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Harper, Nats haven't discussed extension

The Washington Post / Getty

Stephen Strasburg's extension made one thing clear: The Washington Nationals aren't afraid to pay up.

The right-hander joined Max Scherzer as the second starter in as many years to sign a lucrative seven-year deal with Washington, which raises the question: What will the Nats do with Bryce Harper?

Both Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo and Harper's agent, Scott Boras, were non-committal. The agent. who also represents Strasburg, said he hasn't spoken to Harper about it because he isn't in the business of initiating those kinds of talks with his client.

"This is not something that Bryce Harper and I discussed," Boras told MLB Network Radio. "A lot of times in these scenarios, which is what happened with Stephen, the club approaches you, then you have a reason for discussion."

Rizzo echoed those sentiments, saying Strasburg approached management about a long-term deal that would keep him in a Nationals uniform.

"It takes two to sign a deal," he said. "I would say that the Strasburg deal was player-generated. It was a player who wanted to be here and Scott listens to his clients."

Although it might sound like Rizzo is downplaying Harper's price tag, which is expected to be the highest in the history of baseball, he didn't seem intimidated.

Rizzo knows what keeping Harper around is going to cost him, and with a once-in-a-generation player like him, he doesn't intend to rush the matter before he hits the market in 2019.

"Harp's a generational-type of player," Rizzo said. "He's a building block, and we like to keep building blocks. They're hard to replace and a player like Harper is hard to find. Sure, we'd like to keep him long term but it's got to make sense for us financially going forward and if it does, we've shown that we can do deals with the Boras Corporation."

The GM added: "We've shown that we make good market-value deals to our players before free agency hits. Some of them take us up on it and some of them don't. It takes two to make a deal and you've got to know what the market is, know what you're going to make once you leave the market and sometimes you roll the dice and it works out, and sometimes you don't."

So far this season, Harper is batting .264/.441/.604 with 10 homers, 27 RBIs, and 35 walks.

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