Offseason Fatigue, Ruining the Hot Stove With One Name
I was reading responses on the newest Bryce Harper rumor on Twitter, and there was a reply that I thought was interesting. The thread I was reading was talking about how quick the Chicago Cubs have been to deny their interest to the point of saying they haven’t even met with Bryce this offseason. Now, of course they might be denying it because they genuinely have no interest in Harper, but a point someone suggested was perhaps they are very much interested but didn’t want to come out publicly as a loser in the Harper sweepstakes.
This reminds me of something Scott Boras mentioned during the Winter Meetings, and how some teams wanted to stay on the periphery. They were afraid of the backlash, potentially through the fan base and current roster players. When baseball is showing all-time high revenues and profit levels, money is not an issue for almost any team – and that includes those teams either hovering around or over the Competitive Balance Tax.
But while the money thing is and will be a giant story line as the league and the player’s union discuss the next CBA, we won’t hit on that just yet.
No, I’m more so going to discuss the fatigue fans of all 30 teams have felt this offseason. That fatigue is around the constant rumors and speculation around both Manny Machado and Harper, but more so Harper.
There are now four cities that have been named as “favorites” for Harper – looking at you Philadelphia, Chicago (White Sox), Washington, and San Diego – and two of those cities have also been names as favs for Machado as well. But all offseason these two players have stolen the headlines and majority of the attention from all baseball. They’ve hijacked the offseason to the point that a team like the Phillies, who like Machado and Dallas Keuchel, are waiting on Harper’s decision before they make a move with either of those two.
He also said that Boras other clients are adamant Boras get something done soon. For instance, Phillies like Keuchel, but not it they get Harper. So those guys are in limbo and getting antsy.
— Michael Canter of Cubs Insider ✨ (@MEdwardCanter) February 2, 2019
Harper isn’t doing this on purpose, and he certainly has earned the right to wait and make the best decision for him and his family, but at this point by him not signing he is messing around with other players paper. Now, I don’t expect you or anyone else to feel bad for these guys, after all, they will eventually get paid a f&*% load of money to play baseball somewhere. But, from a purely human aspect, these guys have families and other responsibilities and it is now February 2nd, and they don’t know where their home will be come April.
The Harper drama has captured all baseball, and both fans and players alike are beginning to turn. Looking at Cubs fan pages alone, the Bryce Harper argument has turned from the Cubs do or don’t need him to, I wish you’d stop posting about Harper. That’s a giant leap form just a couple months back where good Harper news was getting tons of attention from all over the internet.
I do believe that some of this turn is because fans are just plain fatigued with the entire conversation. This is the latest an offseason has ever gone, and the conversation just hasn’t changed since October. I mean, just how many times can you read an article saying Harper named his dog Wrigley, the Cubs met with Harper, the Bryant’s and Harper’s went to a concert, or the Cubs are possibly the “mystery team.”
The reason for the fatigue might also be due to the Cubs just downright rejecting any connection with the 26-year-old phenom. At the Cubs convention, Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein told all cubs fans that writing $25 million plus checks annually for players just isn’t the way to build consistent contenders. While it seemed as if the Cubs rejected the fact that they didn’t have the money, the biggest issue is successful organizations don’t consistently reach into free agency and sign the biggest star.
Which brings me back to the start…
Could this all be the Cubs way of staying “out” in the eyes of the public, but secretly lurking in the periphery. We may or may not ever know the actual Cubs interest in Harper, but I do believe at this point we would be foolish to believe it has been zero. But, I’m unsure if the majority of fans even care at this point.
