Bryant’s Grievance is Over, That Means He’ll Be Traded, Right? Well Actually…

Before Kris Bryant could lift his head from his hands in disbelief of his grievance results, ESPN’s Jeff Passan mentions Nolan Arenado would love to play for the Chicago Cubs. Then, to top it all off, Chicago’s Jesse Rogers tells David Kaplan that the Cubs and Colorado Rockies discussed a swap of superstar third-baggers. He added that the Rockies would toss in like $7 or $8 million to cover Arenado’s salary, allowing the Cubs to get under the 2020 Competitive Balance Tax.

My head hurts…

Then some Cubs fans began to go crazy over the idea while others argued why it was a bad option for the Cubs. There were a ton of the same old complaints about Bryant, from he isn’t clutch, to he’s injury prone, to the Cubs won’t be able to sign him anyway. To which, I began to have discussions, and when I thought I was likely having too many discussions, I opened my computer to just write it all down.

Bryant isn’t clutch

Just this week, one of the guys at work that knows I do this (I don’t know if he reads, but if so… Hi Jerry!) struck up a conversation about Bryant. It was pretty agreeable, I mentioned that regardless of what the Cubs want to do, the grievance is holding up the timeline. He agreed, and our only disagreement was when he suggested that the Cubs trade him, citing his issues in the clutch.

First, let me say this… nearly every player that has ever played the game at least 10 years, almost always end their career with their performance in clutch situations equaling their normal performance. There can be some swaying from year-to-year, but give the player a large enough sample size and they will almost always equal out. Here are a couple cases in point.

Derek Jeter is remembered as the greatest playoff performer, possibly ever. His performance was celebrated almost every season since he was in the playoffs almost every season. Jeter, who just gained entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame this month, had a career .310/.377/.440 slash line (.817 OPS). When you look at Jeter’s career playoff numbers, I bet you know where I’m going with this… he slashed .308/.374/.465 in the playoffs (.839 OPS). For all the postseason greatness, his OPS was fractionally better while his AVG and OBP decreased. Additionally, he averaged 152 games played and 102 strikeouts a season (he has actually played 20 years, but I used 18 years in this figure since he played in 15 games in 1995 and 17 games in 2013) while he struck out 135 times in 158 playoff games.

David Ortiz was once named the most clutch player that played the game, but is he really “clutch” or was it all just circumstantial? First, Big Papi was a monsta. Over the course of his career, he belted 541 homers, 632 doubles, slashed .286/.380/.552 (.932 OPS) over a 20-year career. A career that he gave a head start by not really becoming a force until he was five years into it. Of those 541 home runs, only 38 of them came within his first five years of his career. But let’s take a look at his clutch stats. Situations with two-out and RISP, Ortiz had a career .951 OPS, mostly driven by an OBP 37 points higher than his career mark of .380. Now, in situations that are “late & close” (defined by Baseball-Reference), remember that he had 20 walk-off hits in his career, he had a career OPS of .870 in these situations. That’s 52 points below his career mark! You can, of course, check out all his clutch or situational stat lines, but they are all within several points up or down from his overall career numbers.

For sh!ts and giggles, let’s take a look at Babe Ruth. I don’t have many antidotes to tell about Ruth, as we have it I just missed the end of his career. Ruth had a career 1.164 OPS. This is incredible. His OPS with RISP, 1.146. With two out and RISP, 1.099. Late and close, 1.204. Tie games, 1.086. So, once again we are within striking difference one way or another.

Now let’s take a look at Kris Bryant.

Bryant had a .903 OPS in 2019. This was a few points higher than his career mark of .901. When you look at “clutch situations throughout his career, Bryant has an OPS of .859 with RISP. Two-out and RISP, .840. Tie game, .901. Within one-run, .878. But, again, we are looking at a smaller sample according to the entirety of his career. I mean, when you look at Ortiz’s numbers, he batted with RISP 3,014 times in his career, Bryant has only seen it 728 times, or a little more than a full season’s worth of plate appearances.

