In the tale that seemed to never want an end, the Chicago Cubs third baseman, Kris Bryant has lost his grievance. Bryant filed the grievance sometime during April of the 2015 season in an effort to earn an extra year of service time. In that 2015 season, the Cubs had waited until April 17th to call Bryant up, claiming he needed some additional time in Triple-A to work out some defensive issues.
MLB arbitrator, Mark Irving’s ruling was expected, but in order to honor the process and do the due diligence required of an issue which could have impacted several players and many other teams.
The important part of this ruling is, now the Cubs are finally free to have an offseason. While it wasn’t Kris Bryant himself holding the Cubs up, this grievance really held the offseason hostage. If the Cubs wanted to trade Bryant, which has been rumored quite a bit, teams needed to know how long they would control him. If the Cubs wanted to extend him, they needed to know how long he has left, otherwise, no extension talks could capture any guaranteed pay. It was also a determining factor in any free agent dealings or conversations with current Cubs players on extensions.
Now knowing that the Cubs will have control of Bryant till the end of the 2021 season, they can now move forward with whichever plan they have in place. Whatever that plan might be.
