Bryce Harper and many of his Phillies teammates have reached the age where they should be peaking | Bob Brookover

Bryce Harper’s vision was as clear as the Florida sky at his introductory news conference in Clearwater, Fla., two years ago.

“I wanted to be able to dig my roots somewhere, and that was through the good and through the bad, through the ups and downs of a team and an organization,” the superstar rightfielder said. “I want to be part of this organization. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to be part of this family, this Phillie Nation and, like I said, the bumps and the bruises, the good and the bad, I want to be here.”

He has already experienced quite a bit of bad in his first two seasons in Philadelphia. As he prepares for the start of his third season, he has already had two different managers, two different general managers and two different team presidents, all the result of zero playoff appearances. He has also watched his former team, the Washington Nationals, win the World Series.

It’s not the script Harper would have written, but the beauty of a 13-year contract is that plenty of pages remain unturned. Harper’s dream of a parade down Broad Street “on a boat” still has plenty of time to come to fruition. He negotiated his deal with a lower average annual value than Manny Machado and some other superstars because he wanted the team to have more financial flexibility in the future.

His hope was that it would leave some money for the Phillies to build around him in order to create a third great era in the ball club’s history.

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“One of the things that’s a priority to us is we want to make sure that we can sign Bryce and still have room to do the things that he’s going to want us to do, whether it’s at the July trading deadline or next offseason or five off-seasons from now,” Phillies owner John Middleton said after signing Harper. “This is a lifetime contract. He’s not just worried about this season or next season. He’s worried about seven years from now, 10 years from now. "

That’s nice, but the winning has to begin at some point and the best chance for an actual great era of baseball with Harper as the centerpiece is probably starting right now. He is 28 years old and many of the other core players on the 2021 Phillies are also in what is considered the Goldilocks portion of their careers — that time when they have enough experience to know what’s coming at them and enough remaining talent to make the most of that knowledge.

“I’ve always thought (the peak years) were somewhere between 26 and 32, depending on how early you get up (to the big leagues),” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “Some guys are hitting it at 21 now because they’re getting up here so early and they’re so talented. But I kind of think the average is 26 to 32.”

J.T. Realmuto will be 30 and Rhys Hoskins will turn 28 next month. Jean Segura and Didi Gregorius will both play this season at the age of 31. Only Andrew McCutchen, at 34, is considered on the downside of his career among the Phillies’ projected starting eight and Alec Bohm, 24, could be one of those young stars Girardi alluded to.

The Phillies’ top three starting pitchers — Aaron Nola (28), Zack Wheeler (31) and Zach Eflin (27) — are also at an age when the team should expect some of their best work.

“You expect good things from a lot of guys on our club because they’re in that range and there’s not that lack of experience,” Girardi said. “There’s plenty of at-bats under their belt, there’s plenty of innings under their belt and they know what it takes to get through a big-league season. They should pretty much know what they need physically and mentally to perform at the highest level. You never stop learning in this game, but that initial learning phase is really, really big.”

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Harper is way beyond the learning phase of the game, but at 28 he feels he could be entering the best years of a career that is on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

“The older you get the better you get mentally on the field,” Harper said. “Of course you have to work a little harder on your body to maintain for a 162-game season, but some guys had their best span of years from 28 to 34. I want to be the best player I can and if I have success hopefully the Phillies will have success, too. That’s all I want. I just want to be able to win and hopefully bring a championship to Philadelphia. I know John also wants that to happen. At the end of the day we want success as a team.”

So many core players on this ball club have now reached the age where individual success is expected and maybe, just maybe, that will finally translate into team success in Harper’s third of a scheduled 13 seasons in Philadelphia.