Kris Bryant, Promotions, and Long-Term Contracts
Kris Bryant hit two more home runs yesterday for the Chicago Cubs during the Will Ferrell extravaganza. He stands tall among prospects, ranking number one according to Kiley McDaniel. The FanGraphs Depth Charts have given him a conservative 100 games played, and he still manages to top 3 WAR. The ZiPS projections give him closer to a full season, and he tops four wins despite never having taken an at bat at the major league level. He is not even on the Cubs’ 40-man roster. Despite that inexperience, he is going to make the Cubs look very bad for sending him to the minor leagues to start the season. It brings back memories of the Los Angeles Angels in 2012 holding back Mike Trout in the minors to start the season, but Kris Bryant’s situation is very different from Mike Trout’s.
In 2012, Mike Trout, like Bryant today, was one of the very best prospects in all of baseball and likely ready to play in the majors, but the Angels sent him to Triple-A to start the season. The Angels started the season 6-14, recalled Trout from Salt Lake, went 83-59 the rest of the way, and missed the playoffs by four games. Looking back at Trout’s excellence now, it might be easy to draw the conclusion that the Angels likely make the playoffs with Trout for the entire season and that the Angels were manipulating Trout’s service time to save money. The former is impossible to determine, but the latter is highly unlikely.
Mike Trout did not begin his MLB career in April 2012. He was first called up in a forgettable 2011 where he hit .220/.281/.390 in 40 games and accumulated under 100 days of service time. At the beginning of 2012, the only way for the Angels to manipulate Trout’s service time was to keep him in the minors until nearly the All-Star break. The Angels’ decision might have been partly financial, in that they poorly evaluated the sunk cost of Bobby Abreu, but keeping Trout in the minors for 20 games gained the Angels nothing in terms of free agent years or arbitration status as far as Trout was concerned.
Kris Bryant is in a different situation. He has no MLB service time. As the FanGraphs glossary explains, the Cubs have a very easy way to get an extra year of service from Bryant before he can hit free agency.
A year of service time is equal to 172 days, and there are normally around 183 total days in the major league calendar. This means that if a team wants to keep a prospect from accruing a full year of service time, they simply need to leave that player in the minors for around 15-20 days out of the entire season.
If Bryant were to make the Opening Day roster or be called up within the first ten days of the season, he would have one full year of service time at the end of the season if he stayed up with the Cubs all year. This would set him up to be a free agent as a 28-year-old after the 2020 season. If the Cubs wait just a couple weeks, Bryant would likely receive four years of arbitration money as a Super-2 as opposed to the normal three, but the Cubs would retain his services for Bryant’s Age-29 season and delay free agency by an entire year. It is a somewhat cruel business decision transferring wealth from Bryant to the Cubs, but it is a decision the Cubs would be foolish not to make.
Bryant is not currently on the 40-man roster which allows the Cubs to call him up to Chicago slightly earlier than some other prospects. Players on the 40-man are technically sent down from the big league club at the start of the season. For a player on the 40-man, if the time a player is sent down amounts to less than 20 days, then those 20 days count as MLB service time. That provision helps players by preventing a team from manipulating service time such that a team could just send a player down to the minors for a few days.
The 20-day provision means that any player already on the 40-man roster must stay in the minor leagues for at least 20 days after the start of the season. Bryant has no such restrictions, meaning the Cubs could call him up April 18th, have him miss just ten games and then retain his services for an extra year. While the Cubs could contend for the playoffs this season and a full season of Bryant would likely help them in that regard, trying to project the difference between Bryant and Mike Olt or Tommy La Stella over 6% of the season yields very little.
The other option for the Cubs and Bryant is to agree to a contract extension. A contract would likely cover 2015-2021, the seven seasons the Cubs could have control over Bryant by keeping him in the minors for ten days. Jonathan Singleton signed a deal like that last year with Astros in June and he was immediately called up, avoiding any potential super-2 difficulties. Singleton’s teammate George Springer and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Gregory Polanco discussed similar deals with their teams guaranteeing roughly $25 million, and included options for future seasons.
