in MLB Major League Baseball

Cubs’ Shenanigans May Cost Them Bryant in the Future

Kris Bryant's spring training stint ends on a sour note.

There is an unstated rule in sports and in life. If you perform better than everyone else, you get to move to the front of the line. This week Chicago Cubs top prospect, and maybe the best prospect in all of baseball, Kris Bryant learned that while he can knock the hell out of a baseball, he can’t lay a splinter on its business interests.

Monday Bryant got the news that he would not be making his major league debut with the Chicago Cubs on Opening Day. Instead, he would be sent back to the minors, to the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, a league that he dominated completely in the second half of last season. Why didn’t he dominate it the whole season? Because he was in Double-A with the Tennessee Smokies hitting 22 home runs, batting .355 and winning the home run derby at the Southern League All-Star Game.

He took home every minor league hitting award, both nationally and with the Cubs. His final season totals across Double-A and Triple-A were 43 homers, 110 RBIs and a .325 batting average.

All he did at spring training this season was outperform every single baseball player on the planet. So why is he starting out in Iowa instead of locking down third base at Wrigley Field? The answer comes down to one word; money.

The last collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the MLB Players Association had a free agency loophole in it. One that teams, especially teams run by Cubs president Theo Epstein, have exploited to keep a hot young player under contract for a seventh year, effectively costing him a year of free agency. If Bryant sits in Iowa for 12 days, then gets called up to Chicago, he’ll be a free agent in 2021 instead of 2020. Those twelve days may end up costing Bryant around $20-30 million before it’s over. There’s a chance he might take something like that personally.

Epstien has used that loophole every time, and has proudly proclaimed that he’s never started a non-Rule 5 prospect on Opening Day. And make no mistake, regardless of what he says, it’s been to steal an extra year of cheap service.

Of course the Cubs (and Epstein’s old team, the Boston Red Sox) aren’t the only organizations to pull this move. In fact, teams actually promoting starting top prospects on Opening Day is the rare event. It hardly ever happens.

“People are trying to make this about business,” Epstein told the Chicago Sun-Times. “There are valid baseball reasons. The process of developing a player, taking from amateur to major league player and every step along the way, that’s a baseball process. Those are baseball decisions. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

Sure thing, Theo. It’s player development issues that will put Bryant on the first plane, helicopter, jet pack or circus cannon out of Des Moines at 12:01 a.m. on day 13.

Bryant isn’t stupid. He knows the deal, but there was reason to think that the Cubs, in a division that’s there for the taking, might value the two or three extra victories that Bryant could equal if he started out in Chicago. Let’s be honest. If Bryant turns into the major leaguer he looks like he will be, the team will do everything they can to sign him long-term before he hits free agency anyway. Why piss him off?

“I’m disappointed,” Bryant said in a postgame interview Thursday. “I really wanted my performance this spring to matter. I just felt it didn’t matter as much (to the Cubs) as it did to me.”

As the beat writer for the Smokies, I got to know Kris Bryant last year and cover him blasting through the Southern League before heading to Iowa after the All-Star break. He’s better than advertised. He’s, simply put, the best hitter I’ve ever seen in person. It’s too bad the fans at Wrigley won’t get the chance to have that same experience on Opening Day. Trust that the folks in Iowa will be relishing it.

“There’s nothing to hang my head,” Bryant said. “I did well. I think I handled myself well. I couldn’t be prouder of myself. There are a lot of positives. I learned a lot about the game and the business. I think I’ll learn from it.”

It turns out Epstein might be a pretty good teacher after all.

Written by Adam Greene

Adam Greene is a writer and photographer based out of East Tennessee. His work has appeared on Cracked.com, in USA Today, the Associated Press, the Chicago Cubs Vineline Magazine, AskMen.com and many other publications.

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