Is this the year when the good times finally end for the Philadelphia Phillies? Probably not. They've got stars all over the damn place, and to judge from years of vitriol you have to assume that by jettisoning Nick Castellanos, the Phillies have banked another 20 wins, easily. The loss of Ranger Suárez stings, I'm sure, but the Phillies still go at least six deep in trustworthy starting pitchers. Barring several disasters, the Phillies will contend for the crown of the punishing NL East.
Still, at the start of spring training, this does not quite seem like the happy bunch of years past. Even if Castellanos's teammates are largely glad to be rid of his Bluetooth speaker and dugout brewskis, the circumstances of his departure are grody, and hint at a clubhouse culture vulnerable to idiosyncrasy and maybe a little pricklier and less relenting than you'd expect, given a team aesthetic that suggests a state university's very least reputable fraternity. Then there was the unexpected and somewhat ill-advised commentary of team president Dave Dombrowski, who pondered aloud in October whether Bryce Harper can be an elite player down the back stretch of the 13-year contract he signed with the club back in 2019. Harper had a down year in 2025, but only by his own standards: Despite struggling with a wrist injury, Harper finished in the league's 89th percentile in batting value, per Statcast. Dombrowski turned contemplative at the team's end-of-season presser, and seemed to express some doubt about Harper's value and longevity.
"In Bryce's case, of course he's still a quality player, he's still an All Star-caliber player. He didn't have an elite season as he's had in the past, and I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or he continues to be good," said Dombrowski, in response to what turned out to be a very good prompt to explain how he evaluates Harper's 2025 performance and sets expectations for his star first-baseman's future. "It's not like he's—if you say to me, I look around the league, I was trying to think: Freddie Freeman. That's a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. So that's nothing negative, because Freddie is a tremendous player, and that to me is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don't really know that answer. And really he's the one that will dictate that, more than anything else, is what it comes down to.
"I don't think he's content with the year that he had, and again it wasn't a bad year. But when I think of Bryce Harper, you're thinking elite, you're thinking one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don't think it fit into that category. But again: Very good player. I have no idea, when you see somebody—I've seen guys at his age—again, he's not old—that level off, or I've seen guys rise again. We'll see what happens."
Harper bristled at this. Some enterprising wise-ass made a long-sleeved T-shirt that read "Not Elite" across the front, and in December Harper posted a short video to TikTok showing himself wearing the shirt while taking batting practice in an otherwise empty facility. Harper was finally asked about all this Sunday, at Phillies spring training, and it's clear that he's still feeling stung.
"I don't get motivated by that kind of stuff," said Harper, turning down a softball opportunity to put a positive spin on Dombrowski's comments. "For me it was kind of wild, the whole situation, of that happening. I think the big thing for me was when we first met with this organization, it was, 'Hey, you know, we're always going to keep things in-house, and we expect you to do the same thing.' And so, when that didn't happen, it kind of took me for a run, a little bit. It's kind of a wild situation, that even happening. Obviously I didn't have the year that I wanted, obviously I didn't have the postseason that I wanted, my numbers weren't where they needed to be. I know that.
"I don't need to be motivated to be great in my career or anything else. That's just not a motivating factor for me. For Dave to come out and say those things, it's kind of wild to me, still."
Dombrowski's comments aren't what I tend to think of as in the category of subjects—interpersonal friction, off-field disciplinary matters, a player allegedly sleeping with another player's mother—that a team might reasonably consider private. But that doesn't mean that Harper's hurt feelings weren't foreseeable, and Dombrowski was certainly boobish to risk embarrassing an important player when he could've just as easily said, Bryce had a down year, but he's a professional and I know he's working as hard as ever to get back to his elite best, boilerplate junk that nevertheless manages to be honest about facts in evidence. For that matter, I'm sure Dombrowski wishes he had not dished stray shots at poor Freddie Freeman, just days before Freeman socked an all-timer of a walk-off dinger on the game's biggest stage.
Adhering somewhat pointedly to the agreed-upon standard of privacy, Harper declined to say whether he and Dombrowski have met in person to discuss the recent unpleasantness. "I just think the conclusion is, we keep things in-house," said Harper, who in his laser-focused quest to return to elite status this season has replaced all of his blood with laser'd blood, and also subjected his flesh to what appeared to be some sort of body envelope of lasers. "My locker is always open for them to come and talk to me, and vice versa. It is what it is, right now."