There are several problems with the Cubs reaching an agreement with Kris Bryant. First, Bryant’s agent is Scott Boras, who tends to encourage his clients to get to free agency as soon as possible, making a contract with options unlikely. The second reason might be even more important for Bryant. The financial stability that a long-term guarantee can provide can be a great reason to sign a contract. When Singleton was drafted, his signing bonus was just $200,000. The $10 million guarantee gave him great financial stability given an uncertain future. Kris Bryant does not need that kind of stability. Just 20 months ago, Bryant received a $6.7 million signing bonus after he was drafted. Bryant already has the financial stability that Singleton sought. Even with his extension it will take Singleton until 2017 to surpass Bryant’s signing bonus in earnings.
In order to avoid the headache associated with sending Bryant to the minors for a couple weeks, the Cubs would likely have to double the guaranteed money discussed with Springer and Polanco to get Bryant to sign. It is unclear even then if Bryant would sign a deal, and highly unlikely that the Cubs would commit that much money given Bryant’s bright, but uncertain future.
If the Cubs were to try to hold Bryant back until June to delay his arbitration, then it would be fair to call the franchise cheap. Getting an extra year of service time looks like a financial decision, but it is also a baseball decision. The Cubs are trading ten games in 2015 for a full season in 2021. The Cubs are going to look bad when they do not open the season with Bryant in the lineup. He is ready to help the Cubs now, and any reasoning the Cubs provide is just an excuse for the obvious. The Cubs want the extra year, and the way the system is set up, they are going to get it. For the Cubs fans in Des Moines, it might be best to circle April 17th on the calendar. That might be the only home game the Iowa Cubs get with Bryant in uniform. The rest of baseball can look to the 18th.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Very cogent analysis. Thanks, Craig.
But there’s also the fact that the Cubs are very clearly trying to convince fans that they are all-in and fielding a competitive team. By keeping him in the minors for two weeks and then calling him up, it’ll be pretty transparent they’re sacrificing some 2015 for 2021, and they’ll generate some bad PR. Maybe that’s not enough to give up a whole year of team control, but it’s not nothing.
More important than the fans is the message that it would send to the team. Maddon, Lester, Rizzo, the entire team wants to win now. They don’t care about 2021. And the Cubs shouldn’t either. They’ve got the money and they talk openly about new sources or revenue coming online (tv contract) before 2021.
I don’t think this should enter the equation at all. Maddon’s a smart guy. There’s no way he expected Bryant to be in his line-up on opening day day. Virtually every team does this with their top prospects, and the manager and players realize this.
I said it should be a consideration, but I don’t agree with you that the Cubs shouldn’t care about 2021. The General Manager should worry about the long-term success of the club; that’s his job. When a GM forgets that, you eventually end up with a roster full of aging overpaid has-beens and no farm system.
The reason the Cubs should consider Kris Bryant for opening day is because the bad P.R. that (arguably) comes from stashing him in the minors could (arguably) ruin the goodwill they’re trying to build amongst the fans and the media, which can (arguably) harm their revenue streams.
I still think a year of team control is worth it. But I hope the team realizes there’s more downside than just a dozen games of missing production.
It has nothing to do with money or not wanting to pay him. It’s about making sure Bryant is wearing a Cubs uniform for that extra season. They’ll most likely give him some sort of contract to buy out a couple FA years if he performs well for 2 or 3 seasons, but again that also hinges on Boras.
It actually hinges on Bryant, not Boras. Boras doesn’t make players do things they don’t want to do, and he’ll agree an extension if that’s what the player wants. The fact that Bryant has chosen Boras suggests that it’s pretty likely that Bryant wants to maximise his possible earnings and is unlikely to sign an extension unless it’s a very good deal.
Yes, it is nothing. The Cubs may have gone out and signed a couple of very nice free agents, and hired an excellent manager, but they were also very clear in stating that they are still one more year away from their “5 year plan”. It is not necessarily their intention to fully commit to a season in which they will compete for the NL pennant or even the playoffs this year. The hype began when Joe Maddon fell in their lap, and Jon Lester signed. They are still realistically one more year away from being truly competitive, so I would rather see them get the extra year at the end of the contract, than commit to 15-20 days this season. Send him down for 2 weeks, it is the smart move and NOT a cheap one.
