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New Giants Book Reveals Why Bryce Harper Landed Elsewhere in Free Agency
Jul 5, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies first base Bryce Harper (3) before the first pitch against the Cincinnati Reds at Citizens Bank Park. Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

After the 2018 season, there were two clear cut top of the market players in free agency in Manny Machado and Bryce Harper.

The San Francisco Giants had been hunting for their big free agent star in the years prior, trying to acquire Zack Greinke, Jon Lester and Giancarlo Stanton to no avail. Heading into the offseason, the Giants were preparing to go hard after Bryce Harper.

At the time, Harper was a once in a generation free agent. He would be 26 in his first year with his new team and was coming off a season in which he hit 34 homers and 100 RBI. A future Hall of Famer, every team was going to be vying for his services.

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In the end, it came down to the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants, with Harper choosing the Phillies.

NBC Sports Bay Area's Alex Pavlovic released a book titled "The Franchise: San Francisco Giants: A Curated History of the Orange and Black." In the book, the author outlines what caused Harper to choose Philadelphia over San Francisco in a snippet released for free.

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Publicly, the two time MVP has talked about one reason why he ended up signing with the Phillies.

"I really didn't want to play out West. It's a little close to Vegas... stuff like that mattered," he told the Washington Post in 2019.

According to Pavlovic, the Giants were late to the party. Owner Larry Baer, then president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and then-manager Bruce Bochy met with Harper in Las Vegas in 2019. Evidently, Harper had interest in playing for the four-time World Series champion manager. The only issue was his long term future with the team.

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"We had a great meeting... I think that was the thing that scared me the most," Harper said, referring to the future of San Francisco without Bochy.

Harper's decision truly was a last-minute decision, according to Pavlovic's timeline. The eight-time All-Star called Brandon Crawford to ask about the next step in San Francisco after Bochy's departure, but nobody knew at that point. This seemingly made his decision for him, as he signed with Philadelphia the next day.

The Giants did find their Bochy replacement, and it wound up being Harper's first manager with the Phillies, Gabe Kapler.

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"It came down to Philadelphia or San Francisco, and I just felt that for me and my family, it felt right that we were going to go to Philadelphia," Harper said.

Missing out on Harper stung for a long time among Giants fans. He's already won an MVP and had a legendary playoff run. All in all, it seems that San Francisco was close, but Harper's mind was already made up. Aside from Carlos Correa, it was the most public chase for a player, and now there is even more context as to why he is not a Giant.

For more Giants news, head over to Giants On SI.


This article first appeared on San Francisco Giants on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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