MLB rumors: If Yankees want to give Bryce Harper a ‘lifetime’ contract, here’s how much it could cost

Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper and Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Manny Machado headline MLB free agency. Both players are expected to get contracts in excess of $300 million, with deep-pocketed teams like the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies in the running. How much should general manager Brian Cashman expect to pay if he wants to sign Harper?

Free agent outfielder Bryce Harper is going to get paid. A lot. There’s no doubt about that. It’s just a matter of how much his next contract will be worth.

With deep-pocketed teams like the Yankees and Phillies considering Harper, we know his contract will be ridiculous.

His agent, Scott Boras, is said to be using Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s 13-year, $325-million contract extension that he signed with the Miami Marlins in November 2014 as the baseline for Harper’s deal.

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SI’s Emma Baccellieri projects what a “lifetime” contract for Harper could cost:

Here’s the contract that’s been discussed as a possibility since his brilliant rookie season–big-money, long-term, market-shifting, record-setting. Harper’s long been expected as a contender to ink the first $400-million deal in baseball history, but, hey, $500 million was being thrown out there for a while, too. Think back to that set of players with 20.0 WAR and a 125 OPS+ in their first seven seasons. Albert Pujols holds down the top spot there, with 54.9 WAR–Trout ended up a few decimal points behind him–and Harper might sign a contract much like the one that he signed in 2012. The Angels inked Pujols to a 10-year, $240-million contract, just the third deal at the time ever to top $200 million. In 2018, a mere mention of that contract can be enough to send a shudder down a cost-conscious spine. Pujols’ production has collapsed since he signed, and his contract feels, more than anything, like a glaring warning of the risks that a team can face in free agency.

But Pujols’ outcome is, of course, far from the only one. Robinson Cano–29.3 WAR in his first seven seasons, slightly above Harper–signed for the same terms in 2013: 10 years, $240 million, with the Seattle Mariners. Now halfway through that deal, he’s continued to perform at a relatively high level, albeit with the expected effects of age and the ugly spotlight of a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. It’s hard to say just how this one will look when all is said and done–the last half of the deal was always going to be rougher than the first half, to be sure–but so far, Cano’s done his fair share to live up to the deal’s standards, insofar as anyone can live up to $240 million. He’s been Seattle’s best player since he arrived, even if he hasn’t been able to help them break their playoff drought.

But there’s a crucial difference between Pujols’ cautionary tale and Cano’s question mark, and Harper’s potential future. Pujols was 31 when he signed his lifetime deal; Cano was 30. Harper is 26. His peak performance is theoretically still ahead of him, with a hitter’s prime generally projected to be somewhere from 26 to 28. If a team’s ready to give him, say, $350 million for 10 years–they won’t be paying just for the back-half of the aging curve. They’ll have his projected peak, too, which means that this edition of the lifetime deal would be more likely to pay off, and, in turn, means that it’s more likely to happen, in the first place.

Mike Rosenstein may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @rosenstein73. Find NJ.com on Facebook.