One convenient thing you leave out. Not even Cubs management believes the Cubs were ready to contend. 2016 is their timetable. Hoyer and Epstein have been very consistent with this message. You have a new manager, a shortage of pitching, rookies who are not guaranteed to make a splash on their call up and need more experience (i.e. Baez Alcantara, etc.). Just because Rizzo and the fans say they think they’re ready to win this year doesn’t mean that mgmt doesn’t understand what they’re still missing.
I have no problem with the Cubs holding him down. They already gave him a huge payday before he played a game, and any player choosing Boras as an agent knows that it is a double edge sword. You will get the most money anybody can squeeze out of a team, but you are taking a risk. Boras will not give a team preferential treatment just because his client was treated like a mensch 6 years earlier, so why should the team give any advantage to the player.
That payday, while large by any normal standard, was still a HUGE discount. The Red Sox were willing plunk down $63 million for Yoan Moncada, who is not as good a prospect as Kris Bryant. That “huge payday” is easily a 90% discount for the billionaire Ricketts family.
The poor Ricketts. They are ONLY getting a 90% discount for Bryant. Money is tight for them, and they need to squeeze their workers as hard as possible.
It wasn’t a huge discount by normal standard unless Bryant is considered an international player.
I think JP is complaining about the fact that the draft system goes against free market principles because top prospects would receive significantly more millions if they were free to negotiate their contracts with any team. The whole anti-trust exemption allows MLB to restrict the right of workers to contract with any employer of their choosing, and serves as a way for billionaire owners to save paying millions of dollars a year to their employees.
But this has very little to do with “poor Ricketts” and this article is kind of an odd place to be making that point.
Moncada was arguably viewed more highly as of his signing than Bryant was upon his. Bryant’s stock has since gone through the roof while who knows what will happen to Moncada’s. Regardless, blaming the Ricketts for MLB’s system is misguided. They would be lunatics to sacrifice a year of Kris Bryant for ten games at the beginning of his career.
As for the larger tangent regarding the fairness of the current system, I like seeing more money going to established players than untested prospects. Any NFL fan should be able to tell you about its insane Sam Bradford-JaMarcus Russell era. That said, I (futilely) hope that the next CBA removes one year of team control to allow players to reach free agency a little earlier and get whatever payday they deserve.
I’m not blaming the Ricketts for the system, except to the extent that as owners, they help perpetuate the status quo.
I was responding to NJ, who seemed to be implying that Bryant already received fair compensation in the form of a signing bonus. He flatly did not receive fair compensation, and won’t until he hits free agency. Maybe Bryant wasnt a $63 million man when he was drafted, but he was worth well more than $6 or $7 million.
As this article notes, holding Bryant back in AAA to manipulate his service time redistributes wealth from Bryant to the Ricketts. I think it’s entirely appropriate to point out that the “poor Ricketts” are of course MUCH wealthier than Bryant is, or likely ever will be.
First off, MLB and the MLBPA need to do something about the service time issues. It’s crazy to think that both Bryant and Rodon are going to start the year in AAA because of this, even though both teams need those two on opening day.
But moving beyond that, I’m still not sold on Bryant because of that K rate in the minors (and to a lesser degree his age; I know he wasn’t an unknown in HS and he can’t be completely faulted for going to college, but has to be pointed out imo). Therefore, I’m not sure how much money I’d commit to him, if any at all.
Best case scenario is that he turns into something like Stanton. Worst case scenario seems like he runs into 20 home runs, but strikes out 35% of the time with poor contact rates (Singleton last year). This is a tough one for the Cubs, even before you factor in Boras. Bet right, you could get Bryant for a song for years to come; bet wrong and you’ve just guaranteed $20m to a negative WAR player. I’d wait and see.
Not sure what the solution to the problem would be. You can’t make a rule that requires teams to have their 25 “best” players on the roster (who defines that?) Do you propose allowing the fans to vote on who deserves to be on the roster?
So long as the rules define free agency based on a certain amount of MLB service time or MLB playing time, teams are going to manipulate that time in order to get the maximum out of their players before they hit free agency.
The only solution I can think of is to ignore seasons altogether. In other words, if a guy reaches 6 years (or 1032 days) of service time in May, then he becomes a free agent in May…. I get the feeling that no one’s gonna go for that, though.
He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 18th round of the 2010 draft and was offered close to $2,000,000 to sign. He’s been seen as a viable baseball player for many years.
