Bryce Harper remains unsigned — how much longer? And ditto on Manny Machado

So, the Bryce Harper free agency derby carries on, presuming agent Scott Boras is still hunting something like 10/$350 and either one or two opt-outs.

See the poll at upper right or click the link to vote on when you think he signs a deal. Note that we've already gone past the first cut-off point I mentioned.

Do you look at the guy with the 10-WAR year and say, yeah, we hope we get even close to that?

Or do you look at the guy with the THREE sub-2 WAR years (and only one of those due primarily to injury) and say "Too much risk factor"?

Per the third slide in this round-up by Derrick Goold, I presume the Cardinals, John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch have already decided to do the latter.

Let's compare Harper to a big contract the Cards were willing to take on in trade just 12 months ago, namely, Giancarlo Stanton, as I've already done this on Twitter in exchange with Bill James.

The 10 years left on his contract, at $285 million, are actually "just" $28.5 million AAV. (Take away his option year, and 9/$260 is approximately $29M AAV.) But, you'd pay him 10/$350 if Bryce is getting that, right? Even if Bryce is 3 years younger?

So, let's look at WAR.

Harper, seven years, 27.4 WAR is 3.9 per year. Stanton, nine years at 39.2, is 4.35 per year.

Let's throw out best and worst years of both and check that.

Harper? 16.3/5=3.26. Stanton? 27/7=3.85.  You've still got that one-half WAR per year difference. Another way of putting this is, if you throw out the best year of both, Stanton still has four 4-WAR seasons and Harper two. (If you want to round up Harper's 3.7 year, we get to do that with Stanton's 3.8.)

In addition, other than when he got hit in the face by a pitch, Stanton was a much better health risk.

Add in that Harper has, in the past, been valued more highly on defense than Stanton and B-Ref putting him at -3.0 on dWAR in 2018 should be of some concern.

Looking beyond the Cards, remember that Boras doesn't always win, even when he waits and waits and waits. Just last year, he did get a win with J.D. Martinez, but not with Jake Arrieta. Or Mike Moustakas. (Who sits and waits again this year after his one-year contract a year ago.) Or Greg Holland.

What if, per Yasmani Grandal reportedly turning down a solid deal from the Mets, and eventually having to eat a bit of crow on a one-year deal with the Brew Crew, that Washington's original offer to Harper was the best Harper and Boras have seen and the best they will see?

As noted, Boras has had his share of "losses" before. Just never one potentially this big.

What if he and Harper start seeing things crossways from one another, whether it's Harper wanting to capitulate first or Boras?

"That's a clown question bro."

Maybe, maybe not.

Some of this may be at the edges of collusion. I'll likely tackle that in a blog post after this year's free agency class clears the field.

Some of it is the Billyball and analytics revolution — which Boras was trading on a decade ago — hitting enough front offices that it's now been flipped against him. Cards owner Bill DeWitt, and more straightforwardly, his son, Bill DeWitt III, just said this.

Speaking of, let's take a briefer look at Manny Machado, with the same ideas as above, in part because he's represented by Dan Lozano, the biggest agent competitor to Boras. In his case, I am going to throw out a partial rookie season as well as his worst full season.

Manny is at almost 6 WAR per year. The only slight eyebrow raisers are a subpar for him 2017 and bREF ranking him negatively on defense in his Orioles first half of 2018.

If a WAR is worth $7M, and you knock him down to "just" 5 WAR a year, Machado is in today's baseball world easily worth $35M/year for 8 years, or more. In short, he's worth the Bryce Harper contract that Scott Boras is peddling for Harper.

Where are we at?

On Harper, we've not heard any indication that anybody has made a better offer than what the Nats did in-season last year. What if the market dries up enough they pull back in their original offer themselves, knowing they're still ahead of everybody else? Like 9/$260 instead of 10/$300, while throwing in an opt-out year they didn't originally offer.

On Machado, yesterday, MLB Trade Rumors said the White Sox offer was 7/$175. Later yesterday, though, Lozano said that report is totally untrue. Maybe so, maybe not. We know Lozano fell short of his agent grand slam hopes with Albert Pujols, and occasionally manipulated the media in his chase of attempting to pass Alex Rodriguez for biggest contract ever.

And, in a follow-up, there IS at least one "mystery team," because Machado met with one.

Meanwhile, hit the poll on Harper.