Signability of Kris Bryant

Kris Bryant will play a huge part in the next Chicago Cubs championship, either because he’s a major piece of that team or if traded, his return plays a role. To be transparent, I do not think the Cubs trade him and I think he is absolutely the most talented offensive player on the club. Also, in the spirit of being transparent, I cannot see any team in baseball giving the Cubs enough talent in return for a deal to actually work.

But, my personal thoughts and theories probably aren’t why you are here. You’ve clicked because you are mildly interested in learning what the likelihood of signing Bryant is.

Rumor

Almost exactly a year ago, David Kaplan started a rumor that grew uncontrollably about Bryant and offers he and his team declined. I was extremely quick to call the rumor false (my article calling it out), and later I was proved correct in calling out the made-up rumor (NBC Sports, crediting The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma dispelling those same rumors).

That report that Kris Bryant rejected a Cubs extension offer "well north of $200 million" in the last several months? A source close to the situation said it's "simply not true." That and more on Kris Bryant and what he's hoping to do in 2019. https://t.co/mr3UHuMAZz

— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) October 11, 2018

Kaplan himself said that the numbers were assumed, and never really meant to represent a rejected offer. More so, they were estimates on what a deal for Bryant would likely look like. So, he assumed… quite a bit.

The Cubs have absolutely approached Bryant, or more specifically, Scott Boras about a contract extension with the team. Yes, each of those deals was turned down. Yes, each of those offers should have been turned down.

Here’s the thing… the Cubs have approached Bryant, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber, and virtually every notable young player they have had on the roster about a potential extension. Every single one of those conversations ended with the player, or their agent, declining the offer.

Knowing this information, there is definitely a bias about Bryant (likely more Boras) which gets played out in the media and through fans unfairly. Boras has a bad rap for overvaluing guys and taking them to free agency. But, in all honesty, he isn’t any different from any other agent in baseball, other than the fact that he negotiates in the media while the others do it behind closed doors. Whatever you think of him, his methods work, and the clients *he works for* appreciate what he does for them.

“He’s the best that’s ever been in this game,” Bryant stated. “He’s kind of polarizing. Some guys don’t like him but as a player you have to love him. He’s there fighting for you every day. He wants the best for you. It’s not just for him. He’s a great family man. I can call him at any time of the night and ask a question. He’s there to answer it. That’s the type of guy you want on your side.”

Kris Bryant speaking about Scott Boras

But here’s the thing, the news of the Cubs trying to extend him was not new, news a year ago. They had tried in each of the past five seasons, just like they’ve done with the other players I previously mentioned. Here’s Boras talking about talks the club and he had following the 2016 season.

“(The Cubs) talked about where they are philosophically,” Boras said. “We understand what works for (Theo Epstein). And we understand what philosophy works for Kris Bryant,” Boras said. “Theo’s dynamic has worked for him. And Kris Bryant’s dynamic has worked for players like him.”

Jon Heyman

While most will look at Boras as the leader of the talks, Bryant has been rather clear, “Scott works for me.”

Service time manipulation

I have seen a lot of fans suggest that Bryant is still upset over the service time game the Cubs played in 2015. Yes, Bryant earned a roster spot in 2015’s spring training. Sure, he filed a grievance (that I still believe is open with the MLB). He likely didn’t like spending those extra two weeks in Iowa when he knew he was better than Mike Olt (and everyone else did too).

But if you believe that he is going to seek the absolute most money possible, you can’t also believe he won’t re-sign here because of a tactic all organizations use. If money is king with Boras, then the Cubs have more than paid back the debt for that two week period.

After the 2015 season, the Cubs nearly doubled Bryant’s salary, going from $652K to $1.05 million, which was a pre-arbitration record. They didn’t have to do this, there was no real precedent in doing so. The only rule here was, they couldn’t pay him less than $535,000, the MLB minimum. They just did it.

This also helped Bryant in arbitration. Since the current salary is a component, Bryant was able to earn more through his first-year arbitration because the Cubs gave him a larger than normal increase. That helped Bryant break the first-year arbitration record, earning $10,850,000 in 2018. At the time, most put Bryant in the $8M to $9M range, but the Cubs came over the top with their offer to him.

The idea of ill-will because of two weeks just isn’t there. It’s a fabricated idea that fans have built up because they don’t believe Bryant will stay in Chicago.

Is he worth the investment?

