USA TODAY International Edition
Kris Bryant to critics: Why not Rockies?
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Kris Bryant has made an indelible impact from the moment he put on a Major League Baseball uniform.
He was the 2015 National League rookie of the year winner. He was the 2016 NL MVP. And, of course, he was an integral part of the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 World Series championship that ended their 108- year drought.
Now, two weeks into his new sevenyear, $ 182 million contract with the Colorado Rockies, he is responsible for a philosophical and moral change by MLB front offices.
The Kris Bryant Rule, implemented in the new collective bargaining agreement, is already having a major effect in helping rookies with no major league service time make opening- day rosters.
Pitcher Hunter Greene will be on the Cincinnati Reds’ opening- day roster.
First baseman Spencer Torkelson will be on the Detroit Tigers’ openingday roster. Center fielder Riley Greene would have made it, too, if not for a fractured foot.
Third baseman Bobby Witt Jr. made the Kansas City Royals’ opening- day roster.
The Seattle Mariners are expected to have outfielder Julio Rodriguez on their opening- day roster, despite having played only 46 games in Class AA.
Teams, which traditionally have manipulated service time to ensure rookies would be under control for seven years and not six, now are taking advantage of the new rules in the CBA that reward clubs and players for rookie success.
Rookies who finish first or second in rookie of the year voting will receive a full year of service, no matter how many games they play.
And clubs that promote their top prospects to opening- day rosters will be eligible to receive draft picks if the player finished among the top three in the rookie of the year voting or the top five in the MVP or Cy Young balloting.
All of a sudden, teams are more interested in having their rookies help out immediately rather than trying to save a few bucks and delay free agency. Go ahead and take a bow, Kris Bryant. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but let’s see how it plays out,” Bryant told USA TODAY Sports. “I still want to sit back and see how it all plays out. I feel like if you really wanted to, you could hold someone down long enough so they wouldn’t be eligible to become rookie of the year.
“But maybe teams are buying into this, knowing they’ve got a chance to get a draft pick out of it, and everyone is rewarded.”
The Cubs kept Bryant in the minor leagues at the start of the 2015 season despite hitting .425 with nine homers and a 1.175 slugging percentage in 14 spring training games. He was called up eight games into the regular season, leaving him with 171 days, one day shy of having a full season. It delayed his free agency by a year.
Bryant and the Major League Baseball Players Association immediately filed a grievance, which was finally heard in 2020, but he lost.
Still, Bryant made the point, loud and clear, that he believed he was wronged by the Cubs and the system.
“It’s the main reason I did what I did, being very public about that,” Bryant said. “I didn’t necessarily enjoy all of that attention, and the negativity around it, but the whole point of going through what I went through was fighting for the guys who came after me. They get a full year of service when they deserve it, and that feels really good to me.
“I felt like my case was a really good case, but I knew I wasn’t going to win it. But all I went through was worth it at the end for the players as a whole. It perhaps changes the landscape of how this game is governed along the way.”
Bryant, 30, is hopeful now that his stunning decision to sign with the Rockies may change the view of future free agent classes, too.
Bryant keeps hearing folks question why he signed with the Rockies, a franchise that has never won the NL West and has won just one playoff game since 2009.
Bryant answers back: “Why not?”
“I don’t know why people are surprised,” said the native of Las Vegas. “Denver has always been a place for me where I’ve been attracted to. It fits my personality. It’s a great city and fan base. So I don’t care if people are surprised or not.
“I just think it’s a thing when you come from such a well- known team, doing a lot of things in the spotlight there, it’s different when you go elsewhere.”
The Cubs were in the playoffs all but one year Bryant was in Chicago, and after he was traded last summer to the San Francisco Giants, they won the NL West over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now, he goes to a team that has had only five winning seasons in the last 21 years.
“I have plenty of good friends that have gone on to play with other teams that they thought were going to be socalled World Series contenders and they’re not even in the playoffs,” Bryant said. “I think that speaks to how our game is. There are no certainties.
“People just have the opinion that these are the teams that are going to compete, so you should go play for those teams. It just doesn’t always work out that way.”
Besides, he points out, Jon Lester took the gamble in December 2014 when he signed a six- year, $ 155 million free agent contract with the Cubs, who were coming off five consecutive losing seasons.
They were dousing one another in champagne two seasons later during the World Series celebration.
Bryant would love to have that kind of impact in Denver, hoping that his presence would lure more high- powered free agents. If it wasn’t a desirable place to play, infielder Ryan McMahon wouldn’t have signed a six- year, $ 70 million contract extension last week, along with pitchers Antonio Senzatela and German Marquez over the past three years, with Charlie Blackmon and Nolan Arenado before them, and Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki before them.
Yet all that is remembered is that Arenado signed an eight- year, $ 260 million contract extension and was sent to St. Louis two years later after he requested a trade, following a public personality clash with former general manager Jeff Bridich.
“People are more caught up with what had happened in the past here, with Nolan leaving,” said Bryant, who has a full no- trade clause and no optout provisions in his contract. “I just really have a good feeling from ownership and the front office, and Bud Black is an unbelievable manager.
“We’re in a division that is very, very competitive where they could just roll over and say we don’t really want to sign guys. But they did it with me and Ryan McMahon and Senzatela and Marquez. It says a lot about the people running the show here. I’m so glad this is my home. This is where I want to be.”
Bryant and his wife, Jessica, just bought a home in Denver. They have a 2- year- old son and twins on the way who are due in July. They will continue to live in Las Vegas during the offseason but plan to at least make visits to Colorado in the winter, if nothing else, just to see snow.
“I’m attracted by the challenge of trying to turn wins here,” said Bryant, who’s hosting a team party Sunday. “Look what happened in Chicago. I took pride in helping turn things around here. This team was just in the playoffs four years ago.
“There are cycles in this game, things turn around, and I’m hoping to add a veteran presence, a winning presence. I think I can do that.”