Scott Boras may have viewed the Nationals' reported 10-year, $300 million offer to Bryce Harper as merely a starting point, but it sounds like the team is already done negotiating.
Principal owner Mark Lerner indicated to 106.7 The Fan in an interview Friday that the team has moved on from the free-agent slugger after making a monster offer on the final day of the regular season.
"Well, when we met with them and we gave them the offer, we told them, 'This is the best we can do.' We went right to the finish line very quickly," Lerner said. "And we said, 'If this is of interest to you, please come back to us and we'll see whether we can finish it up.' But we just couldn't afford to put more than that in and still be able to put a team together that had a chance to win the NL East or go farther than that."
#Nats owner Mark Lerner speaks with a sense of finality about Bryce Harper. Of their offer to him, Lerner tells @1067theFan, "We told them, 'This is the best we can do.'" https://t.co/N2H95YTI74
— 106.7 The Fan (@1067theFan) December 7, 2018
Lerner spoke the same day the Nationals introduced Patrick Corbin, who agreed to a reported six-year, $140 million contract to join Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg atop a formidable rotation.
With Corbin now on the books and other moves potentially coming down the pipe with the winter meetings approaching next week, Lerner said the Nationals likely wouldn't be in a position to accommodate Harper on their original offer even if he suddenly decided to take it — not that he expects that to happen.
"We'll have to sit down and figure it out," Lerner told the station. "If he comes back, it's a strong possibility that we won't be able to make it work. But I really don't expect him to come back at this point. I think they've decided to move on. There's just too much money out there that he'd be leaving on the table. That's just not Mr. Boras' MO to leave money on the table."
Harper and Manny Machado are the top two players on the open market and both could land deals worth at least $300 million — a total that limits the pool of suitors for each player. At this point, it appears increasingly unlikely the Nationals will be in the mix.