This is something that is scattered all throughout social media from fans. Now, this is extremely biased opinion. I have run several polls throughout the past month or so asking fans who the better player is, matching Bryant up against the likes of Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo, and Nicholas Castellanos.

Each and every single poll Bryant got killed in.

Does this mean those three players are better or more valuable than Bryant? No. That’s a factually incorrect statement. It does mean that there is some asinine narrative out there that says Kris Bryant is a very overrated player. The kicker, fans of the team that watches him daily, have bought into this idiotic theme.

Here are the simple comparisons:

• Kris Bryant vs Javier Baez
  • KB Career: .284/.385/.516 .901 OPS AVG 28 HR, 33 2B, 97 R
  • KB 2019: .282/.382/.521 .903 OPS 31 HR, 35 2B, 108 R 135 wRC+ 4.8 fWAR
  • Baez Career: .270/.310/.484 .794 OPS AVG 22 HR, 27 2B, 69 R
  • Baez 2019: .281/.316/.531 .847 OPS 29 HR, 38 2B, 89 R 114 wRC+ 4.4 fWAR

Value-wise, they were both pretty similar in 2019. Bryant was slightly better, his OPS and wRC+ prove that to be true. Sure, Baez is more gifted defensively, but this is something that is taken into account when calculating WAR. Had Baez not hurt his thumb, they would have likely finished around the same fWAR figure in 2019.

Bryant, over the course of his career, is much more valuable than Baez, but admittedly, they have both taken different steps towards stardom.

• Bryant vs Anthony Rizzo
  • KB Career: .284/.385/.516 .901 OPS AVG 28 HR, 33 2B, 97 R
  • KB 2019: .282/.382/.521 .903 OPS 31 HR, 35 2B, 108 R 135 wRC+ 4.8 fWAR
  • Rizzo Career: .273/.373/.488 .862 OPS AVG 27 HR, 37 2B, 94 R
  • Rizzo 2019: .293/.409/.582 .924 OPS 27 HR, 29 2B, 89 R 141 wRC+, 4.0 fWAR

Rizzo was the shinning star on what was a rather disappointing 2019 season, but even he had troubles throughout the season. He posted his career-best batting average and on-base percentage in 2019, but still had a stretch of 26 games where he failed to hit a home run.

The biggest argument against Bryant’s worth is his inability to come through in clutch situations as if that was actually a thing. I know a lot of fans define clutch as RISP with like two outs. Fans need to understand that this is such a small sample size of a season, that results change, wildly, from week-to-week.

Even looking at those clutch situations (RISP with 2 out) Bryant slashes .254/.388/452 .840 with 14 HR over his career. In comparison, Rizzo, who once thumped his chest in the playoffs for pitching to him in this situation, has a career slash line of .233/.398/.411 with a .809 OPS and 17 HR in these spots.

Bryant has been better over his career in RISP with 2 out than perhaps the clubs most “clutch” player in the eyes of the fans. Even more, Bryant had a .955 OPS in these situations in 2019, and Rizzo owned a .883 OPS in those same 2 out, RISP scenarios. This just continues to add to my opinion that the hate of Bryant that goes around social media circles is just an ill-informed opinion.

Will he re-sign here?

So, I spend a lot of time reading Twitter accounts of beat writers, reading articles from major media outlets as well as other Cubs blogs. I peruse tons of social media posts daily on opinion and fact and tendency. The overwhelming thought among fans is, Bryant will not re-sign in Chicago and the Cubs should trade him before he walks.

The overwhelming thought among insiders is – they don’t know.

Let’s take the biggest fan of the “blow it all up” fan club – Gordon Wittenmyer. He was on Tom Loxas’s podcast, Beers and Beat Guys. He explained that, while there will be some changes to the 2020 roster, he absolutely doesn’t expect Bryant to be one of those changes. He believes that the whole, “won’t re-sign because of Boras” thing is very overrated.

“The whole relationship with Boras and this idea that (Bryant) won’t sign an extension is way overplayed, way overplayed,” Wittenmyer said. “People use that like it’s some kind of factor that that’s been building all this years. It hasn’t. Yes, they’ve made offers. They also knew those offers weren’t going to get accepted. They were low-ball offers at the time too and they knew he wasn’t going to accept it, but if he did, Hey great, so you do it”.

Wittenmyer told Loxas, as described on Cubs Insider

Whatever you think of Gordo, which I honestly don’t put much value in his sky-is-always-falling mentality, this is absolutely 100% true. If Bryant wants to be in Chicago after the 2021 season, and the Cubs want him to be as well – he will be. It is as simple as that. It doesn’t matter who his agent is, if the Cubs offer him a fair value deal, Bryant will sign.