In 2019, Bryant owned a .955 OPS with two-out and RISP, 1.125 OPS when the game was “late and close.” Tie games he OPS’d .889, games within one-run he posted a .922 number. Guys, with bases loaded he posted a 1.150 OPS. With a runner on third and two out, he had a 1.044 OPS. So far in his career, he has posted a couple of really good clutch seasons, a couple of so-so seasons, and a pretty bad clutch season (2017). There should be no reason whatsoever that he doesn’t continue to gradually climb those numbers up closer to his regular stats with more time in the league. Nearly every player before him has done so, I would be surprised to see that he ends his career any differently.

Bryant is injury prone

This is one that I just don’t fully understand. I mean, in a sense, sure… his 2018 was basically wiped out due to a shoulder injury which caused him to be unable to lift his arm above his shoulder. Then in 2019, there was the knee issue and a couple of other minor things. But, while he had those injuries, he busted his ass to continue to play. The guy couldn’t even lift his arm above his shoulder, but there he was taking hard cuts at major league fastballs 300 more times after the injury.

If you know hitting, you know that your power comes from your legs and your core. It doesn’t matter how big your biceps are, if you have a solid and in sync core and legs, you will hit the ball hard. Bryant had some knee issues towards the end of the 2019 season which hindered his power. There were a million and a half Cubs fans lining up to give any excuse they could when Anthony Rizzo didn’t hit a home run for a 26 game stretch between June and July, or him hitting just three home runs over the course of 182 at-bats. But Bryant doesn’t hit a home run when he can’t put all the weight on his knee or can’t lift his arm above his shoulder, and he’s a weak prima donna that should be traded!

Personally, I think it has to do with two things more than him being injury-prone, it isn’t because he’s injury-prone (he’s played more games than any Cub since he’s been on the roster, and played the second-most games of any Cub in 2019). The first reason is, they think he wants too much money so fans began to turn on him. The next reason, they don’t really see the passion like they do in Javier Baez or Willson Contreras or even Rizzo.

For 100 years players played the game exerting very little emotion. In fact, it is only a very recent thing in which players openly showed emotion on the baseball field. This game is a very humbling sport, and some just think you put your head down and play the game trying to make as little noise as possible when you do good, cause that 0-12 is about to come at any moment.

Just because Bryant doesn’t pimp his homers, doesn’t mean he doesn’t care or doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the passion the others do. Having watched some of his offseason workouts, understanding the work that is put into his game every winter so he can “be the best player in the league,” you’d have to be a damn fool to tell him that he doesn’t care or just goes through the motions.

The money thing… sh!t. The Cubs have offered EVERY SINGLE YOUNG CONTROLLED PLAYER ON THE ROSTER AN EXTENSION AND THEY ALL TURNED THE CUBS DOWN.

Let me say this again. Every single young and controlled player on the roster has been talked to about an extension and they have all turned the Cubs down. So now it is on you, Cubs fans. Are they all greedy? I mean, possibly. Or is it a fundamental issue within the Cubs’ front office when it comes to extensions?

There are many more signs that suggest the Cubs are offering under-market value deals to their players, than the players themselves being greedy. Kris Bryant has said on many occasions that he wants to be a Cub for life. His agent came out and said he wanted to remain a Cub for his entire career. These are the facts. The idea you drew up in your head or saw someone else post on Facebook is based in a weird lala land that holds no actual shred of factual evidence.

But also note, the Cubs started to talk extension with Rizzo last offseason. Those talks stalled. This year at the winter meetings Marc Pollack let reporters know that the Cubs weren’t going to discuss an extension with Rizzo this offseason.

“The Cubs have informed us that they will not be offering Anthony an extension at this time,” Pollack told reporters.

That put pressure on the Cubs to either start talking, because Rizzo is a beloved Cub, or make a statement. The Cubs decided to make a statement.

