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Bryce Harper contract pushes Phillies to No. 6 in payroll standings | Extra Innings

Also, a look at the history of the Phillies' No. 3 uniform and links to all our coverage.

Bryce Harper tossing his bats after batting practice Sunday.
Bryce Harper tossing his bats after batting practice Sunday.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

The Phillies’ Grapefruit League schedule sent them on the road over the weekend, but Spectrum Field was still the place to be in Florida.

The team staged the introductory Bryce Harper news conference on top of the first-base dugout Saturday, and if the six-time All-Star performs as well on the field as he did after donning his red, pinstripe No. 3 jersey for the first time, the Phillies and their fans are about to embark on a 13-year thrill ride. My favorite Harper tale was how Phillies stadium employees performed the task of tampering while he was still with the Washington Nationals.

“It’s pretty amazing how many tenured Philly people that work with the team are part of the organization for a long period of time,” Harper said. “Every time I came to Citizens Bank, I felt that. If it was me getting into the elevator and talking to those guys or when we walked into the visitors’ side and talking to Butch ... one of the security guys. They were always saying, ‘Come to Philly! Play here! Be a part of our team!’ And that goes a long way. You felt the love, the intent and the pureness in people that come to the ballpark every day.

“Of course, the first six years of my career in Philly, the people behind me weren’t very nice. But I expected that and I loved that. And last year, they were all super nice, saying ‘Come to Philly. Do this. Do that.’ So that was a lot of fun to hear that as well. And hearing Jayson Werth talk about it. Jimmy Rollins, all the guys that have had great success in Philly talk about what a great city it is. It’s an amazing city to be a part of, and I’m excited to get going."

His only gaffe came near the end of the news conference when he said he wanted to bring a title back to D.C., a misspoken reference to his former home in Washington. He said Sunday that his wife, Kayla, pointed out the mistake to him.

You’re signed up to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday during the Phillies season and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings during spring training. If you like what you’re reading, tell your friends it’s free to sign up here. I want to know what you think, what we should add, and what you want to read, so send me feedback by email or on Twitter @brookob. Thank you for reading.

— Bob Brookover (extrainnings@philly.com)

Phillies back among the top payrolls

The signing of Bryce Harper pushed the Phillies from 13th to sixth on the Cot’s Baseball Contracts tax tracker list, which figures out how far a team is away from exceeding the competitive tax balance of $206 million. Harper’s 13-year deal worth $330 million will count a little less than $25.4 million per year against the Phillies’ tax number, which is based on the average annual value of a deal.

The Phillies, according to the Cot’s calculations, are still $18 million under the tax threshold. That leaves them a lot of flexibility if they want to add a player at the trade deadline, but if they want to remain under the threshold this season, it probably takes them out of the running for a pitcher such as Dallas Keuchel or Craig Kimbrel.

It will be interesting to see if owner John Middleton and the Buck family are willing to go over that tax threshold one day. Harper, of course, has already applied some pressure with his thinly veiled reference to Mike Trout’s free agency that is only two years away.

While the Phillies are sixth on the tax tracker list, they will likely be listed lower on lists that strictly track payrolls by the season. Spotrac.com, for example, lists the Phillies payroll at No. 13 in baseball, but that’s because of the way it has counted Harper’s salary for 2019.

Regardless, the narrative that sometimes arises about the Phillies’ being cheap can be laid to rest once again. Their payroll dipped during the rebuild, and now it’s headed north again. It will be fascinating to see just how far it goes.

The rundown

We are all waiting for Bryce Harper to make his spring-training debut, and manager Gabe Kapler indicated Sunday that he will use his star outfielder as a designated hitter Saturday at Spectrum Field against the Toronto Blue Jays. Harper will face live pitching at the Phillies’ Carpenter Complex practice facility ahead of Saturday’s game.

It has been difficult to remember that not everything is about Harper in this spring training and that the star outfielder cannot take this team to the postseason on his own. Pitching is still the key for the Phillies, and in that regard, Jake Arrieta got off to a terrific Grapefruit League start Sunday by delivering three perfect innings with four strikeouts against the Minnesota Twins in Fort Myers, Fla. Afterward, he said he believes the Phillies have enough starting pitching to reach the postseason.

Go here if you just like looking at the pictures. The great Yong Kim’s photo gallery of Harper’s first workout is brilliant.

