Bryce Harper and Trea Turner spent most of the 2022 season publicly flirting ahead of the latter's first trip into free agency.
And then on the first day of the MLB Winter Meetings, Harper received a phone call from Philadelphia Phillies managing partner John Middleton with good news.
"Yeah, John called me and said 'Hey, we got your friend!'
"And I went, 'You gotta be kidding me right now?!'"
Harper and Turner were previously teammates on the Washington Nationals from 2015-2018, but in the time since, Turner has gone from one of the best-kept secrets in baseball to one of the most complete players that the sport has to offer.
Since the start of the 2019 season, Turner leads baseball with 106 stolen bases, and is second among all qualified players in terms of hits (622) and WAR (20.1), per FanGraphs.
Over the lifetime of his 11-year/$300 million deal, Phillies fans will grow to love Turner, according to Harper.
"I'm really excited," Harper went on to say. "Trea is such an unbelievable player. I'm really excited to have him on our side. He's a dynamic player, he's a threat on both sides of the ball. He's gonna steal bags for us, he's gonna take the extra base. He plays the game hard. People in Philadelphia are gonna love this guy just because of his demeanor and the way he plays. He plays through injuries ... he plays hard ... he never wavers ... just a lot of fun to be able to have him back on my team -- on our team -- and to be able to see him play from our dugout is gonna be a lot of fun."
Harper will be out at the start of the season as he continues to recover from Tommy John surgery. But it increasingly looks like Turner and Kyle Schwarber will hit at the top of Rob Thomson's lineup to open the season, and whenever it is that Harper returns, the Phillies may very well have the deepest lineup in baseball.
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