Harper, Nationals agree to deal for $21.6 million for 2018 season

Bryce Harper put up another big number Saturday without taking another swing.

Harper and the Washington Nationals reached a $21,625,000 deal for the 2018 season, a contact that covers the slugging outfielder through his last year before he can become a free agent.

The 24-year-old Harper would’ve been eligible for salary arbitration next year. The four-time All-Star was the unanimous NL MVP in 2015.

“I think it’s huge,” Harper said, hours before the Nationals hosted Philadelphia. “We’re able to go into the offseason and worry about different things. We’re able as a team and an organization to go out and not have to worry about me going into arbitration for another year or anything like that.”

Harper is making $13.63 million this season. After winning the MVP, Harper hit .243 with 24 home runs and 86 RBIs in 2016.

This season, he is hitting .372 with 10 home runs and 29 RBIs in 31 games for the team with the best record in the National League.

“I think it shows the comfort level Bryce has with the organization and that we have with him,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said. “It does a lot of good things for us. It gives us cost-certainty going into the season next year, and next year’s payroll.”

“I think most important, there’s a comfort level, a comfortable player that doesn’t have to worry about discussing a contract next year,” he said.

Rizzo and Harper said discussions about the 2018 contract began during the last arbitration season.

“Couldn’t get a two-year deal done at the time, but both sides always had openmindedness of trying to put the five-plus arbitration season behind us,” Rizzo said.

In addition to his base salary, Harper can make $1 million for winning the 2018 NL MVP, $500,000 for finishing second in the voting, $250,000 for third, $150,000 for fourth and $100,000 for fifth. He also would get $100,000 each for being an All-Star or winning a Gold Glove or Silver Slugger award.

“He’s a very unique player that’s difficult to come up with, a person that’s 24 years old with an MVP on his belt and a bunch of AllStar Games and Silver Sluggers,” Rizzo said. “A lot of hardware at 24 years old, and with the arrow still pointing north.”

Both Harper and Rizzo said the two sides didn’t discuss anything beyond 2018.

“I love walking into this clubhouse every single day and putting my Nationals uniform on and I’m going to enjoy this year and next year and not really worry about anything beyond that,” Harper said.

Added Rizzo: “We have a great relationship with Harp. We love having him around. He’s our own. Drafted, developed, signed, been an MVP for us.”

Jones seeks dialogue

With the Negro Leagues museum as his backdrop, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones said the recent racial taunting he endured in Boston shows there needs to be more dialogue about diversity.

Almost two weeks after he said he was called the N-word and had a bag of peanuts thrown in his direction at Fenway Park, the star said Saturday that he still grapples with the reality that “people aren’t afraid to show ugliness and hate right now.”

“I personally don’t understand it,” Jones said at Kansas City’s Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in announcing his $20,000 donation to the shrine a gift he said he decided to make months ago, well before the Fenway ugliness he labeled “very unfortunate.”

“With incidents like this, it’s just a great time to talk about it,” 31-year-old Jones added, midway through his team’s weekend series against the Royals.

Red Sox officials have apologized and said that only one of 34 fans kicked out of the game in question was ejected for using foul language toward a player, and it wasn’t clear whether that was toward Jones. Boston police said the peanuts hit a nearby police officer, and Fenway security ejected the man who threw them out before he could be identified by authorities.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred quickly condemned the incidents and said all 30 teams are being surveyed as they consider putting in place league-wide guidelines for handling fans who make racist remarks.