Praise for Phillies rival? A harbinger of dispute to come originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Sunday turned into something close to a Bryce Harper tell-all.
He called Dave Dombrowski’s “not elite” comment “wild” three different times. He talked about the World Baseball Classic. And when he was asked how the Phillies stack up against the sport’s top tier, he didn’t pivot to Philadelphia’s roster.
He pivoted to the Dodgers.
“I love what the Dodgers do, obviously. They pay the money. They spend the money,” Harper said. “They’re a great team. They understand how to run their team like a business and they run it the right way. They understand where they need to put their money into.”
On its face, it’s jarring. The Dodgers are the team that sent the Phillies home last October. Harper praising them, publicly, in February, isn’t what you’d expect.
But the context matters.
The Dodgers are in a rare spot financially. They’re owned by Guggenheim Baseball Management, led by Mark Walter, and backed by a deep-pocketed group that has allowed Los Angeles to operate in ways most clubs simply can’t. That advantage shows up not only in who they sign, but how they structure deals — especially through deferrals.
It started with Shohei Ohtani ahead of the 2024 season. His 10-year, $700 million contract included nearly a 97 percent deferral. Ohtani would make $20 million total over the next 10 seasons — a $2 million average annual value — with $680 million paid out over 10 years after the contract ends.
They didn’t stop there.
In addition to earlier deals with Freddie Freeman ($27 million AAV) and Mookie Betts ($30.4 million AAV), the Dodgers were able to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million deal without any deferrals.
They also used deferrals elsewhere — $50 million to Will Smith in his 10-year, $140 million deal, $25 million to Tommy Edman on a five-year agreement and $21 million to Tanner Scott over four years — which allowed them to keep pushing obligations forward and remain aggressive.
After another World Series title, the Dodgers kept going. They signed closer Edwin Díaz to a three-year, $69 million deal with $13.5 million deferred and outfielder Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract with $30 million deferred.
That’s a lot of numbers. It’s also the point.
Those structures are a major reason the Dodgers can keep adding while maintaining depth. And it’s exactly why the sport is drifting toward another labor fight.
For years, owners have preferred a salary cap over the current luxury-tax-only system. The competitive balance tax penalizes teams for spending over the threshold, but it doesn’t penalize teams for staying far below it. In 2026, the threshold sits at $244 million.
Only six teams are above it entering the season. The Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays, Phillies and Braves.
A third of the league doesn’t spend half of that payroll mark.
For the Dodgers, that tax isn’t a deterrent. Their ownership group can absorb the 110 percent penalty on every dollar over the threshold, and deferrals soften the annual hit even further.
From the players’ side, a cap is a non-starter. The Major League Baseball Players Association wants a salary floor instead, forcing more teams to spend rather than restricting the teams that already do.
That’s where the comments from stars come in.
It’s difficult to believe that these prominent players weren’t fed talking points by the MLBPA, even when it involves praising a rival. Harper handled it in a measured manner, while Manny Machado did not.
“I f—ing love it,” Machado said Sunday. “Every team should be doing it. That s— is f—ing great for the game. I think every team has the ability to do it. I hope all 30 teams learn from that.”
Harper and Machado occupy a similar place in the sport. They’re established stars with influence in clubhouses and in the union. They’re also among the highest-paid players in baseball, both signing 10-plus-year, $300 million-plus deals during the 2018–19 offseason.
That’s where the disconnect lives.
They aren’t a clean proxy for the majority of the league, which is built on younger players who are pre-arbitration or arbitration eligible and still years away from free agency.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026. A cap-versus-floor debate isn’t something that resolves cleanly or quickly. Even getting frameworks in place could wipe out Spring Training and bleed into the 2027 regular season.
News that broke Tuesday morning adds an extra wrinkle to this presumed conundrum.
Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLBPA and a 15-year big leaguer, resigned after an internal investigation revealed an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, according to ESPN. It’s not a great look for the players’ side at a time when credibility matters, but it shouldn’t alter the broader outlook of what’s coming.
In a statement released by the Players Association, the union emphasized its focus moving forward.
“The strength of this union is – and will always be – the solidarity of our membership,” the statement read. “We have a long history of fighting for the rights of every Player, and we’re committed to making sure we can continue that fight successfully.”
Per ESPN, player leaders are expected to vote on an interim executive director as soon as Wednesday.
So, was Harper intentionally avoiding praise for the Phillies? Maybe. Maybe not. But the subtext was hard to miss.
He wasn’t just talking about the Dodgers.
He was talking about what they represent — and what the rest of the sport is about to argue over.