The Philadelphia Phillies are suddenly facing an awkward situation with first baseman Bryce Harper, who signed a 13-year contract with the club back in February 2019 and is now oddly being floated in trade speculation.

It all started when Phillies president Dave Dombrowski recently raised some eyebrows with some rather pointed comments about Harper not being an elite player any more. Now, we have people wondering of Dombrowski was essentially putting the former MVP in his place.

“I continue to wonder if the meaning is the player is unhappy with his contract and this was a kind of side glance back at, ‘I can take some shots here, too,'” Joel Sherman of The New York Post said.

Harper has six years remaining on his current deal, but at 33 years old and with declining production, it's hard to imagine that he can be all that peeved over his current status in Philadelphia, right? Sherman thinks otherwise.

“I think that this is a player that is angry about the contract he’s currently operating under,” said Sherman. “And therefore, if you trade for him, are you going to be dealing with, ‘Hey, man, you've got to redo this contract along the whole way.'”

And what would that entail? Giving Harper more money? That would be unheard of for a player in Harper's current situation.

The eight-time All-Star slashed .261/.357/.487 with 27 home runs and 75 RBI over 580 plate appearances this season. Good? Absolutely. Worth a new deal? Absolutely not.

In fact, since Harper won his MVP award in 2021, he has only hit 30 homers once since. Going a little further, Harper has not logged 100 RBI since his debut campaign in Philly back in 2019.

What we have here is an aging player who, while still good, is clearly not the force he once was. Harper registered a 1.044 OPS four years ago. Chances are, he won't be getting there again.

Will the Phillies actually trade Harper? Probably not, and ironically enough, rival teams almost certainly won't be all that thrilled to take on that contract. If anything, Philadelphia may have to eat some money on the deal in order to move him, and that probably isn't happening.

The Phillies may be stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to Harper. He is only going downhill from here, he may be frustrated and he is not all that tradeable.

This is just another layer that has been added to what was already going to be a wild offseason in the City of Brotherly Love.