JABO: The Kris Bryant Breakeven Point
Kris Bryant is the story of the spring. The Cubs top prospect — and baseball’s top prospect, by most accounts — won’t stop launching home runs. It’s nearly the end of March, and he still has an OPS that begins with a 2. But that’s only part of the Kris Bryant story, as most of the attention has revolved around the fact that the he’s likely to begin the year in the minor leagues. The Cubs are using necessary defensive improvements as their cover, but it’s an open secret that they’re simply responding to the incentives set for in the Collective Bargaining Agreement; by keeping Bryant in the minors for a couple of weeks, they’ll retain his rights for the 2021 season.
While it won’t be a popular decision, it’s clearly the correct one. They are in essence trading roughly 10 games of 2015 value in exchange for a full season of Bryant in his prime, and while the Cubs clearly want to win this year, no player is so great that missing 10 games would meaningfully alter a team’s expected results. Even Mike Trout, clearly the best player in baseball, is only expected to add about half a win to his team’s ledger every 10 games, and Bryant is no Mike Trout. Even an optimistic projection for Bryant would have him adding maybe a quarter of a win to the Cubs season total if he started in the big leagues versus being held down for a few weeks. Baseball isn’t basketball; one guy only matters so much.
But while the rules clearly incentivize the Cubs to hold Bryant down for a couple of weeks, there is a point at which the present-for-future trade-off would no longer make sense, especially for a contending team. Let’s try to figure out where that point might be.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
It will be a popular decision in 2021.
Cubs fans love to be able to whine about their endless suffering. But 2 weeks of Mike Olt at 3B won’t have any effect on anything. An extra year of Kris Bryant in his prime – that could matter quite a bit.
Are Cubs fans the ones complaining about this? Seems like it’s almost everybody except Cubs fans since, as you say, this actually benefits them directly.
Some of the media in Chicago is crushing the Cubs if that counts as Cubs fans. They’re worried about things such as his willingness to re-sign in 2021 if the Cubs “play with his contract” now. But I’m all for it!
@ spa….Not sure how many Cubs fans you know, but i don’t know ANY who “love to whine about their suffering” I for one don’t ever again want to hear the “haven’t won in 100 years” thing again for the rest of my life
It seems to be a prerequisite for every network broadcaster and for wags everywhere…Do I think Bartman touched the ball in the field of play–he absolutely did..did it cause the loss? The error by the SS on a DP grounder minutes later had a lot more to do with it. So did the Moises Alos dramatics and the inaction from the dugout. Is there a Billy Goat curse or a 1969 black cat curse..heck no.
Having said all that–you are spot on about the extra year of control brother!
You use the word “clearly” three times in the first three sentences, and again in the first sentence of the second paragraph. This is clearly too often.
Hopefully you see this as helpful. I have and will continue to read and enjoy your work, but for some reason I just can’t let this one go un-noted. The power of the internet compels me!
… err, 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. On JABO the first paragraph is broken out as a quasi-headline. I’m done now, I promise.
I think the greater risk to their 2015 playoff hopes is not having Mike Olt instead of Kris Bryant for 12 games, it’s having Mike Olt play well enough to win the job for a minute.
It wouldn’t be unheard of for a player of Olt’s background/talent level to put together 1 All Star level month. The bad news would come when he inevitably falls back to his true abilities, but he has earned enough of a leash to get another month (or a few weeks?) to get back on track before he’s swapped out. Add that time to however long it takes Bryant to get acclimated to MLB, and you may have lost a win or two.
Your team is no longer run by imbeciles. If Olt gives the Cubs All Star value, it means that this value can be added to Bryant’s breakeven point. Meaning, they can leave him down longer without it affecting them. However, Maddon and Epstein are plenty savey enough to know that Bryant is better than Olt and even All-Star Olt will have a short leash.
Great analysis, but, as somebody will be playing third in Bryant’s absence this year, you need to add that value to your calculations. The question isn’t “How many plate appearance until Bryant gets 1.5 Wins of value”. It should be “How many plate appearances until Bryant gets 1.5 more wins of value than his replacement.” As his replacement will be Mike Olt, these two values are probably equivalent, but one cannot assume that.
Excellent post Dave. I think everybody reading FanGraphs agrees that it’s the proper decision, and it’s interesting to see how long they can keep him down for it to be a poor decision. I’m sure different methodologies would lead different results, but it’s evident that a couple weeks isn’t even close to being breakeven.
