Bryce Harper goes about 6’3″ and 230 pounds with remarkable speed and strength and a cannon for an arm, so one could reasonably argue that Harper — with the right training regimen, and depending on his instincts — might make for an NFL-caliber athlete at an array of positions.

But Washington Redskins GM Scot McCloughan says Harper would not play cornerback — not necessarily because he lacks the speed for the position, but because he lacks the melanin. From an interview with 106.7 The Fan:

I went to a game a couple weeks ago, and he flipped his hips and caught a fly ball out in right field in the corner, and I thought, maybe . But I’m thinking, uhh, okay, no, he’s gotta be a safety. He’s a white guy.

Huh. OK. Seriously, bro?

Look: No one’s naive enough to think that half-serious, race-based evaluations don’t permeate private scouting conversations occasionally in all sports, and maybe McCloughan was only trying to make a joke that played on the institutionalized racism that still likely impacts some teams’ hiring practices.

But you’d have to figure the GM of a team with as tenuous a claim to race relations as the Washington Redskins would know better than to broadcast that type of thing.

(Thanks to Hardball Talk for calling our attention to this story.)