Kris Bryant Not the Only MLB Player Sent Down
The Chicago Cubs made big news yesterday when they demoted Kris Bryant as he is clearly better than other players remaining on the major league roster. Leaving Bryant aside, there are several other prospects throughout the majors who will not get starting roles with their teams who might already be better than the players ahead of them, including fellow Cubs prospect Javier Baez. There are myriad reasons to keep a player in the minors, some related to service time, some related to player readiness, some related to lack of urgency to win, and some due to sunk costs already on the major league roster.
Below are four players who could help their team now, with three players on teams that could contend, but will likely not make the major league roster. Other players who were considered, but not discussed in depth below are Rob Refsnyder on the New York Yankees, Alex Meyer and Miguel Sano of the Minnesota Twins, Archie Bradley of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers and potentially Micah Johnson of the Chicago White Sox. The numbers below come from the FanGraphs Depth Charts. All plate appearances are prorated to 600 and all innings pitched are prorated to 180.
| OBP | SLG | wOBA | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Javier Baez | 0.277 | 0.436 | 0.312 | 1.5 |
| Chris Coghlan (LF) | 0.319 | 0.376 | 0.309 | 0.3 |
| Arismendy Alcantera | 0.290 | 0.408 | 0.307 | 1.7 |
What was true of Bryant is less clear with Baez. Chris Mitchell did a good job yesterday discussing how much weight should be given to Baez’s terrible start in Major League Baseball last season. Baez was solid last season in Triple-A, but not spectacular with a .260/.323/.510 line in 434 Iowa plate appearances. Baez already has a couple months in the majors so the Cubs would need to keep him in the minors until sometime in June to receive an additional year of team control.
Fellow Cubs prospect Arismendy Alcantara has the better prorated WAR at second base coming into the season, and aligning the best lineup involves a lot of moving parts. Chris Coghlan is the lowest projected regular on the Cubs so moving him out of the lineup probably moves the Cubs forward the most. Alcantara has played the outfield and could replace Coghlan. He would not be worth as much in left field as the infield, but the net gain over Coghlan would help, assuming Kris Bryant is called up soon and takes over at third base as opposed to left field. The ideal lineup for the Cubs may put Alcantara in center field with Dexter Fowler moving to right as Fowler is not seen as a good defender by UZR or DRS.
| ERA | FIP | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carlos Rodon | 4.39 | 4.72 | 0.5 |
| Hector Noesi | 5.84 | 5.23 | -0.5 |
Across town, the Chicago White Sox have a top prospect of their own who could make an immediate impact with the team. Carlos Rodon has just over 21 professional innings after the White Sox made him the third overall draft pick last year and signed him to a contract in excess of $6 million. Kiley McDaniel ranked him the number eight prospect in all of baseball, noting his great slider. He might not make a big impact this season, but he is likely to be an upgrade over what the White Sox currently have in the rotation.
After trading for Jeff Samardzija and signing Melky Cabrera, projecting the team to win just 78 games might come as a surprise. The Sox have Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, and Jose Quintana anchoring the rotation, but the White Sox could have two replacement-level or below pitchers in the rotation with Hector Noesi and John Danks. The White Sox still owe Danks around $14 million each of the next two seasons, but the left-hander has not had a decent season since 2011. Rodon does not have any service time so the White Sox could gain an extra year of service time by keeping him down for a few weeks. Those few weeks are not likely to make a difference in the team’s playoff chances, but if they keep him down too long, they might find themselves out of the race earlier than expected.
| OBP | SLG | wOBA | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maikel Franco | 0.283 | 0.429 | 0.311 | 0.6 |
| Ryan Howard | 0.307 | 0.407 | 0.313 | -0.3 |
The Phillies do not have a lot going for them right now, but Maikel Franco should be a bright spot for them at some point this season. Kiley McDaniel ranked Franco 38th out of all prospects, writing “Franco’s breakout was in 2013, between High-A and Double-A, when he went from a high contact hitter with some raw power to a monster hitting over .300 with 30 homers between two levels”. Franco has already been sent down this spring after some concerns of overswinging.
