Giancarlo Stanton owns the most lucrative contract in MLB history with his 13-year, $325million deal signed in 2014 and Harper could be the next to sign a record-breaking agreement.
Harper, 25, told reporters Monday he will only talk about the 2018 season and threatened to walk out of interviews if he was pressured about his plans for when his contract is up at the end of the year.
“I will not be discussing anything relative to 2019 at all,” Harper said at spring training, via ESPN.
“I’m focused on this year. I’m focused on winning and playing hard like every single year. So if you guys have any questions about anything after 2018, you can call [agent] Scott [Boras] and he can answer you guys. If you guys do talk anything about that, then I’ll be walking right out the door.”
Instead, Harper, who batted .319/.413/.595 with 29 home runs and 87 RBIs in 111 games this past season, talked about the implications of what is expected of the Nationals.
“We’re expected to win the East. We’re expected to possibly win a pennant, and we’re expected to possibly win a World Series,” he said. “As a team, I think we’re going to try to do the best we can and do everything possible to win ballgames.
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time and win the East first. Because the Mets are tough. The Braves are good. Philly, Miami, whatever. Miami plays us pretty dang well. We’ve just got to go out there, play our game and see what we can do.”
Harper and Washington agreed to a one-year, $21.65m deal for the 2018 season in May, which happened to be the largest single-year extension given to an arbitration-eligible player.
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