Despite Great Spring, Chicago Cubs Top Prospect Kris Bryant May Start Season in Minors

Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant is the team’s (and possibly major league baseball’s) top prospects. He’s having a monster spring training; he has eight home runs in 10 games, the most homers of anyone this spring; he’s hitting .480, has 14 runs batted in, and ridiculously high slugging percentage (1.520) and OPS (2.072). Last season, his combined numbers in the minors at AA Tennessee and AAA Iowa were 43 homers, 110 RBIs, a .325 batting average, 1.520 slugging percentage, and an OPS of 1.098. Some would say the 23 year old is ready for the majors, but most of the thinking is that he’ll spend a couple of weeks in the minors before joining the Cubs.

Why would that be, especially the Cubs spent the off season making a serious effort to become contenders, such as signing pitcher Jon Lester to a big bucks contract? The answer is that if Bryant is sent down for at least 12 days, the Cubs would have Bryant for an additional year before he could be a free agent. Cubs’ management says that Bryant needs work on his defense, so he may end up at Iowa to start the season. That may or may not be true, but if he starts the season in the minors and is back in two weeks, that “he’s got to work on his defense line” will be an awfully lame excuse. Will his defense improve that much in two weeks? If that’s really the reason, then he probably needs at least a couple of months, if not more, to get his glove up to speed.