Franco has been a third baseman in the minor leagues and his projection is actually higher than current Phillies third baseman Cody Asche, but Franco would be a more significant upgrade at first base over Ryan Howard. Given where they sit on the win curve, there is little urgency to call Franco up, particularly to bench former franchise star Ryan Howard. After playing a month last season, the Phillies would need to keep him down into May to ensure a seventh season of service time. Franco might not provide much for the Phillies this season, but he is likely already ahead of the low standard they have set at the major league level currently.
| ERA | FIP | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noah Syndergaard | 3.54 | 3.37 | 2.9 |
| Dillon Gee | 4.23 | 4.24 | 1.1 |
Much has been made of the Cubs decision to send Kris Bryant down, but much less has been written about the decision to keep Noah Syndergaard in the minors. Heading into the season, the Mets are just a couple projected wins behind the Cubs and their odds at the playoffs (30%) are not that far off compared to the Cubs (44%). The Mets looked good in the rotation heading into spring, but when Zach Wheeler went down they inserted Dillon Gee into the rotation.
Gee’s projections are not very good while Syndergaard is projected to be very good right off the bat. Kiley McDaniel rated Syndergaard the 19th best prospect in baseball and wrote, “He now sits 93-97 with heavy life and hits 98 mph with a curveball that is mostly above average, but still varies outing to outing. Syndergaard also has been more open to using his changeup than Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler at the same stage, with the pitch flashing above average pretty consistently already.” The win jump between Syndergaard and Gee is huge, similar to the one the Cubs will gain when they call Kris Bryant up.
The Mets, Cubs, and White Sox all have an outside shot at contending this season, but look like they will keep a potentially important piece to contention in the minors. Kris Bryant gets all the attention, but Carlos Rodon, Javier Baez, and Noah Syndergaard have claims of their own. If the goal is to put the best team on the field, even Phillies fans should be complaining. Not all service time manipulation is as obvious as the Cubs’ decision to send Kris Bryant down, but it is a fairly common practice that happens every spring.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Comparing most of these players to Bryant ignores the reality of what really doesn’t pass the smell test in baseball.
This guy has created the best case to be taken North possibly ever due to the following;
1) His HR’s, average, etc. is off the charts. When was the last time that much power (and avg.) didn’t make the team from ST?
2) He is an everyday player…not a reliever or starter but a player that can make the diffence from day one.
3) The Cubs have historically failed perhaps the most loyal fan group in any sport.
4) Their other Rook’s should be sent down as they are incomplete, Bryant should be the exception because the kid had done frickin’ everything imaginable. The Dodger’s aren’t keeping Joc down and they have like 60M$ roaming the three OF positions.
5) As a fan of the game, I’m okay with reasons why you might not take the best 25 players, but this kid is clearly in their top-5 right now on their team at a position of need for them.
“3) The Cubs have historically failed perhaps the most loyal fan group in any sport.”
This should be #1. Epstein, Hoyer and the Ricketts don’t seem to care or even acknowledge the past. How about more recently, like last season, when they put a shite product on the field? I’ve been a fan since I was a kid and have seen Maddux walk away for nothing, the rise and fall of Sammy, the Bartman debacle, among others.
And now the bleachers not getting done on time, can the Cubs alienate their fans any more than they have? I’m sure they can, and Bryant is one more way.
Delaying his service time directly benefits Cubs fans.
What it doesn’t do is immediately gratify their every whim.
Were I a Cubs fan and a decision was made to keep Bryant up solely to pacify long-suffering fans, I would be livid that the front office went against their best judgement so pointlessly.
The FO thinks its in the best interests of the team to keep him down for two weeks (and I would agree). That is the only criteria upon which a baseball team should make decisions
actually, the 2nd half of last season, once they started playing the rookies and the bullpen got locked in, was quite watchable, and they played near .500 ball over the last 100 games (49-51).
