PHILADELPHIA — I’ve seen plenty of player-management spats over the years, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one as strange as that which has unfolded between Bryce Harper and Dave Dombrowski.

In a span of less than two weeks, we went from Dombrowski comparing Harper to a player who is currently batting third for a team two wins away from its second straight World Series title, to Dombrowski definitively saying that Harper will not be traded, to Harper saying that he is “hurt” and “uncomfortable” with all of the trade talk sparked by Dombrowski’s comments.

If ever there was a controversy in search of a “there,” this one is it. And, hey, maybe that is the “there.” Pointed comments always point somewhere, right?

Let’s start with a quick summary/timeline of events.

— Oct. 16: Dombrowski is asked about Harper in his end-of-season news conference, held one week after the Phillies’ 2-1 loss to the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NL Division Series.

“He’s still a quality player,” Dombrowski said. “He didn’t have an elite season like he’s had in the past. I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or he continues to be good.”

To illustrate his point, Dombrowski points to the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman as a for-instance.

“Freddie Freeman, he’s a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent,” Dombrowski said. “Freddie is a tremendous player, and that, to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer. He’s the one that will dictate that more than anything else.

“I don’t think he’s content with the year that he had. And again, it wasn’t a bad year. But when you think of Bryce Harper, you think of elite, right? You think of one of the top 10 players in baseball, and I don’t think it fits into that category. But again, a very good player. I’ve seen guys at his age — again, he’s not old — that level off. Or I’ve seen guys rise again.”

— Oct. 22: Scott Boras, Harper’s longtime agent and never one to miss an opportunity to nudge management in the direction of spending more money, tells MLB.com that he thinks Harper needs better protection behind him in the Phillies lineup. Regarding Dombrowski’s comments, Boras only takes issue with the Phillies president failing to mention Harper’s wrist injury as a mitigating factor in his statistical performance.

— Oct. 23: Dombrowski appears on the "Foul Territory" podcast and said the Phillies are not going to trade Harper.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said. “We love him. We think he’s a great player. He’s a very important part of our team. I’ve seen him have better years. I look for him to have better years.”

— Oct. 25: The Athletic publishes comments from Harper, who said he feels “hurt” by the situation. Harper focuses specifically on the “trade talk” in the wake of Dombrowski’s comments.

“I have given my all to Philly from the start,” Harper said. “Now there is trade talk? I made every effort to avoid this. It’s all I heard in D.C. [with the Nationals]. I hated it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

“It’s disappointing to hear me being questioned about my contribution to the team. Just really hurt by that notion because I love Philly so much.

“From changing positions to coming back early from injury, I show total commitment for my team. And yet there is still trade talk.”

The strangeness lies in the sequence of events. It would have been much more logical if Harper’s comments came second in the timeline. It’s a tale as old as time. A frustrated executive is feeling enough heat that he can’t bring himself to completely absolve his superstar’s role in the collective’s underperformance. The superstar claps back, the agent mediates, the executive embarks on a media tour to make things right.

Instead, Harper went on record expressing his displeasure with trade talk that Dombrowski had already squelched, and that never really existed in the first place. I mean, the Phillies would never entertain the thought of trading Harper. Harper knows that.

So what is all of this really about?

A lot of people have latched onto the thought that Harper’s comments are connected to the idea of a contract extension that he floated last offseason. It’s certainly plausible that this is a leverage play on that front. But I’m more inclined to focus on Boras, who has never gone out of his way to muddle his intentions.

In Boras’ comments to MLB.com, he focused on the fact that Harper ranked dead last in the majors in the frequency of pitches he saw inside the zone. At 43%, he ranked 532nd out of 532 players who saw at least 200 pitches.

“That’s the stat,” Boras told MLB.com.

Harper wants to win. At 33 years old, he is starting to wrestle with the fact that he may go down as one of the greatest players in history to retire without a ring. He knows that, in order to win, he needs to be The Guy. But he also knows that, in order to be The Guy, he needs guys behind him who will force pitchers to pitch to him.

It is as obvious to Harper as it is to the rest of us. If the Phillies are going to have an odds-on chance of beating the Dodgers in a playoff series, they need to have a top half of the lineup that looks like that of the Dodgers. That means re-signing Kyle Schwarber, yes. But it also means spending money on — or trading prospects for — a third legitimate middle-of-the-order bat to hit behind the Phillies’ two superstars.

If that is Harper’s endgame, it is a worthy one.

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