The Philadelphia Phillies landed the biggest prize of the offseason on Thursday, and manager Gabe Kapler didn’t even hear the news from his bosses.
Word of Bryce Harper’s 13-year, $330 million deal with the Phillies was apparently widely reported on social media before team executives informed the organization about it. When asked about the addition of Harper, Kapler said he found out about it from fans who were sitting behind the dugout at the Phillies’ spring training facility in Florida.
Gabe Kapler said he learned about the Bryce Harper deal from #Phillies fans sitting behind the their dugout at Spectrum Field and reading tweets about the terms, etc.
— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) February 28, 2019
Finding out through fans (who found out from Twitter) about signing one of the best players in baseball is a lot better than getting bad news that way, which is something we have seen happen plenty of times. The reality is that teams oftentimes have to wait until the last second to spread the word about contracts or trades for negotiation purposes, and by that time there has usually been a leak. Whatever the case, we’re sure Kapler didn’t mind.