So, what will it take genius?

Well, thanks for calling me a genius… If I could actually answer that question I might have a different role in life. But, I do think I can get in the neighborhood.

Late in the 2019 offseason, the Colorado Rockies agreed to an eight-year deal worth $260 million. Around that same time, Bryant began telling anyone that would listen that he is interested in signing an extension with the Cubs.

Cubs Kris Bryant open to long term contract . “ We have not heard from them ( Cubs) about that so far this off season “

— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) February 27, 2019

The idea is, a deal in that same neighborhood of what Arenado got is what Bryant was looking for. After his 2018 season, the first year he had ever missed a game due to injury (literally ever, he had never missed an MLB, MiLB, College, HS, or Little League game due to injury). He came back and performed to career standards in 2019.

If the Cubs offered that type of deal to Bryant and Boras – I don’t see them turning something like that down.

Now, reality… Bryant missed significant time in 2018. In 2019, he missed time sporadically throughout the season. This was mostly due to a right knee that plagued him most of the second half of 2019. In fact, you can track it to about July 24th.

From July 24th through September 8th (when he missed a rather big game against the Milwaukee Brewers) Bryant had slashed .229/.308/.393 in those 38 games. Before that period, he had slashed .299/.405/.562 and was on pace to have his best offensive season in his career.

On September 9th, Bryant received a cortisone shot in that knee. He would then go on to earn the National League Player of the Week honors immediately after. So, there had to have been something very wrong in that knee. Something Joe Maddon echoed when pressed about it.

“When he comes in and says he needs a day, then you know because he’s played through a lot of different maladies. There was a swing last night, foul ball, that I saw him, that he had to catch himself on the finish. I thought there might be something. He wasn’t really challenged on defense. He wasn’t challenged on the bases. Primarily, I saw it in the batter’s box last night.”

Maddon told reporters in Milwaukee on September 8th

So, while he finished the season a tad below career averages (.002 points below career BA, .003 below career OBP) most of his season showed he was every bit as dangerous as he ever has been.

So, what would a deal look like?

If he was on the open market this season, he isn’t, Bryant could likely fetch a 10-year deal, somewhere in the neighborhood of $28-32 million a season. A deal like this would take Bryant to his age-37 season. So, I think that is the length the Cubs will need to work in. A deal that is at least 10 years. This will buy out his final two arbitration seasons and pay him much more in 2020 and 2021 than he would receive if he were to go through the arbitration motions.

As far as salary… this is a tad harder. The Cubs will absolutely look to find value, and just handing over $30 million a season doesn’t exactly find that value. Bryant earned $12.9 million in 2019 and put up star numbers again. I would guesstimate that his arbitration number for 2020 would be around $18-19 million. His final arbitration season, as long as he is still producing at this level, he should surpass Josh Donaldson’s record $23 million award in 2018.

So, the way I see it, an extension needs to be large enough to cover those seasons as well as pay what he would eventually earn. Meaning, and I probably didn’t explain it right, if the Cubs want value the salary for the next two seasons needs to cover the loss he might experience over the last eight seasons.

Let’s say Bryant is in line for $19 million this season and $25 million after the 2020 season. We expect he would get $30 million a season on the open market. If the Cubs offered $28 million a season for 10 years, that deal would be undervalued by $2 million over the course of the contract (assuming he would earn an additional $11 million in the first two seasons, but $2 million less the next eight years. This is undervalued by $5 million over the course of the deal).

I think the deal needs to be like $29.75 a year, for a total of $297.5 million. That is if it is a 10-year contract. Maybe, because his age, the Cubs look for something that takes him to his age-35 season. This would mean eight more years of Bryant at around $28 million per season, which is damn near equal value.

“Is a priority [in 2020] because we’re now just two years away from a lot of our best players reaching the end of their period of control with the Cubs,” Theo told reporters on Monday’s end of season press conference.

Figuring out the groundwork is incredibly important for the front office. The sooner they get on this, the better. Learning if a reasonable deal is able to be met changes their entire offseason. If he isn’t going to sign, as Theo says, they may have to look at potential trades. They will also need to find someone to fill the hole that would be void by him gone.

Honestly, trading him would create infinitely more work than finding a reasonable contract extension. Fingers crossed that they work out the extension.