The previous couple of years were horrible, however, I’ll give you that. Not good teams, not watchable.
That said, keeping Bryant down for 2 weeks is a complete no brainer. I have no issue with it. I seriously doubt he’d be a candidate to sign a team friendly extension, so get him for an extra year if you can. It’s not like they are being cheap: that 7th year will be expensive through arbitration.
Pirates fan, here, so I know a bit about fanbases pissed off by front offices.
The hard truth is that the best front offices don’t (and shouldn’t) care what the fanbase thinks. They owe you nothing. If a front office does its job- put the franchise in the best position it can to compete long-term -and the team starts winning, the the fans will flock to the ballpark no matter how much they hate the GM.
For example, the Pirates’ front office still isn’t very popular in this town, but they’ve reached the level of “begruding respect” faster than I thought possible. Regardless, record attendance heals a lot of bruised egos.
Cub fans are the most loyal…drinking old style’s in the bleachers year after year doesn’t make you a loyal fan….it makes you an alcoholic. I love when Cub fans equate sucking for 100+ years with loyalty, at some point you picked a lemon for a team.
Boras players like Bryant and Rodon should be sent down to prove a point to agents that refuse to negotiate. If agents like Boras are going to be stubborn during contract negotiations it’s fair game for the teams to use their advantages when available.
Im not much of a drinker, and I have been a Cubs fan for almost 20 years (Im not much older than 20 years old)….what does that make me?
And considering almost none of us are 100 years old, why is the streak such a big deal? Ive only experienced the seasons that I have been alive for, and there are a lot of teams that havent won in my lifetime. So even if I werent a Cubs fan, there is still a very high probability that I would have “picked a lemon” for a team.
Don’t vilify agents because of what you “think” you know about them. Bryant in fact, made one of the most precise statements ever published about this. Players (of any sport) hire agents to represent them and their (player’s) wishes. If the agent doesn’t like/want that particular agents methods, they wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. Or in some circumstances, if the players wishes changes, they hire other agents, which happens. Bryant wanted a bulldog as he said. Don’t ever let your personal thoughts dilude you, an agent of any kind; lawyer, sport, real estate, etc… acts only in the interest of the client….or they get fired.
oh, and most people don’t just “pick” teams…. they grow up rooting for them b/c of location or family ties, or maybe just a favorite player….. none of which corresponds anything to do with alcohol.
The Cubs were hardly a bad team on the field at the end of last season. They were an above .500 team the last 2 months of the season, playing good solid baseball. The talent level improvement over the last 3 seasons is dramatic.
In the end, the decision is an easy one: you send Bryant down for two weeks. But anyone outside the CHN FO who says this is about something other than service time deserves serious side eye. He’s done absolutely everything you want, his two positions are currently the weakest two on the North Side, and two more weeks in AAA isn’t going to make any meaningful difference in his approach/training.
Actually, he did everything OFFENSIVELY that he could. He’s shown himself over 100+ games last year and all of spring training this year to be a very flawed 3rd baseman. I’m not saying he deserves to be kept down because he needs to work on defense, just that he hasn’t done everything to prove he’s ML ready. All of these fans demanding Bryant be on the big league club are going to be just as quick to turn on him if he struggles defensively in his first few weeks with the big league club.
aren’t you being condescending? You’re smart enough to be on this site, you obviously understand the upside of the extra year as an offset for 2 weeks. But you accuse the Cubs of “historically failing” Cubs faithful. Sounds like you’re saying Cubs fans aren’t smart enough to appreciate the reasons behind sending him down. It’s the smart move. It’s a no-brainer. This is not your grandfather’s MLB. Grow up.
Agree. This is a failing of the collectively bargained system that’s in place, not of the Cubs’ leadership.
