By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
If you're tired of hearing about the Philadelphia Phillies chances of signing Bryce Harper after the 2018 MLB season, it's going to be a long few years for you.
Just days after Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports pegged them as the third most likely team to sign the former National League MVP after 2018, onlinegambling.lv updated their odds pertaining to who is the most likely team to sign the outfielder when he becomes a free-agent:
Odds Harper’s next contract is with:
- Yankees: 10/3
- Dodgers: 4/1
- Nationals: 7/1
- Red Sox: 9/1
- Phillies: 10/1
This is the second consecutive year that the gambling outlet has suggested that the team's odds to sign Harper after 2018 are 10/1.
Perhaps more noteworthy are the odds on the value of the contract. They currently set the over/under for years of a deal at 12 years and the over/under for the monetary value at $450 million. Those numbers sound astronomical, but it's important to have a nuanced opinion on whether signing Trout after 2018 would make sense. If you are against allocating more than $35 million per season to one player, that's fair. But it is important to remember that Harper will be just 26 when he becomes a free-agent, meaning he should just be entering his prime and likely won't play the entirety of his deal with whatever team he elects to play with.
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In fact, onlinegambling.lv puts the odds at 1/8 for him playing the entire contract with the team he signs with. In all likelihood, Harper will follow a similar path to what Alex Rodriguez did, meaning he will sign a deal in the range of 10 years, spend his five or six best years with that team and then opt out of that deal in search of another 10-year deal at a higher value. So really, the risk in signing Harper would be after he opts out of his first deal.
If you are against signing Harper because of his high pricetag, that likely also means you aren't in favor of the team chasing Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado that winter, when he is also eligible to become a free-agent. Machado will likely get a similar amount of years and over $30 million per season.
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If you are opposed to signing either of those players, Mike Trout really wouldn't make sense for the Phillies. Trout can't be a free-agent until after 2020, so the Phillies would likely have to empty their entire farm system to trade for him, and would still end up having to give him a deal that is more expensive than Harper or Machado. Certainly, Trout has been the best player of the trio thus far, but it doesn't appear he will ever be a really logical fit for the Phillies.