MLB and MLBPA don’t actually need to do anything about service time issues. Owner’s love it, because they get to play their employees less. MLBPA cares, but since most of the MLBPA members are veterans, they probably don’t care enough to actually make it a priority. Most likely they’ll use the service time issue as leverage in negotiations for something else.
I think the MLBPA are the ones who wanted those service time rules. If you don’t have rookies on the opening day roster, you are more likely to have MLBPA members on guaranteed contracts on those rosters.
The fact that he’s not on the 40 man means it’s pretty clear they’re gonna let Bryant rot in AAA to start the year. The Cubs would be foolish to hold him past April 18th though. They should contend for a WC spot and a season that could come down to the wire. The Angels of 2012 were a great example of that.
This is relatively important. If the Cubs intend on contending, Bryant could be the difference. It is a stretch, but you can convince yourself that if Trout played the entire season, the Angels could have squeaked into the playoffs.
But the Cubs are going to be close to teams like the Marlins,Padres, and Giants for the 2nd wild card. If Bryant really is the 6 WAR player the projection systems think he is, maybe he could be the difference
If he’s a 6 WAR player now, then what is he in 2021, an 8-9 WAR player? It’s a long way in the future, but I’d sacrifice 1 win this year for a future 8 WAR player. And when we’re talking about a couple weeks in early-April, there’s no reason to think he’d be worth more than 1 extra win.
If they miss out on the playoffs by 1 win, sure, there will be a lot of second guessing. But in just about any other scenario, they would have wasted a full year of him for almost nothing.
Yup, and even a 6 WAR player would be worth less than half a win over a ten game sample.
On average a6 win player is worth very little over ten games. But that’s not how players ACTUALLY accrue value. They dimmy steadily produce the same amount of value each game. They go 1-14 in some stretches and they go 8-14 with 3 home runs.
The fact is in order to maximize the chance if making the playoffs teams s should have the best possible roster at all times.
If Bryant goes 4-4 with 2 doubles and a game winning hr on opening day he’s actually already “won” you a game. Great players are more likely to win you games. It’s best to have great players play as many games as possible.
Also the Cubs are a large market team owned by billionaires.
I completely understand the Rays or pirates doing this.
But if Bryant succeeds the Cubs will but”lose ” him unless they want to. They have the resources to match any offer made.
So they aren’t getting an extra year of an 8 WAR player. They are merely changing the order of payment. If he’s great they’ll keep him. If he’s not it won’t matter.
I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to keep him off the opening day roster.
I do not see how this would be hard for the cubs to do. Why not start him with the club, then send him down in tough games where they are less likely to win anyhow? For example, a road trip vs the Nationals? Why not send him down for the three most difficult hitting series of the year, for example @Nationals, @mets, etc. Just an idea.
No… that’s what the 20-game provision is for. If he starts the year on the 40-man roster, then if you send him down for less then 20 games later in the season, it still counts as MLB service time.
Because there’s a rule on the books specifically designed to address this kind of service time manipulation.
Once they call him up the first time, he’s on the 40-man roster. That means that any demotion to the minors would need to be for 20+ days in order for it to reduce his service time.
In any case, when you send a player down then (under most circumstances) you can’t bring him up for ten days except in case of injury. Otherwise it’d make sense to send your starting pitcher down in between every start and effectively carry two or three more players.
I can’t recall exactly, but wasn’t there a different reason that Trout started the season in AAA? I thought he tweaked something in Spring Training or dealt with some sort of illness, but maybe I’m thinking about someone else.
Either way, as great as he was in 2012 I don’t see how he would have added 4 wins over the course of 20 games. Even 2 games in generous in that time frame.
I can’t help but snicker when I read the words “Cubs” and “contend” in the same sentence.
The Cubs are dumb if they don’t send him down for the first 2-3 weeks, as a future member of the union (he won’t be until he’s added to the 40 man roster) he shouldn’t be mad at the Cubs FO – instead be mad at the union that allows teams to do this.
It’s a ridiculous loophole, and one that needs to be gotten rid of. Say, any season where a player is on the roster for more than…80 games?…counts towards a year of his service time. Or something like that. They might do without Bryant for 15 games, but not half a season.