TIL only smart people can find this site.
you’ve waited 100 years. You can wait 11 days
I personally haven’t waited over 100 years, but it’s been my whole life. And I absolutely can wait 12 days, or even 15 just to make it look good to the MLBPA. This decision was made last year when they DID NOT call up Bryant in September, just so they could get him even more in 2015 and call him up in 12 days instead of in late May or June. No brainer at this point. Why would you go against your plan? I would trade 12 days or 9 games of Bryant in 2015 over 162 of Bryant 2020 or 2021 (whatever it is) every day of the week. I couldn’t believe I had to explain this and convince other friends of mine that are Cubs fans and extremely intelligent about baseball, but I did, and now they see the light too. So should you all.
I remember Jake Fox having a big ST a few years ago. We see how that turned out.
Chris Carter for the Red Sox (not the good Chris Carter) hit 10 HR’s in ST a few years ago and was out of baseball after 200 PA over the next few years
With starting pitchers like Syndergaard, there is a competitive advantage in sending a guy down. He is absolutely not going to pitch a full MLB season, and if he somehow did, he definitely wouldn’t be available in the playoffs. He maxed out last year at 133 innings. Reducing his workload early in the season might allow the Mets to get more of his innings in important situations, allow them to decide how hard they are willing to push a young starter (the Strasburg dilemma), and possibly have him for the post season if they make it.
And they can do all that while also keeping him an extra year and avoiding super 2.
Or they could take the Blue Jays’ approach, and say “Fuck hard inning caps”. Look at what good babying Matt Harvey did. Cherry picking, small samples, blah, blah, blah.
I’ve been reading lots of articles almost praising the increase in Tommy John injuries. One article I read pegged starters at around 90% likely to return to the mound, relievers around 75%, for the accepted roughly 80% return rate. There number of rotator cuff injuries especially, and shoulder surgeries in general, which are harder to ever truly recover from, is a good thing for pitchers.
With the number of pitchers facing Tommy John these days, you might as well just get the innings while you can before they inevitably blow out their elbow.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last 15 years, babying pitchers, limiting workloads, and counting pitches has done nothing to stop pitchers from blowing out their elbows. Sure, someone like Jose Fernandez might go against the “let it fly” approach. But some of the most durable starters of this generation are Félix Hernández, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Verlander. Only Verlander is starting to break down. And I’m probably more optimistic than most that he’ll bounce back to being an above average starter this season. Kershaw and Hernández haven’t slowed down despite workloads and workload increases that would scare the shit put of teams these days.
Enjoy the ride while it lasts, especially if it’s a starter, given their return rates. Elbow injuries hurt, but their pretty routine. As a Jays fan, I’m not buying the “at least it’s not his arm” shit with Stromam. You might not need your legs in baseball as much as, say, a running back in football. But I would recommended reading the 2013 Grantland article on ACL injuries, and then try tell me I should worry about him blowing out his ACL. For a lot of male athletes in particular (according to that Grantland article), once they hear that “pop” that usually goes with an ACL injury, their career is all but finished.
That, of course, should have read “and then tell me I shouldn’t worry about him blowing out his ACL”.
After baseball, basketball is my next favourite sport. ACL injuries usually irreversibly rob basketball players of their athleticism. This is despite the fact that modern ACL repair techniques actually leave the athlete with a STRONGER ACL than they had before. But they are unable to overcome the mental hurdle, and the memories of the pain that ensued, from the ACL tear. The problem is almost always mental, not physical. Apparently, females are “just plain tougher” when it comes to recovering from ACL injuries (see: Grantland article), and they seemingly always do fully recover both physically and mentally.
ACL injuries in football can go either way. Some guys, like Adrian Peterson, go on to destroy the league upon their return. Others, running backs especially, seem to be shell of their former self.
tl:dr
The only reason Bryant would not be sent down for two weeks is if management had a strong inclination that a multi-year contract through arbitration and at least one year of free agency was in the offing. Given that his agent is Scott Boras, that wasn’t going to happen. So this decision is on Boras, not Theo.
He hired Scott Boras as his agent. He was asking for it!
