Interestingly and surprisingly, Machado has signed before Bryce Harper.
Machado, a four-time all-star and two-time gold glove winner, slashes .282/.335/.487 for his career averaging 31 homers and 90 RBIs. Last season, Machado was traded from the Orioles to the Dodgers and it .297 with 37 homers and 107 RBIs. Machado finished top-five in the AL MVP voting in 2015 and 2016.
Machado, however, does come with baggage.
After questionable effort in his attempt to run to first base on a groundball during Game 2 of the NLCS this past season, Machado made headlines when he told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic that while there was no excuse for not sprinting to first base, he would never be a “Johnny Hustle” because that wasn’t “his cup of tea."
Phillies fans were rubbed the wrong way by the comment and general manager Matt Klentak talked about it on November 1st.
“It got my attention,” Klentak admitted on 94WIP. “There was a bright spotlight on Manny this postseason and the one thing that we can’t lose sight of is this guy is really good and he had some big hits and made some big plays in the postseason too. But, I mean, that stuff matters. I talked about this a lot this year and in my post-season press conference—perception does matter. And we want to make sure that we put a team on the field that our fans can relate to and our fans are proud of.”
It's time for the Phillies to wrap up the Harper deal now.