Bryce Harper is happy to be teammates with Freddy Galvis, and it sounds as though the National League MVP candidate would have preferred the Philadelphia Phillies reunite with the veteran infielder even sooner.
In an excellent feature piece on Galvis' return to the Phillies written by Matt Gelb of The Athletic, Harper acknowledged that he believed that the two sides were a fit for each other as far back as last offseason:
“He’s going to speak up,” said Bryce Harper, who said he had Galvis on a list of players he suggested the Phillies acquire last winter. “He’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind. The presence of a guy like that can only help us.”
The Phillies did, according to Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer, check in with Galvis in free agency this past January as they pondered who would be their starting shortstop in 2021. Ultimately, the Phillies waited things out and re-signed Didi Gregorius on Feb. 10, not longer after Galvis signed with the Baltimore Orioles. Given that Gregorius has had an injury-riddled campaign and his two-year/$28 million deal doesn't appear to be aging well, the Phillies may have been better off just signing Galvis to the one-year/$1.5 million deal that he got from the Orioles.
That said, Galvis was perhaps always best suited to be a super-sub for a contending team, rather than a starting shortstop on a team with no path to winning. He can play shortstop, second base and third base, and does have some limited experience in left field. Galvis isn't going to be an on-base machine -- he never has been -- but he has pop and can serve as a defensive upgrade for Gregorius or Alec Bohm on days where a ground-ball specialist like Kyle Gibson is on the mound.
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Galvis is currently working his way back from a right quad strain, but when he's activated, he figures to play a part in the team's attempt to return to the postseason for the first time since 2011.
None of this is meant to bury the lede in this story, although we may have done that. At some point last offseason, Harper -- entering the third season of a 13-year/$330 million deal -- handed (figuratively or literally) the Phillies a list of players he'd like to see the team sign. We now know Galvis was on it, and his desire for the team to retain J.T. Realmuto was clear long before that. It's fair to speculate that Brandon Kintzler -- Harper's former Nationals teammate who made the team out of spring training but has since been released -- was probably on it too.
More important than the exact names on it is how much stock the Phillies put into his suggestions, a question that we may never know the answer to. As Harper attempts to win his second National League MVP, it will be interesting to monitor moving forward what trades and signings potentially have the endorsement of the six-time All-Star.
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