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Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper didn't take kindly to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred‘s meeting with his team last week, and apparently, things got pretty heated.
Harper stood nose-to-nose with Manfred, telling him to “get the f— out of our clubhouse” if he wanted to discuss a salary cap, according to a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan.
The confrontation happened after the commissioner met with the Phillies for more than an hour, as he tries to meet with all 30 teams during the course of the year. Harper's outburst reportedly came after Manfred discussed the league's economics, though he did not explicitly use the words “salary cap.”
Harper and Manfred both declined to speak to ESPN for the story, but Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos confirmed the conversation was “pretty intense, definitely passionate.”
“Both of 'em,” Castellanos told ESPN. “The commissioner giving it back to Bryce and Bryce giving it back to the commissioner. That's Harp. He's been doing this since he was 15 years old. It's just another day. I wasn't surprised.”
Harper and the commissioner reportedly shook hands after the confrontation, though Harper declined to answer calls from him the next day.
The meeting covered a “wide range” of topics, but CBA negotiations “loomed large.” The current CBA does not expire until after the 2026 season.
“Rob seems to be in a pretty desperate place on how important it is to get this salary cap because he's floating the word lockout two years in advance of our collective bargaining agreement (expiration),” Castellanos said. “That's nothing to throw around. That's the same thing as me saying in a marriage, ‘I think divorce is a possibility. It's probably going to happen.' You don't just say those things.”
The MLBPA, for its part, has also made itself clear on where it stands in relation to a salary cap. Executive director Tony Clark told the media during the All-Star Break that a cap would amount to “institutionalized collusion.”
“A cap is not about a partnership,” he said, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. “A cap is not about growing the game … A cap is about franchise values and profits.”