“We’ve had conversations with lots of our guys over a five-year period and it’s always best to keep it quiet,” Hoyer shared. “I think in this case, Rizzo’s agent decided to talk about it and we did have some conceptual talks about what an extension would look like and I think that, candidly, we were pretty far apart in terms of length and so he decided to come out and say that.”

This offseason started with the Cubs telling us that they will have conversations with all their young stars to determine if they could extend them. So far it seems like the only talks that had legs were with Baez. But even with him it seemed like there were several times this offseason that progress was being made, but here we are in late January and there’s no extension in sight.

Isn’t it more believable at this point that there Cubs are doing this wrong? Here are three players in Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez that the Cubs have constant conversations with their agents – and apparently are far off on everyone’s extensions?

I get that Bryant’s extension is different. They’re talking about mega-money. They’re talking about buying out roughly $24 million in future pay (2021). There are years that need to be considered, how it impacts the next eight to 10 years. Many other factors.

Including…

The grievance and how he was pissed about the outcome? Bob Nightengale should stop reporting on Cubs baseball as a first measure, the second – ask yourself how can he be pissed if he always understood he was going to lose this grievance? Do we understand yet that this was only about future players, people like the Chicago White Sox Nick Madrigal, or Tampa Bay’s Wander Franco, or Los Angeles’ Gavin Lux or any number of other prospects. He might feel that he didn’t help those guys, but people… you have to understand that he always knew he was going to lose this grievance.

Any reports intimating that Kris Bryant is upset or angry at the #Cubs is a false report.

I can 100% confirm by people far closer to KB than Bob Nightingale will ever get that this is false.

In fact, they reiterated KB's desire to retire a Cub…@PinwheelsIvyPod #MLB #KB17

— Kevin Fiddler (@KFidds) January 29, 2020

Players don’t go on record, they don’t have their agents offer unsolicited statements, they don’t have friends discuss how much the player wants to stay in Chicago if he’s holding a grudge from 2015. He doesn’t fly 1,800 miles to attend the Cubs Convention while he has the flu, and while his pregnant wife has the flu. These are not things that someone that felt hurt and disrespected does. Your wild, drawn up conspiracy that you drew up with Bryant hating it in Chicago is just plain wrong. Their relationship is good.

Cubs won’t be able to sign him anyway

It is extremely easy to sign Kris Bryant. It is. It will take something around $28 to $32 million a season, and it will be a deal around eight to 10 years. You put that on the table, and that will become the first offer Boras actually brings to Bryant.

I know there were reports of a deal north of $200 million from a couple of seasons ago. It’s simply not true, but even the schematics of the deal doesn’t work. Bryant is a $28 to $32 million per year player. Recently, David Kaplan, citing sources within the Cubs, has said that the Cubs have offered Bryant well under market-level deals.

Sources close to Bryant confirmed he is willing to listen to a long-term extension, but the Cubs’ offers were not anywhere close to what other top third baseman in baseball have recently signed for.

This is when Cubs fans will certainly have their eyes glossed over and complain about, “how much money does someone need!” When guys like Anthony Rendon and Nolan Arenado have already signed deals for $245 million and $260 million, Bryant should be able to command a deal around $250 million. If a player can get more on the open market, why wouldn’t they do that? It has nothing to do with loyalty at this point, it is about getting your worth. Plus, loyalty goes both ways… the Cubs play a role in this too.

“Those players who have recently signed all got long-term deals with certainty on where they would be playing. If you want to sign the best players in the game then you have to be willing to give those players what other teams are willing to give,” a source says. “Otherwise, why wouldn’t a player just go through arbitration and then get to free agency where he could get his market value? Players aren’t going to sign what you want them to if they have more attractive options available to them.”

I understand when fans can’t relate to a player’s salary. After all, we are talking about what equates to funny money in our heads. For most of us, we will never earn $100 million unless we get lucky in the lottery. So I understand when fans say things like, what can’t you buy if you don’t have that extra $XX million? But understand, we aren’t doing jobs where there are 40,000 people paying to see us daily, or millions watching us on TV. The world of anyone in entertainment is different from our worlds, and we shouldn’t put our expectations or beliefs on the players.