No one on the Phillies roster was more impacted by Harper’s signing than Nick Williams, because it meant he went from the regular right fielder to a bench player possibly on the trading block. He insisted he is not worried about it.

The great thing about the internet and our Extra Inning newsletter is that, if you missed reading the Sunday Inquirer, you get a second chance to read our lineup of great stories here. Batting leadoff in our Sunday package was a terrific Scott Lauber story about how the deal with Harper came together. We already knew that owner John Middleton and his Bombardier Challenger with the red 'P' played a role, but here are the rest of the details.

Our Matt Breen set the scene at Harper’s introductory news conference and explained why the left-handed slugger was so attracted to Philadelphia and the Phillies.

Harper likely won over even more Phillies fans, not to mention Roy Halladay’s family, with his decision to not retain the No. 34 he wore with the Washington Nationals. It was his tribute to the Hall of Fame pitcher.

We’d like to tell you that Harper’s No. 3 jersey sold like hotcakes after becoming available over the weekend, but we’re pretty sure hotcakes never sold this well.

I tried to have some fun with the Harper signing by traveling in time to 2031, the final year of the outfielder’s 13-year contract.

Our columnist Mike Sielski, on the other hand, went back in time to tell us about the year Julius Erving joined the 76ers from the New York Nets at the height of his career. Like Harper, Erving was 26 at the time.

Important dates

Saturday: Bryce Harper is scheduled to be the DH in his first spring-training game, against Toronto at Spectrum Field, 1:05 p.m.

March 19: Phillies are scheduled to play Houston in Harper’s old spring-training park in West Palm Beach, Fla.

March 25: Final spring-training game, vs. Tampa Bay at Spectrum Field, 1:05 p.m.

March 28: Season opener vs. Atlanta at Citizens Bank Park, 3:05 p.m.

April 2: Harper returns to Nationals Park, 7:05 p.m.

Stat of the day

According to baseballreference.com, Bryce Harper will become the 34th player in Phillies history to wear No. 3, which is a strange coincidence since he opted against keeping the No. 34 in deference to the late Roy Halladay. Harper has his work cut out for him if he wants to become the greatest Phillies player to wear No. 3. The number was also worn by Phillies Hall of Famer Chuck Klein, and it might have been retired had he worn it consistently throughout his 15 seasons with the team.

Again according to baseballreference.com, Klein wore No. 3 in 1932 and 1933 and again in 1942. He also wore Nos. 32, 36, 1, 26, 29 and 8 during his time with the Phillies. Three of those numbers — 32 (Steve Carlton), 36 (Robin Roberts) and 1 (Richie Ashburn) — are retired. The Phillies honor Klein, whose .935 OPS is the highest in team history, with a CK disc among the other retired numbers.

Other notable No. 3s in Phillies history include Marlon Byrd, Hunter Pence and Dale Murphy.

From the mailbag

Send questions by email or on Twitter @brookob.

Question: Do you feel that the Harper signing (and the others preceding his), help make our younger pitchers better? It seems to me that, with the questionable offense the Phils had last year, Pivetta, Velasquez, and Eflin probably “squeezed the ball” a little harder and tried to be too perfect if runners got on base, They had to be afraid that if they gave up a run or two, the offense wouldn’t be able to overcome that lead, which leads to trying to be a bit too fine. Next thing you know, they’d give up a hit or a walk and things just kind of hit a downward spiral from there.

With this lineup, they shouldn’t be as concerned about that. If they give up a run, that’s OK - just work to minimize the damage and let the offense do it’s thing. I think they go out on the mound this year with a completely different attitude. What do you think?

Thanks.

Rich B., via email

Answer: Thanks for reading, Rich, and for an excellent question. I do not doubt at all that some of the pressure is lifted from a pitching staff when a team has a lineup capable of scoring a lot of runs. It’s something we have not seen from the Phillies in quite some time.

Because the end of the last great Phillies era was more about pitching than hitting, it’s easy to forget that the 2008 title team was driven by offense. That team led the National League in home runs and was tied for second in runs scored, but its starting rotation ranked 13th in baseball with a 4.23 ERA. The 2008 Phils did have the best bullpen in the National League with a 3.22 ERA, and this year’s bullpen figures to be a good one, too.