Friendships Come and Go, and So Do Kris Bryants

If you have any sense at all, you probably deactivated your Facebook account years ago, and thus liberated yourself from knowing intimate details about your distant relatives, schoolmates, and old co-workers. In this situation, it’s nevertheless helpful if your partner, or a close friend, remains plugged in. All the more so if they’re an inveterate gossip. Because even if you don’t want the fire hose of information, a little splash of water every now and then is refreshing.

Your second cousin once removed? Getting divorced for the third time, and getting really into NFTs about a year too late. The girl you asked (unsuccessfully) to junior prom? Just won a local Emmy for her work as a TV meteorologist. Booger from the sales department at your first job out of college? Newly ordained as a deacon at his church. Good for you, Booger.

As we go through life, we accumulate people according to time and context. A very small percentage of those stick and become lifelong friends; most drift away when circumstances change. Even people who are vitally important at one time — even roommates, romantic partners, confidants — float away sooner or later, to be replaced by some other person more suitable to the new social context.

Some might see this as a cold, misanthropic way of looking at relationships, but I find quite the opposite. There’s something beautiful about the idea that a chance encounter can lead to a relationship that shapes the rest of your life. And just because a friendship is temporary doesn’t diminish its importance. We all know the pang of poignancy that comes with thinking about someone for the first time in five years after not having spoken to them in 15.

This person was meaningful to me once, you might think as the hint of a smile wrinkles the corner of your mouth. Then they graduated, or moved away, or — in Kris Bryant’s case — signed with the Colorado Rockies.

Bryant is one of those players who seemingly came to the majors fully formed. He was the best player on the Cubs at a time when the Cubs were the most discussed team in the majors. In his first three seasons, he posted an even 20 WAR, won Rookie of the Year and MVP, assisted on the last out of the Cubs’ first World Series title in 108 years, and went to the NLCS two other times.

Back then, the book on Bryant was power. That was his carrying tool as a prospect; as a college junior, he hit 31 home runs in 62 games and slugged .820, and this in the weird transitional period after the NCAA introduced BBCOR bats to restrain offense, but before the NCAA started to grapple with the fact they’d turned the clock back to 1968.

Bryant hit 39 home runs in his MVP year, though his best opportunity to showcase his raw power — the 2015 Home Run Derby — was squandered when he chose his dad as his BP pitcher. It’s prime time, buddy. If you’re in it to win it, you’ll buy your old man a hot dog and a beer and let Dave Jauss or Ramon Henderson carry you to victory.

The other thing Bryant was known for was positional flexibility, though I don’t know if that speaks to something specific about his abilities as a player. Mostly it seems like Joe Maddon switched his defensive lineup around so much he made John McGraw look like Charlie Manuel, and Bryant was particularly down for whatever during that period in his career. He’d play more at third base than anywhere else, but he’d also start regularly in both outfield corners, and occasionally at first base and in center field. Bryant even has two career appearances at shortstop.

So when Bryant signed with the Rockies, it wasn’t immediately clear why a player who’d enjoyed so much team success — not just with the Cubs, but during his guest starring role with the 2021 Giants — would want to spend the rest of his career with a team that had been uncompetitive the two seasons prior and was headed in the wrong direction.

It was, however, blindingly obvious what Bryant could do for Colorado. He was a power hitter bound for Coors Field, and a player with experience at multiple positions — third base, first base, center field, left field — at which the Rockies had dire need of help.

The best way to describe the Rockies’ infield situation is going to sound a little nuts. For about 15 years, they had a big, right-handed, power-hitting shortstop: First Troy Tulowitzki, then Trevor Story. And for much of that time, Nolan Arenado had third base locked down. Arenado, of course, was traded to St. Louis the offseason before Colorado signed Bryant.

After that — and I recognize I’m going out on a limb here — Rockies infielders kind of have that University of Wisconsin quarterback face-blindness thing going. Like, apart from Russell Wilson, who’s his own thing, every Badgers quarterback since Jim Sorgi has just been a different regeneration of Jim Sorgi. Like in Doctor Who. It doesn’t help that they have similar names. Jim Sorgi, John Stocco, Joel Stave. Scott Tolzien is the same guy but with different initials. Alex Hornibrook is Mirror Universe Jim Sorgi because he’s left-handed.

