Arenado, Trout, and Bergman… Next Up, Bryant and Rizzo

There is an absolute paradigm shift in how MLB organizations operate. It used to be, if a player wanted to get rich, they needed to wait until they became free agents and cash in on the lottery ticket that is their playing abilities. Now, that is changed. Don’t get me wrong, we witnessed Bryce Harper and Manny Machado earn a hell of a lot of moolah this offseason. But, it seems that the players that are benefiting most are those already under contract or team control.

This shift started with Luis Severino and the New York Yankees where they reached a four-year, $40 million deal avoiding arbitration(well, there were several players before him, even look at Anthony Rizzo). Then, Aaron Nola, the ace of the Philadelphia Phillies, reached an extension for four years, and $45 million. Arenado had just come to terms on the richest arbitration deal ever, then weeks later the Colorado Rockies and their star third baseman struck an eight-year, $260 million deal.

Now on Tuesday Alex Bergman and the Astros agreed to a five-year $100 million deal, and not to be outdone, the best player in baseball, Mike Trout agreed to a 12-year, $430 million contract extension.

With teams beginning to shift towards paying their current talent, and perhaps avoiding the pitfalls of free agency, all eyes will now turn to the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs have a roster littered with relatively inexpensive young talent. Not only are they inexpensive, they are experienced AND have incredibly high ceilings. Players like Javier Baez, Willson Contreras (here’s a fantastic piece on Willson), Kyle Schwarber and Kyle Hendricks – they are all positioned very well for potential extension talks. But perhaps the two most important players the club can wrap up are Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant.

The Kane and Toews of the Cubs

These two players have been the biggest reason behind the clubs success over the past four seasons. Offering much-needed offense, leadership, and bringing a new attitude to the clubhouse. The moment the Cubs became World Series contenders is when the Cubs drafted Bryant and traded for Rizzo.

The club should absolutely begin talks on making sure that these two are Cubs for life. And what’s best is, they’ve both recently said they want to talk extension.

“Anytime you can show a loyalty to the team that drafted you and you came up with and you established a relationship with all these people — I mean, any human being would want to do that,” Bryant said when discussing the Trout contract. “It’s no secret that everybody in this clubhouse loves playing in Chicago, we love everything about the organization, so everybody in this clubhouse would want to finish his career with this team, myself included.”

But he wasn’t the only one that talked about staying here his entire career.

“There has been a little bit,” Rizzo mentioned with regard to contract talks. “There is nothing where we are going to put pen to paper yet. Obviously, it is no secret I want to be a Cub for my whole career. It would be very special to do that.”

When the two biggest stars on your team wants to remain on the club the rest of their career, it does make things a bit easier. But, as Bryant also mentioned, talking a new contract is a bit like putting the horse in front of the cart at this point.

“I don’t think there’s been any talks about anybody,” Bryant said. “It’s just a different period for us this year.”

It would be hard for a Scott Boras type to barge into Theo Epstein’s office and demand to sit down and talk new money for Bryant. This becomes especially challenging when Bryant is coming off his worst season as a pro, where he was extremely limited due to injury.

Regardless of that, if this team starts off with a similar run as they had in 2016, and they show that they have righted their wrongs, I can’t see why the club wouldn’t begin extension talks. Those conversations shouldn’t be that difficult either.

Just how much can they be worth?

These sorts of deals are pretty set for them. While you can’t take Bryant and compare him directly to Arenado. But you can get a sense of where their money should be. I have recently talked about what an extension looks like for either player.

Rizzo, as long as he remains the Rizzo we know, should be inline for a seven to eight-year deal in the neighborhood of $18.5 million a season. Bryant on the other hand, isn’t going to get the years that Harper or even Trout received, but he should be able to get an eight year extension. This would be inline with the Arenado deal, and I predict he will surpass Nolan’s $32.5 million AAV.

The stars should eventually align, and as long as the Cubs have a relatively successful season, on the heals of both Rizzo and Bryant playing like they’re capable, as soon as the team is able to have the conversation I expect the Kane and Toews treatment with these two.

Matching eight year extensions (Bryant making more than Rizzo) announced by the Cubs on the same day.

This would ensure that Rizzo is a Cub until he is ready to hang them up, and Bryant will be 35 and potentially looking for his last major league deal. More importantly, it will ensure that the Cubs are contenders at least through the 2028 season.

Jamie Baker

Hi, I’m Jamie and I run this site. I’ve published work on multiple other sites and through that experience I decided to create CHICAGO style SPORTS. We truly aim to speak for the Chicago fan. Additionally, as a member of the IBWAA (Internet Baseball Writers Association of America) you can be assured that all content you read will be written with incredible integrity.

See author's posts