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Bryce Harper: Ex-Red Sox exec’s public comments about 2025 season ‘kind of wild to me’
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- Bryce Harper: Ex-Red Sox exec’s public comments about 2025 season ‘kind of wild to me’
Bryce Harper won’t draw motivation from Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski saying the team has to wait and see if the outfielder “becomes elite or continues to be good.”
But Harper is a little confused by Dombrowski making such public comments.
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“I think the big thing for me was when we first met with this organization it was, ‘Hey we’re always going to keep things in-house and we expect you to do the same thing,’” Harper told reporters Sunday, per On Pattison’s Tim Kelly . “So when that didn’t happen it kind of took me for a run a little bit.
“So I don’t know. It’s part of it, I guess. It’s kind of a wild situation, that even happening,” he added . “Obviously I didn’t have the year I wanted. Obviously I didn’t have the postseason I wanted. My numbers weren’t where they needed to be. I know that. For Dave to come out and say those things, it’s kind of wild to me, still.”
Harper’s 2025 season featured his second-lowest batting average (.261) of his career. His .357 on-base percentage and .487 slugging percentage were the lowest he’s posted.
The 33-year-old’s strikeout rate dropped and he still hit 27 home runs, but it was a down year by Harper’s standards.
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Days after Philadelphia was eliminated from the postseason is when Dombrowski expressed sentiments about Harper that raised some eyebrows.
“He’s still a quality player. He’s still an All-Star-caliber player. He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past. And I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or he continues to be good,” he said . “If you look around the league, I think, Freddie Freeman : He’s a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. Freddie is a tremendous player, and that, to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer. He’s the one that will dictate that more than anything else.”
Harper is under contract with the Phillies through the 2031 season.
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