David Huzzard: Pondering Bryce Harper's future

With the Nationals playing the New York Yankees, one of the big storylines was Bryce Harper playing his first games in new Yankees Stadium. This is a story because Harper grew up a Yankees fan, his favorite player is Mickey Mantle and he even wears No. 34 because three plus four equals seven, Mickey Mantle's number.

These facts lead to an assumption that when Harper becomes a free agent after the 2018 season that he is destined to become a Yankee. This assumption ignores many factors that are at play. The main one being that the Nationals have a four-year exclusive negotiation window and can't afford to lose Harper.

After the Giancarlo Stanton extension this past offseason, the price for slugging MVP candidates was set and the Nationals know what it's going to cost to keep Harper. Players in the Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen and Stanton stratosphere don't reach free agency. Or at least they get the first extension. Trout will become a free agent after his age 28 season, McCutchen after his age 31 season and Stanton has an opt-out that would allow him to be a free agent after his age 30 season. Each one of these players, like Albert Pujols and Robinson Cano, signed the first extension and still became free agents around 30 to cash in on the second contract.

What is important to any free agent to be is maximizing their value and there is no agent better than Scott Boras at getting max value for his clients. Harper is a unique client in a unique situation. He is going to be 25 when he becomes a free agent. That is a ridiculously young age for a free agent in baseball and makes him all that more valuable. If this season is any indication of what to expect from the future of Harper, then he could get $35-$40 million a year on the open market, but Boras already knows this, as do the Nationals.

Stanton's contract is the blueprint. That is the one that Boras is going to want to beat, as well as getting close to an average annual value approaching $35 million. One factor at play with Boras and Harper is that because Harper and the Nationals had a dispute over arbitration this offseason, and they negotiated a contract for 2015 and 2016, Harper is locked in for $5 million next season. If Harper had forgone arbitration this offseason like the Nationals wanted, he'd be able to opt into the arbitration process before the 2016 season and would get a heck of a lot more than $5 million.

Team-controlled years and their value are often at play when the first extension is discussed. Harper entering arbitration a year after he should be able to gives the Nationals a little added leverage in turning that $5 million into something much higher while still keeping it under the value that Harper would get as a free agent and then back-loading the deal with Harper's assumed free agent value in the years where he would be a free agent. This is how a typical first extension works and why so many of them sound like bargains. Boras and Harper may want this shorter deal that buys out a couple of free agent years, gives Harper more money up front and still allows him to become a free agent he turns 29, but it is far more likely that it will follow the exact pattern of the Stanton contract with an opt-out around the same time period. If not Harper, then Scott Boras is going to want Harper to be the highest-paid player in baseball history and that means a deal larger than Stanton's.

What came to light this week is that there are already suitors lining up for Harper. His becoming a Yankee because he was a fan of theirs when he was young is as likely as his staying a National because he currently plays here. Harper is going to play for the team that gives him the most money. Boras and Nats general manager Mike Rizzo already have some idea of what that is, and the only thing standing in the way of a deal getting done is managing principal owner Ted Lerner writing a check. But with the importance of Harper to the present and future of the Nationals, and with the fact that players of this caliber get the first extension, it's unlikely that that is any sort of real obstacle to overcome.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.