I know there are also a lot of folks that believe the Cubs wouldn’t be able to afford others or field a competitive team if Bryant signed a mega-deal. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Look at the 2019 Washington Nationals. They won a World Series while paying Steven Strasburg $39.4 million, Max Scherzer $37.5 m, Patrick Corbin $23 m (some deferred, but that was his LT number), and Anthony Rendon $18 m. They (Nationals) also earned roughly $100 million less in overall revenue than the Cubs.

You want to tell anyone that the Cubs wouldn’t be able to afford Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez when the Nationals were paying their top three guys much more than the Cubs top three would earn?

Ah, but the luxury tax! The baseball owners have done a ridiculously good job of putting fear of the tax in fan’s minds. They know 99% of the baseball fans out there won’t actually look up the tax, and even when they do they might not fully understand the penalties.

Currently, the Cubs have a payroll of $214.5 m according to rosterresource.com. The CBT in 2020 is $208 million. This means the Cubs are over the CBT by $6.5 million.

The penalty for being over the tax is 20% of the overtax dollars. The Cubs will have exceeded the CBT threshold for their second consecutive season, and there is a 10% hike for that. So, the Cubs are paying a 30% tax on $6.5 million. That equates to a $1.95 million penalty. Also note, the CBT only factors the average annual value of a deal, so if a player has a 5 yr, $50 million deal, the AAV is $10m. But, that player might earn $5m in the first season, $10m in the second, third, and fourth seasons, and then $15m in the final season. The payroll of the team might only assume $5m in the first year, or $15m in the last year, but their CBT number is $10m every season of the deal.

We also have to understand, the Cubs are providing about 40-45% of total revenue towards player salaries. This is down from last season, it is a smaller percentage than they contributed towards players under Tribune ownership, and the Cubs have many more avenues for revenue than they did then. There’s a great deal of revenue that goes into turning the electric on in Wrigley Field, travel, Per Diem, hotels, employee staff, etc. Now there is also a TV network, which does cost money to build but will earn millions in additional revenue every season. The crying poor by the Ricketts should not be allowed to happen, and players that brought championships to the team, that currently perform, shouldn’t be the victims of their lies.

The question becomes, will the Cubs try to afford him, not they can’t afford him.

He’ll be traded by the deadline

I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t know if he will or won’t be traded. I don’t think it is the best idea for one of the league’s best players to be traded while you expect to compete… but I don’t run the team.

I get the fear of playing it out and the Cubs possibly ending up empty-handed. I understand that, if the Cubs don’t up their offer, he certainly could leave via free agency at the end of the 2021 season. I understand how it could look like a failure of the front office if he walks and they only receive a compensation pick in return.

I 1000% understand all of that. So if you are trading him, the Cubs had better get a giant haul in return.

While trading Bryant will signal to fans that the Cubs don’t expect to win within the next two seasons, the return will absolutely need to have talent that is ready to start filling in holes in the 2022 season, when Baez and Rizzo can leave for free agency. They would need someone to fill Bryant’s place, likely a first baseman as well since Rizzo is believing he will not be a Cub forever, and pitching as there will be new holes in the rotation.

This is why that rumor about a Bryant for Arenado straight-up deal doesn’t really make sense. Why would they trade Bryant for Arenado, a more expensive player, who can opt-out after the 2021 season and doesn’t help fill any future holes? How does this even make sense?

Cause it doesn’t. There’s a lot of chatter, and I am sure the Cubs called Colorado when they heard Arenado wanted out. I mean, why wouldn’t they? He’s the best defensive third baseman in baseball and a quality bat. I would just caution folks on thinking his numbers translate to Wrigley because they don’t and won’t.

I know there are a lot of people out there that dig on Bryant, several of those complaints are listed in this article. Thing is, he is the best player on the Cubs roster. He has the ability to end his career as one of the best Cubs of all-time. All it is going to take is the Ricketts spending money on the talent they already have.