit of a World Series title, and the DH becoming universal may allow him to extend his career a few extra years if he’s in the mental and physical space to do so.