But he’s not a member of the union. And once he joins the union, he will have every incentive to join the rest of the union in keeping down the salaries of people not yet in the union.
I have no problem with this business decision as a die hard Cubs fan… I think its understandable for everyone involved and wise of Theo & Co… Kid will be chomping at the bit when he gets the call and so will all cubbie nation… Ill gladly wait until late April & will most likely catch the I-Cubs on the 17th. Its gonna finally be a fun year to be a Northsider again.
Under current rules, how would a contract be set in 2021 if he is held down for 12 days? E.G.:
2015, 2016: MLB minimum, achieves Super-2
2017-20: Four years of arbitration (instead of three
2021: ???
Thanks very much.
Close. Minimum through 2017. At the end of 2017, he would have 2 years and 160-170 days of service time so 2018 would be his super 2 year. 2019-2021 would be his last three years of arbitration.
Because Trout had MLB experience before 2012, it’s not the best analogy for Bryant’s situation. Polanco and Springer are better analogies, but neither one being kept down kept their team from making the playoffs. You could argue the Pirates were hurt more than helped by Polanco. It’s possible Bryant struggles more than the Cubs’ alternatives, at least initially.
What I’d like to see is someone find an example of a top prospect without MLB experience who was kept down for service time reasons to start the year, but tore the league up after his call up and his team narrowly missed the playoffs. Ryan Braun and the 2007 Brewers might be a better analogy (finished 2 games out of 1st in the Central, didn’t call Braun up until May 25, which was probably for Super 2 purposes). The big difference there is that Braun had no AAA experience prior to 2007.
It’s more of the opposite situation, but you could look at the way Atlanta handled Heyward in 2010. I recall some criticism in analytical circles because they called him up for opening day, rather than keeping him down for a couple weeks. That was the first time I recalled reading articles about keeping a top prospect down for a couple weeks to gain an extra year.
Heyward wound up having a great year – including a great April – and the Braves made the playoffs by 1 game. Had they kept him down, maybe they would have won 1 fewer game and would have needed a play-in game. On the other hand, I’m sure they would have netted a much nicer package if they traded him with 2 years of service time this off-season, rather than just 1.
The Cubs might get a nice bit of cover from Mike Olt, who is a better fielder and is having a decent spring. They can always say Olt gets first crack at 3B and Bryant will go down to prep for playing the outfield.
Besides, if Olt has a good start of the year at 3B his trade value goes up even if Bryant takes over at third.
That’s a good way for the Cubs to spin it. And it’s not like Olt has a 0% chance of becoming a useful piece for the Cubs.
It’s pretty close to 0%, and his chance of developing trade value is even closer to 0%. But sure, it would be reasonable cover.
Betcha SF would love to have him.
Phillies. Astros. Even Cleveland for a platoon with Chisenhall.
He’s 26 and a decent fielder. Cubs could easily get a loogy or low A prospect for him. Maybe more in a package.
fjtorres, while the Phils are, in general, bad… they have Cody Asche at the MLB level, and Maikael Franco ready to overtake him. So they are not lacking options at 3b, and I think I’d take either of them over Olt.
The primary reason that Trout missed the first month of 2012 was that he missed almost all of spring training with a stomach virus so he had no prep time for the season so his time in the minors acted as his spring training more so than anything else.
I don’t understand. If the season is 183 days, and a service year is 172 days, why does he need to be held back 15-20 days? Why not the 11 days implicit in the first statement?
It’s a complicated wording issue that deals with non 40 man roster players. There are sub sections to the rule that come into play.
I’m late to the party: But this is a can of worms. Take this for example: In 54 AA games, Mookie Betts hit 6 HR,stole 22 bases, and hit .355/.443/.551. In 45 AAA games, he hit 5 homers and stole 11 bases while hitting .335/.417/.503. In 52 major league games, he went 5HR/7SB with a .291/.368/.444 line with a 130 wRC+ and 2.0 WAR.
Now lets say Betts is send to the minors, Why shouldn’t he file a grievance? He was just as good at the AAA level,playing just as well in spring training, and is playing good defense at a more difficult position? Mookie’s agent could easily argue that he is far more proven in the OF than Castillo and even make an argument that he would be better in LF than HanRam. I don’t think those are remotely outrageous claims.