Asking for money, which will roll in sooner or later despite the lost 2 weeks or 2 months of MLB service time. Boras will deliver. Extensions work for the team and for players who are injury risks (priarily pitchers). Not for a guy like Bryant. He can take an insurance policy on himself for security,
fwiw, Hector Noesi is a better pitcher than his projection indicates. A walk through the PITCHf/x data reveals a pitcher who, very soon, could be major league average. Meanwhile, John Danks has probably declined below replacement level if reports are to be believed. So your point still remains, it’s just that Noesi might not be the guy Rodon should replace.
Only Sox fans think he’s good. For some reason their fan base loves their scrubs.
Obviously, the logical move is to send Kris Bryant down to the minors for 2 weeks.
Given the uniqueness of the Cubs’ history, as well as the uniqueness of Kris Bryant, a bold move which says that the only thing that matters is winning this year could have an impact both on the team as a whole and on their ability to sign him to a long-term deal.
I do think it matters to establish a winning attitude around the team, and sending a player who has unquestionably earned a position on the team to the minors sets an expectation that other things matter more than winning…
Definitely could be the case. Projections may understate Rodon as well given such a small pro track record making the gap between him and Danks even greater.
“the only thing that matters is winning this year”
This is patently false, unless the Cubs Front Office is pretty sure the world ends this year.
This is clearly a move to maximize wins, just not this year.
“This is patently false, unless the Cubs Front Office is pretty sure the world ends this year.”
Given the attitude on most Cubs fan sites, I think the community would believe Theo Epstein if he predicted as much.
How bout I give you ten dollars now, or 100 dollars in two weeks. Your choice.
I’ll take either one. Thanks!
Yeah, marshmallow test redux.
– The Cubs need to see what they have in Mike Olt.
– Bryant needs to learn LF and 3B in the next few weeks pressure free.
– Ball isn’t going to fly in Chicago in early April like it does in ST. Much of Bryant’s production has been home runs which may be negated by cold and nasty weather.
– He was drafted in 2013. Chill out.
4 really solid reasons in my view not even considering the service time issue makes this an easy choice to send Bryant down early.
I have to agree with Mike Olt. If anything, they need to build some value on the guy and hope to trade him for something they do need, or more prospects. The guy is good, and he can figure it out. Same with Alcantara. These two are not permanent fixtures, but they need time and gain value so they can get traded. Theo and Jed are smart guys. I haven’t disagreed with any move they have made. I certainly do not disagree with this one.
I can’t believe how much the mainstream analysis is spiraling out of control on this. It’s obviously the right move for the franchise for a number of reasons. For big market teams like the Cubs, it’s not about the money. In his 7th year he’ll be making big money anyway as a 4th time arb eligible player, but the extra year is big. It sucks he has earned the right to start in the majors, but because of the CBA he won’t.
The reason I hate ESPN more and more every day; Bryant getting sent down was breaking news. They also mentioned Russell going down which was another no-brainer, yet said nothing about Baez who is the only one who was even remotely surprising.
ESPN is written for the lowest common denominator. They write the headlines that generate the most clicks. Everybody know who Bryant it. I live in the city. There’s actually a large number of Cubs fans that don’t understand how good Russell is, they don’t realize that he’s just as good a prospect as Bryant. And many are convinced that Schwarber will be a full time catcher. Smh…
According to me, the Cubs are going to win the World Series this year with or without Bryant.
And it will be the first time in history two National League teams fight for the World Series. That’s how good Miami and Chicago will both be this year. History making good.
Bryant received a $6.6MM signing bonus. He will get paid huge his 4th year of arbitration. Boras should settle down, along with the MLP Union. He’ll get his massive $200MM deal eventually, good grief.
I find it lol that the entire comment section is about Kris Bryant when the premise of the article is to point out that there were OTHER players sent down to the minors.
I remain amazed that clubs continue to make personnel decisions in the belief that service time rules in 2020 will be exactly what they are today.