Bryce Harper felt “hurt” after Dave Dombrowski’s Phillies comments

Bryce Harper was “deeply hurt” by comments made by Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski Made last week He wonders if the star can become elite again.

Harper The athlete said In a story published on Saturday, he said he had shown “total commitment to my team, yet there is still trade talk.”

“I did my best to avoid it,” Harper, 33, told the outlet. “That’s all I heard in D.C. (with the national team). I hated it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Dombrowski said The Post’s Jon Heyman That Philadelphia will not trade Harper, although Harper told The Athletic that he has not heard from Dombrowski or managing partner John Middleton since The Phillies were eliminated by the Dodgers in the National League Series earlier this month.

Heyman reported earlier in the week that Harper was “angry” about the situation, and based on his comments days later, it appears that was indeed the case.

Harper hit .261 with an .844 OPS — his worst marks since 2019 and 2016, respectively — during the 2025 campaign, and while Dombrowski didn’t question the fact that Harper is still a star in his season-ending press conference, he did wonder if he could rediscover the form that allowed him to win multiple MVP awards.

“Can he step up to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer,” Dombrowski said at the time. “And really, he’s the one that’s going to dictate that more than anything else, and that’s what it’s going to come down to.” I don’t think he’s satisfied with the year he had, and again, it wasn’t a bad year.

“But when I think about Bryce Harper, you think elite, right? You think about one of the 10 best players in baseball, and I don’t think he fits into that category. But again, a very good player.”

Harper, who has six years and nearly $153 million remaining in a 13-year deal that took him from the Nationals to the Phillies after the 2018 season, also missed 30 games this year with a wrist injury.

“All the players are getting hurt,” Harper told The Athletic on Saturday. “I injured my wrist this year and missed a month. Of course I don’t have the numbers for the whole year. “It’s disappointing to hear me being questioned about my contribution to the team. I was really hurt by this idea because I love Philadelphia so much.

Harper said that although he was “advised otherwise,” he does not have the option to opt out of his contract and wants to remain in Philadelphia.

But Dombrowski’s comments added a strange twist to what will already be a crucial season for the Phillies, who have made plenty of postseason runs with their current core but have been unable to snap a World Series drought dating back to 2008.

Kyle Schwarber and JT Realmuto will both be free agents, and Dombrowski’s comments initially sounded as if he was wondering which version of Harper the Phillies could count on acquiring next year as well.