Harper really worth $330 million? Really? Really?!?!???

The news came down this afternoon that the Philadelphia Phillies signed Bryce Harper for 13 years and an astounding $330 million has sent shockwaves through the entire world of sports.

It’s a contract that just doesn’t make any sense. I understand that Harper is only 26 years old and the majority of his career is obviously ahead of him. I also understand that he has star quality and gets treated like a superstar.

But is Harper that good? Good enough to get the biggest contract in the history of professional sports?

The answer is simple: Hell no.

Here’s proof. As they say, numbers don’t lie, especially when it comes to baseball statistics.

2012: .270 batting average with 22 HR and 59 RBI, but was named the National League Rookie of the Year.

2013: .274 batting average with 20 HR and 58 RBI

2014: .273 with 13 HR and 32 RBI

2015: breakout MVP season, where he batted .330 with 42 HR, 99 RBI, a league best 118 runs scored, .460 on base percentage and .649 slugging percentage.

2016: .243 with 24 HR and 86 RBI

2017: .319 with 29 HR and 87 RBI

2018: .249 with 34 HR and 100 RBI

For Harper’s seven-year MLB career, he’s managed a .279 career batting average with 184 homers and 521 RBI.

Now, are those numbers deserving of that contract he signed today? There’s no way anyone could admit to that, even the most loyal of phucking Phillies phans.

Today’s contract makes you wonder. If Bryce Harper can wrangle out a deal like that, then what in God’s holy name is a player like Mike Trout worth? Or Mookie Betts? Francisco Lindor? You get the drift. 

You might as well just load up the armored cars with cash and back them into the driveways of those guys’ homes. I can’t even begin to fathom the contract that Trout could command. I know one thing’s for sure. It would have a whole mess of zeroes at the end of the total.

And of course, the so-called geniuses that have nothing better to do than complain about what the Mets do or don’t do were at full force on the call-in radio stations today, lambasting new Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen  for not making a solid offer to Harper and for allowing the Phillies to sign him.

Like this signing was the end of the world for the Mets. How could the Mets let Harper go? How could the Mets be so stupid to let him go to the Phillies? The Mets were being cheap once again.

On and on, the complaints rained down, much like they did when the Mets didn’t re-sign Daniel Murphy.

I wasn’t so livid as most when the Mets let Murphy walk. He had a great playoff run for the Mets in 2015, helping the orange and blue bring home their fifth National League pennant. But Murphy was basically a flawed position player with bad baseball instincts. No one could have ever predicted that Murphy would become such a dominant hitter, not even the Nationals who signed him.

But in this case, not making a legitimate offer to Harper, I say “Bravo.” In fact, I might have to set off Roman candles and skyrockets in celebration, because he’s perhaps the most overrated baseball player of my lifetime. There isn’t an aspect to the game of baseball that Bryce Harper is excellent at, except for taking off his batting helmet and tossing his head back so his hair doesn’t get all sloppy.

Bryce Harper might make the Phillies slightly better. And I say slightly. I don’t think he makes them 330 million times better, that’s for sure.

Can Harper hit 50 homers there? Potentially, there’s a chance, if he stays healthy. But that’s a big if, because in his seven-year career, he’s made nine trips to the disabled list. His only two injury-free years were 2015 and last year.

Let’s see what happens. I could be wrong. Hell, I could be wrong. As everyone who knows me well enough to know one fact about me – I’m wrong and I’m wrong a lot.

So let’s see if I’m wrong about the Mets, about Harper, about everything. Right now, I think it’s a signing that will help the Phillies sell a lot more tickets, a signing that will fuel the fire of the feud between the Nats and Phils and will do nothing to help the causes of the top teams in the NL East. The Mets had done a good enough job improving the team overall before sticking their toes into the waters of the shark infested Bryce Harper ocean.

In closing, it’s an insanely ridiculous contract, overpaying for a player who has been more hype than production. And now he gets a chance to produce more hype in the City of Brotherly Love for the next 13 years. With $330 million, he can buy a ton of Pat’s Cheesesteaks, perhaps one for every strikeout he registers over the next 13 years.

The other piece of sports news that came down Thursday was a little less powerful, but still a bit noteworthy.

Jason Witten, without question one of the best tight ends to ever play pro football and a sure-fire lock to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton sometime whenever his playing days are done, delayed that inevitable a little longer when he announced that he was leaving the safe comforts of the Monday Night Football booth to make a return to the Dallas Cowboys for the 2019 season, signing a one-year contract worth $3.5 million that could increase to $5 million with incentives.

“The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong,” Witten said in a statement released by the Cowboys. “This team has a great group of rising young stars, and I want to help them make a run at a championship. This was completely my decision, and I am very comfortable with it. I’m looking forward to getting back in the dirt.”

Witten, who will turn 37 years old in May, will come back to the Cowboys after sitting out the entire 2018 campaign, a year where he made a complete mess of himself in the broadcast booth, helping to turn one of the most reputable and respected broadcasts in all of pro sports into a total laughingstock.

Almost on a weekly basis, Witten was caught with his pants down, being so totally unprepared, firing off mixed metaphors and malaprops with the same level of ferocity that he did as a dominant pass catcher.

Witten caught 1,152 passes for 12,448 yards and 68 touchdowns during his 15-year career. He ranks fourth all-time in pass receptions and was named to the Pro Bowl team 11 times. Four times, Witten went over 1,000 yards in receiving yardage and four times, he caught enough 90 or more receptions.  In 2012, Witten caught an astounding 110 passes for 1,029 yards, earning overall All-Pro honors. No one will ever question his talents on the field.

But without any prior training or announcing experience, Witten was so totally overmatched. The pairing of former players Witten and Booger McFarland with veteran ESPN announcer Joe Tessitore was a disgrace, with McFarland sitting on a elevated cart that moved along the sideline and Witten offering up comments from the booth that rarely made sense to football fans and novice football followers alike.

In fact, some media pundits and columnists were already predicting Witten’s demise from the MNF broadcast team with some reports hinting ESPN trying to lure Peyton Manning into the fold (even though the elder brother has vowed his intentions of staying away from broadcasting while Eli was still playing for the Giants).

Perhaps Witten saw the handwriting on the wall about his status with the MNF crew and decided to jump the gun a little by making a comeback before ESPN dropped the bomb on him.

It’s going to be extremely difficult for Witten to make a comeback at his age, especially after sitting out an entire year away from the constant hitting and pounding an NFL tight end has to endure. Witten knows it’s a challenge, but he’s ready to take on the challenge the same way he jumped into the broadcast booth last year. We will have to see if the comeback will be a successful one – something that was obviously not the case with his short-lived broadcasting stint.

You can read more of my work at www.hudsonreporter.com or www.theobserver.com and you can follow me on Twitter @ogsmar.