On a separate note, have the projected standings changed at all due to the changes in WAR calculations? When I look at the depth charts, the Mets are within 1 WAR of the Cubs for the second WC and they’re 2 WAR ahead of the next batch of teams (Padres, Giants, etc). In the projected standings, they’re behind those teams. I know that the depth charts can’t be translated directly into team wins, but didn’t know if the playoff odds changed at all when the depth charts did.
I agree with the business side of the decision, but it certainly has to be an irritation to the player (and agent), as well as a sacrifice of goodwill for the team. If any of you were a player, would that negatively affect you? Just curious.
I’m sure he’d rather start on Opening Day, but he’s smart enough to know the business decision, and he’s smart enough to realize that every team in baseball would most likely do the same thing. When all is said and done, it shouldn’t have any impact whatsoever from a goodwill standpoint.
For arguments sake, let’s say that they did call him up for opening day. Is there any chance that Bryant and Boras would give the Cubs a hometown discount during contract negotiations due to the goodwill? I don’t see that happening.
meh, any team might, but only one will. This combined with Boras as his agent I think makes it very unlikely he delays free agency. I don’t think it’s a big enough deal that it should alter their decision, but that’s clearly a side effect of such obvious service time manipulation.
I’ve got to, one again, point out the serious fallacy about how much a player can contribute in ten games.
Players do not accrue value perfectly consistently.
Trout doesn’t accrue. 5 WAR per ten games every ten games.
They have 5-5 with 2 doubles and game winning home runs. They have weeks where they go 1-17 with two crushing errors.
For a big market team there is no reason to keep him down. They aren’t trading ten games for a year.
If he is good the cubs have the resources to not lose him. They will extend him. In which case they are trading ten games for the slight savings involved in extending him five months later than expected.
Huge market teams owned by billionaires who are trying to compete this season should have the best team on the field.
Because, again, value isn’t accrued.05 WAR per game every game.
Bryant is the best player on their third base depth charts. Be could start the year 9-18 with five home runs and win then 3 games in the first week or go 0-20.
Teams that want to win are more likely to win each and every game with better players.
And, once more for emphasis, this isn’t the Rays or Royals who WOULD actually be trading a season for ten games because they could never afford rp resign a star. The cubs can afford anyone they want to keep.
The savings of this move will be negligible.
And this whole trading a season for ten games is a silly analysis that keeps getting repeated without being even examined at all.
And it’s not true in this instance so.
Rant over. Also I’m not a cubs fan. Or a robot.
The reason we use averages is that we don’t know how players will perform on a daily or weekly basis. Maybe Bryant will go 0-20 the first week, but Olt would have gone 9-18 with five home runs and win them 3 games. If that happens, the Cubs will have wasted a year of Bryant’s control, as well as 3 games in the standings. The decision making process should not simply be that Bryant can play way over his head for a couple weeks so we need to make sure not to send him down.
And as for the salary savings, I think you’re strongly underestimating them. Even if they want to keep him long term, it will cost a lot more money to sign him to a long term deal if they have one less year of control.
If Bryant starts opening day than the cost of getting him for 2021 far exceeds just his salary that year. If he’s as good as everyone thinks It will require a multi-year commitment and 9 figures guaranteed salary. The new Cubs have money but they’re also smart and they don’t have unlimited money. They may just anticipate that Bryant and Boras are going to push hard for free agency and be trying to maximize how long they can keep him for, rather than just trying to get cost savings.
We’re all assuming instant success here, we still don’t know what Mr. Bryant will turn into.
That said, I think this is a proper move both on the business side and from a baseball standpoint. One can argue that Bryant would need at least a few weeks/months worth of Triple A time.
That said, I am eager to see him when he does inevitably take over the hot corner.
The dude just spent the second half of the year putting together a 164 wRC+ at triple-A, after a 220 wRC+ at Double-A the first half of the year. It what sense could he not be ready? If the Cubs were in a pennant race last year he would have been called up then.
Yes, he strikes out a bit more than average and the defense is still a question mark. Even with those small issues he’s obviously already a better than average MLB player right now.
Sounds to me that a player like Mike Trout (or someone near his equal in talent) would have a 50% chance of influencing the difference of one game in a ten game sample. If they miss the playoffs by one game, that one game in April could in fact be the deciding factor. Can’t see how that’s not potentially significant.