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Bryce Harper Takes to the Batting Cage Wearing a “Not Elite” T-Shirt
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Bryce Harper posted a TikTok video on Friday in which his t-shirt says “not elite” –
@3ryceharper Eastside in my blood🥱
♬ Eastside – benny blanco & Halsey & Khalid
It’s a reference to Dave Dombrowski’s end-of-season comments, in which the Phillies’ President of Baseball Operations questioned Harper’s production and wondered if he’d ever be a tier 1 baseball player again:
“Of course, (Bryce Harper is) still a quality player. He’s still an All-Star caliber player. He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past. I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or if he continues to be good.
I look around the league. Freddie Freeman – he’s a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. Freddie’s a tremendous player. And, that to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer.
He’s the one who will dictate that more than anything else. That’s what it comes down to. I don’t think he’s content with the year that he had. And, again, it wasn’t a bad year. But when I think of Bryce Harper, you’re thinking elite, right? You’re thinking of one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don’t think it fit into that category. But, again, a very good player. I have no idea. I’ve seen guys at his age, again, he’s not old, that level off. Or I’ve seen guys rise again. We’ll see what happens.”
There was a bit of a hubbub after these comments were made, beginning with ridiculous fan and media trade speculation. That was despite the fact that Bryce has a no-trade clause and no opt out in his contract. He has six more years remaining at about $25 million AAV. But that didn’t stop numerous stories from being written about the topic, which resulted in Dombrowski telling the Foul Territory podcast he had no intention of trading Harper anyway. Bryce then went to Matt Gelb at The Athletic and told him that the trade talk was making him uncomfortable. Eventually, Dombrowski told Scott Lauber at the Inquirer that he and Harper had a nice, long talk about it.
At the time, some people theorized that Dombrowski was playing four-dimensional chess in an effort to get Harper motivated for the 2026 season. Sure enough, Harp then shows up two months later with a “not elite” t-shirt as he mauls baseballs in a cage. Funny thing about it, though, is that Harper has always been a competitor, so it seems silly to think that he’d need to be fake disrespected as a way to drum up some motivation and get back to performing like an “elite” player once again.
At the same time, Dombrowki’s comments may not even have been out of line. It’s not like Phillies fans were universally for or against the comments, because Bryce finished with an .844 OPS, his lowest regular-season number as a Phillie, before going 3-15 in the postseason. It most definitely was not an “elite” season by his standards, though he missed games in the summer with a wrist injury and was not 100% healthy throughout. Regardless, he finished with 27 homers and 75 RBI through 132 games and slashed .261/.357/.487, slugging better than everybody on the Phillies not named Kyle Schwarber. He wasn’t Aaron Judge last year, but he also wasn’t Oneil Cruz. He finished with the 22nd-best OPS in Major League Baseball despite being banged up and having a down year by his standards.
Which Bryce do we get in 2026?
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com