Bryce Harper loves you. He loves all of you, equally and unreservedly. He thinks San Francisco is the place Nirvana goes for vacation.
That isn't the same as being a Giant, mind you, but he has given Giants fans something to fantasize about until they go out and hire the baseball person who actually would have to decide whether Harper makes sense.
His past tweets and Instagram posts certainly are tantalizing enough, but they do fly in the face of timing, money and the other teams that would like him to love them just as much.
If not more, which is sort of Harper's game here. He has dropped the first shoe in what expects to be a bidding war to rival and then best Giancarlo Stanton's -- an odd stance if negotiating tradition be told. Typically, the suitors do the calling, and the suite sits by the phone having someone else answer it.
But on the off chance that Harper is serious and really thinks San Francisco and its forbidding outfield dimensions and its often cold and damp evenings and the fact that he could buy Nevada for what it would take to get a house and detached garage in Hillsborough, then the Giants should engage.
The problem of course being that unless Larry Baer is willing either to do so himself or farm the task out to baseball boss emeritus Brian Sabean, he still would be taking the first important job from the incoming head of the baseball operations, and said new sheriff might find that onerous and even obstructive.
(Unless, of course, Baer already has his handshook and pinky-sworn and is just waiting for the end of the postseason to announce it).
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Either way, Harper is a massive fish, going to a competitive minnow in a field that would include Philadelphia (unless the Phillies get Manny Machado), the Los Angeles Dodgers (if the Phillies do get Machado), the Arizona Diamondbacks (who have a healthier power-hitter's domain and is closer to Las Vegas, Harper's ancestral home) or any other fat spenders whose outfield walls aren't as high or as far.
Put another way, Harper could be obliquely engaging the Giants to see if they want to be early invitees to a bidding war. Stanton couldn't wait to stamp his own invitation "Return To Sender" a year ago, so either Harper knows something about San Francisco that Stanton doesn't, Stanton knows something San Francisco that Harper doesn't, or most basic of all, that a human auction doesn't care where it starts nearly as much where it ends.
Should you, the Giants fan, take this seriously? Probably not, but let's be honest -- what else do you have to do this month other than watch lots of other people have the fun you can barely remember?
So enjoy. Dream your dreamy dreams and imagine that the glory days aren't really as far away as they look right now. Dreams are free.
Just don't make any plans based on that. Beware anyone who tells you how much they like you before you've even introduced yourself. That's all we're saying.
