

Bryce Harper. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Bryce Harper and the Nationals avoided a grievance hearing over his 2015 salary with a deal late Sunday night, when General Manager Mike Rizzo and Harper’s agent, Scott Boras, completed the details of a two-year, $7.5 million contract that covers his 2015 and 2016 salaries.

Boras, in New York in anticipation of Tuesday’s now-unnecessary hearing, stopped by a New York Supreme Court hearing regarding the longstanding dispute between the Nationals and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network and later explained what happened between the Nationals and Harper, and the star player’s absence from NatsFest on Saturday in Washington.

“I’m glad there’s a resolution to it,” Boras said of the settlement. “I think both sides think it was fair.”

Harper, Boras and the Nationals had been at odds over how his salary would be determined because of a rare dispute over the contract he signed as a first-round draft pick in 2010. Boras believed Harper had the right to opt out of his prescribed 2015 salary ($1.5 million) and into baseball’s lucrative arbitration system. The Nationals contended his contract did not include the ability to opt out because such language had never been included in the deal. Instead, under the settlement, Harper will make $2.5 million in 2015 and $5 million in 2016.

Over the weekend, Harper did not attend the team’s annual NatsFest fan rally Saturday, citing “matters out of my control.” General Manager Mike Rizzo said he was “disappointed” in Harper and declared Harper had stayed away because of the pending grievance. In Boras’s words, this is why Harper didn’t attend:

“The union has witness preparation,” he said. “They have all things you can do to prepare a player for arbitration. And frankly, that proceeding would have been affected by this hearing because all kinds of national reporters and such would have shown up to that. The fan fest purpose would have been, in many ways, certainly interrupted because of the attention Bryce would have had and the amount of press that would have showed up to discuss this matter not what the intentions of the fan fest were. So from a legal perspective and out of respect for the fan fest itself, you didn’t want to bring a distraction to that event.”

Asked specifically about Rizzo’s comment, Boras said he couldn’t address it and felt that Harper handled himself well throughout this process. As far as any potential animosity created by either side, Boras believes the Nationals and Harper came to a positive agreement for the future. Harper isn’t eligible for free agency until after the 2018 season.

“Part of the resolution for both sides is that you resolve something amicably among yourselves so that you continue to work together,” Boras said. “That was achieved.”

Because Harper skipped NatsFest, Boras said he and the Nationals are hoping to plan an event for later this winter in which Harper will come to Washington to meet with fans. Boras said “Bryce wants to do” this.

“We’re going to try to work this out with the Nationals, and he’s going to try to be there for the fans,” Boras added.

— Adam Kilgore contributed.