{"id":574325,"date":"2026-02-15T19:07:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/574325\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:07:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T19:07:19","slug":"bryce-harper-thought-kyle-schwarber-was-leaving-phillies-for-reds-this-offseason-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/574325\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Harper thought Kyle Schwarber was leaving Phillies for Reds this offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryce Harper thought Kyle Schwarber was leaving Phillies for Reds this offseason <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This offseason didn’t exactly go as Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies would’ve hoped. They couldn’t finalize the long-term deal with Bo Bichette, instead seeing him join the New York Mets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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But, avoiding disaster, the Phillies were able to re-sign Kyle Schwarber, signing him to a five-year, $150 million contract. It wasn’t easy, however, as Schwarber was a strong suitor for the Baltimore Orioles<\/a> and especially the Cincinnati Reds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Bryce Harper revealed to Devan Kaney of 94WIP<\/a> and reporters at training camp, he initially thought Schwarber wasn’t re-signing with the Phillies, and instead going to the Reds this offseason.<\/p>\n

Bryce Harper thought Kyle Schwarber was signing with Reds this offseason<\/p>\n

“I thought Kyle was going to go to Cincinnati, to tell you the truth,” Harper said. “I thought it was a done deal going to Cincinnati.”<\/p>\n

It was a stressful offseason for Phillies fans, waiting to see what Schwarber would do. His decision would have a massive snowball effect on the Phillies offseason plans.<\/p>\n

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If he didn’t return, as Harper and many fans feared and thought would happen, then the Phillies would be in desperation mode to find a new slugger to add to the lineup.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0MLB analyst makes the case for the Phillies to sign 2x All-Star arm<\/a><\/p>\n

Fortunately, Schwarber came back, signing his $150 million contract with the Phillies to stay as their designated hitter for years to come.<\/p>\n

He’s a fantastic slugger, coming off an MVP-runner up season in 2025 with 56 home runs. Losing his bat would’ve been a huge loss, and such a reality was what Harper thought was coming to pass for the Phillies.<\/p>\n

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Schwarber going to the Reds wouldn’t have been a surprise. He’d get a chance to play in front of his hometown crowd and still make good money.<\/p>\n

But thanks to the Reds not beating the Phillies’ offer of $150 million over five years, Schwarber is back in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryce Harper thought Kyle Schwarber was leaving Phillies for Reds this offseason originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[47,5,88,1207,535,50,4259,75386,81,4,61,144,40,536,3904],"class_list":{"0":"post-574325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baltimore-orioles","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bo-bichette","11":"tag-bryce-harper","12":"tag-cincinnati","13":"tag-cincinnati-reds","14":"tag-cincinnatireds","15":"tag-devan-kaney","16":"tag-kyle-schwarber","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-new-york-mets","19":"tag-philadelphia","20":"tag-phillies","21":"tag-reds","22":"tag-schwarber"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116076219498218779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}