By Matt Rappa, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Just 54 days remain until Opening Day. Sooner or later, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado will have to sign.
Only a select, few teams have met and offered contracts to either superstar free agent, with the Philadelphia Phillies being involved in discussions for both.
The Phillies have reportedly already offered Machado at least two contracts, but had not yet been reported to have submitted an offer to Harper, a six-time All-Star and 2015 Most Valuable Player — until Saturday.
Joining Bruce Levine and Matt Spiegel on Chicago's The 670 Score, The Athletic's Jim Bowden discussed both free agents, particularly Harper, who rejected a 10-year and "well over" $300 million offer to return to the Washington Nationals earlier this offseason.
Bowden said he does not know if the Nationals’ offer is still on the table, and that he has reached out to the club, but has "not gotten a response back if it’s still there."
"I do know that they had 10 years and well over $300 million on the table, which was not accepted. I know that as a fact," Bowden said. "I don’t know if [Harper has] another offer of that level, and if they do, it’s from the Phillies.
"They’re not telling people what their offer on the table is, but I would think they’re somewhat close to that."
Both Harper and Machado have recently met with the San Diego Padres, a team which has had just one .500 season or better since the start of the 2008 season. Bowden said on The 670 Score that it is "fascinating" and "ridiculously absurd" that the market is "so bad" that both free agents agreed to meet with the club.
"I give credit to the Padres. They’re looking at this market and they have a roster filled with non-arbitration-eligible players. They clearly could afford either one of these guys if they wanted to go down that road," Bowden said. "The revenue says they can. I give them credit and I hope that a team like the Padres come out of nowhere and are able to land one of them.
"I think it would send a loud statement to the rest of the teams."
Bowden said in the interview he thinks Harper will get a 10-year deal, but is not as sure that Machado will. "I think Machado is only going to get eight years when it’s all said and done," he said
The MLB offseason has been considerably slow. Bowden said he thinks clubs are "smarter now than they’ve ever been," and are "not giving out as many bad contracts as they used to."
"They’re not giving out multi-year deals for mediocre players, and they’re not overpaying mediocre players. I think, from the club’s perspective, it’s never been better.
I think the one area that doesn’t make sense, to me, is when you get a couple of 26-year-old superstars like Harper and Machado, but those two players only have a handful of teams legitimately make legitimate offers. To me, that’s embracing and a disgrace because there’s so many teams that can afford those players.”
With spring training near and the season to follow not long after, the standoff among Harper, Machado, their agents and interested teams will have to end sooner or later. Now, we know at least, that the Phillies are in fact "in" on trying to acquire Harper, given their substantial offer.
