TAMPA, Fla. -- Bryce Harper and Manny Machado will play in different cities over the next 20 months, for different teams, manning different positions in different leagues. But all the while, they will be competing against each other directly, just as if they were faced off in a one-on-one pickup game for positioning in the free-agent market of 2018.
Whether they are cognizant of the clash or not, they will be vying for the attention of baseball evaluators who have to formulate contract offers and the billionaires who employ those baseball executives. A Machado web gem has the potential to carve out emotional space in the imagination of potential suitors, and a Harper home run could become embedded in the mind of an executive dreaming of a franchise star.