Anyway, every Rockies infielder apart from Tulo, Story, and Arenado is a different reincarnation of Clint Barmes. Or Ian Stewart, if they hit left-handed. I knew, intellectually, that DJ LeMahieu wasn’t just Garrett Atkins in platform shoes, but I didn’t truly 100% believe it until he went to the Yankees. Each has slightly different gifts, so if Wisconsin QBs are all The Doctor, Rockies infielders are the different multiverse Spider-Mans. (Spiders-Man? Spider-Men?)

The point is, the Rockies signed a star third baseman with the ability to play all over the place and a big reputation as a power hitter, and now he’s playing exclusively in the outfield corners and he’s not hitting for power anymore.

There are three things to know about Bryant’s power. First, Bryant got a bit of a bad rap as a swing-and-miss guy because he led the league in strikeouts as a rookie, but since then he’s never really been a hacker. He’s posted a strikeout rate over 25% twice: His rookie year, and 2020, which was basically a write-off. He has a lower career K% than Ian Happ or Ronald Acuña Jr.

Conversely, Bryant’s MVP season is the only time he’s slugged more than .550 — the only time he’s finished in the top 10 in the NL in SLG — and one of just two 30-homer seasons in his career. In 2017, when he was a 7-WAR player, he hit 29 home runs and struck out in 19.2% of his plate appearances.

Second, it’s fair to consider how time and injuries have changed Bryant as a player. He’s 31 now, and has had two of the past three seasons (2020 and 2022) basically nuked by injuries. Most Millennials wake up in the morning with new and unexplained aches and pains — why would Bryant be any different?

With that said, here’s the difference in Bryant’s offensive production between his prime with the Cubs and his brief time with the Rockies. Because the third factor involves him actually hitting the ball differently during his time in Colorado:

What this looks like is a more aggressive but contact-friendly approach that preserves OBP at the expense of power. Bryant’s contact and plate discipline numbers varied quite a bit year-to-year, but taking his prime and comparing it to what he’s doing now, only one change jumps out:

Yes, he’s swinging at pitches out of the zone a little less, but the difference between 29.7% and 27.9% is the difference between 93rd and 115th on this year’s leaderboard. He’s always had pretty good strike zone judgment. The big difference is that Bryant is making lots more contact, specifically within the strike zone. His prime Z-Contact% would’ve put him in the bottom fifth of the league; his numbers with the Rockies are above average.

If Bryant were just making more contact and hitting for the same kind of power he was in Chicago, that’d be incredible. But he’s making…not bad contact necessarily, just different:

Surprise, surprise, Bryant’s power numbers are down because he isn’t hitting the ball as hard, even at the extremes. For his career, he has 23 batted balls with an exit velocity of 110 mph or better; every single one of them is from 2015 to 2021. He is hitting an absolute buttload of line drives — Bryant is currently sixth in the majors in line drive rate. But in general, he’s hitting the ball softer and at lower trajectories than he was in Chicago.

Now, in terms of actual playing time, Bryant has only spent about half a season in Colorado, spread out over more than a year in real time. But the small sample caveat is the only reason not to assume this is a deliberate adjustment on Bryant’s part. The difference in in-zone contact rate and contact quality is too big to ignore.

Does this mean Bryant is cooked? Far from it. For big hitters with plus-plus raw power entering their 30s, the fear is often that the bat speed will wane and the whole foundation of their offensive productivity will collapse like a bookshelf screwed into the drywall and not the studs. When he’s been on the field in Colorado, Bryant’s posted an OBP of .378, which is, like, awesome. And he’s still putting up good power numbers, just not what you’d expect from a former MVP playing at altitude.

Good hitters can reinvent themselves as their skill set evolves. How many versions of Joey Votto have we gone through over the years? Maybe Bryant is just discovering a new relationship with hitting to suit this phase of his life.