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               Ask yourself a question, do we need Bryce Harper? A year ago, Washington Nationals former superstar Bryce Harper became a free agent. This meant that his contract with the Nats was finished. He could now sign with any team he wanted. The Nationals didn’t want to let their superstar go, so they offered him a 10 year 300 million dollar (30 million a year) contract to see if he would stay in DC, but he rejected the offer. Instead, Harper was in pursuit of a 400 million dollar contract which he never ended up getting. After negotiating with different MLB teams for almost the entire offseason he finally settled for a 330 million dollar, 13 year offer. 

              Having the Nats fan favorite leaving the team was hard enough, but when he decided to sign with one of the Nationals’ rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, people to call him a traitor. At the beginning of the season everyone predicted that the Nationals were going nowhere. The Nats had done okay last season, and now without their star they would be even worse. The Nats lived up to that expectation for the first part of the season with a 19 - 31 record, one of the worst teams in the MLB. Since then, the Nats have defied expectations, and went 74 - 38 since being one of the worst teams. They then were able to make it to the wild card game. The Nats barely made it out of the wild card against the Brewers, and won the NLDS with a 10th inning grand slam against the Dodgers. After, they went to NLCS to sweep the Cardinals, and then won the World Series in 7 games! 

                The Nats have done far better than anyone expected, no thanks to Bryce Harper. So in the end was he even that important? On Bryce Harper’s side, the Philadelphia Phillies finished the season in 4th place in their division, with a 81 - 81 record. Honestly.  an 81 - 81 record is not the record that you would want when you give a player a $330,000,000 13 year contract!