Rockies left fielder Kris Bryant was scratched from yesterday’s game about 90 minutes before first pitch due to continued discomfort in his back, writes Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. He’ll be further evaluated today, but it’s an ominous scratch given that Bryant only just returned from a month-long absence due to a lower back injury.
Signed to a seven-year, $182MM contract in free agency this past offseason, Bryant was viewed by the Rockies as a potential lineup centerpiece who’d bolster a revamped outfield that also featured trade acquisition Randal Grichuk. Bryant, however, has gotten out to a tepid .270/.342/.333 start to the season and yet to put a ball in the seats. The Rox barely changed the rest of their roster but did sign four in-house players to multi-year extensions (Ryan McMahon, Antonio Senzatela, C.J. Cron and Elias Diaz). Ownership and the restructured/thinned-out front office group clearly had confidence that last year’s group could deliver better results, and while that’s been true to an extent, the Rox are currently at fifth place in the NL West with a 19-22 record.
Some more injury scenarios to keep an eye on…
- Brewers outfielder Hunter Renfroe exited yesterday’s game due to hamstring discomfort after scoring from first base on a double and is headed for an MRI to determine the extent of any damage he may have suffered, tweets MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy. Acquired in the offseason trade that saw the Brewers dump Jackie Bradley Jr.’s contract on the Red Sox — Milwaukee also sent a pair of prospects to Boston in the deal — Renfroe is out to a solid .266/.303/.503 start this season. His nine homers place him in a three-way tie for the team lead alongside Rowdy Tellez and Willy Adames. However, like Renfroe, Adames is currently sidelined; the Brewers placed him on the 10-day injured list last week, owing to a high ankle sprain. If Renfroe is to join Adames on the injured list, that’ll mean 29% of the Brewers’ home runs are sitting out at a time when the team has generally been struggling to score runs. Milwaukee ranks seventh in the Majors with 195 runs (4.6 per game), but they’re averaging just 3.5 runs per contest over their past 10 games.
- Right-hander Lance Lynn has yet to make his 2022 debut with the White Sox after undergoing spring knee surgery, but he’ll throw to live hitters for the second time in his rehab process today, as noted by MLB.com’s Betelhem Ashame. Lynn, who also faced hitters this past Friday, inked a two-year, $38MM extension with the Sox last summer just prior to the trade deadline. The 35-year-old Lynn had a career year with the South Siders in 2021, pitching to a 2.69 ERA in 157 innings over the life of 28 starts, and he’s posted a terrific 3.26 ERA in 449 1/3 frames dating back to 2020.
Boy, are the Rox going to regret this deal. If they don’t already, that is!
There’s always that one team that will give out the contract no one else will.
And then trade em to the padres
Don’t worry the padres will take him, we will give you Austin Adams and some other pitcher who needs TJs
Full no trade clause. He said he wanted a contract that would keep in one place for the rest of his career and well, lots of money.
Aren’t almost all transactions just that? The team who gives the contract no one else will usually signs the player.
No not at all. No one wanted to touch Bryant at his asking price. They outbid themselves. If they hadn’t offered what they did, Bryant would’ve gone unsigned, there was no comparable offer available. So no, not at all the typical situation you are describing.
Better get used to it, Rockies’ fans – this is life with Kris Bryant. One nagging injury after another. Cubs and Giants knew what they were doing when they took a hard pass on offering him an extension. KB is not the kind of guy who plays through any kind of discomfort. If he’s not 90-100% he’s not playing.
Right? A lot of grief for Cubs front office but can you imagine the $300+ million it would have cost to have Bryant, Rizzo, Baez (Soriano redux) and Schwarber?
okay, Cubs can enjoy their pseudo-retool and cheap owners then.
But they can (and will) still brag about the dynasty from 2016 through..well, 2016.
Our “cheap” owners are still rocking nearly a 150 million dollar payroll.
I’m so sick of ignorant fans referencing to the Cubs ownership as cheap. Those cheap owners financed 100% of the Wrigley renovations AND pay the city of Chicago 3 million annually on top of that (something about lighting around Wrigley). Meanwhile the City of Chicago had the tax payers finance nearly all of the crap pile that is US Cellar Field
The “big spending” (apparently) White Sox, in the middle of their competitive window made what free agent splash this past off season again? How much money was handed out? While “Cheap Tom”, despite spending a billion dollars on renovating Wrigley, STILL dropped nearly 100 million on Suzuki and another 80 million on Stroman… not to mention Miley, Smyly, Villar, Robertson and Norris. But hey, Graveman and Kelley and I right? Big spending indeed.
And yes, Cubs will still talk about 2016 and unless you are a Astros, Braves, Red Sox or National fan, you have nothing to brag about either. (I don’t consider the Dodgers Championship as valid).
Nothing cheap about the Cubs. Some fans are never satisfied. No amount of spending is enough for them and they never stop complaining.
As a Sox fan you are Spot on ! Reinsdorf gets a free Stadium and we don’t offer a QO to Rodon, still have no Second baseman went cheap as we could at back up catcher.
not cheap in payroll amount, but the decision to cut payroll and not properly contend I’d argue can still be called cheap.
Drasco, the Cubs came into this year $80M under the salary cap. Ricketts spends money, the problem is that he spends it to build up his empire of ‘Rickettsville’, rather than spending it to build the ball club. He operates the team as a small market enterprise.
How exactly does a team that pay the luxury tax two seasons in a row ” operate like a small market enterprise”
Maybe, Tom Ricketts realized that the Cubs were broken, all that money that they were spending wasn’t accomplishing their intended goal, so instead of throwing money at a sinking ship they decided, correctly, to re-tool. Was extending any of their “core” players worth it? Would Bryant, Baez or Rizzo make much a difference on this team? Did Rizzo come close to breaking the 70 million plus incentives “Cheap Tom” was willing to spend on him?
The Cubs will spend when the timing is right but their farm system was in need of an overhaul. They needed to infuse it with talent so they can make their next run. All teams are ran differently… The Cubs have their blue print, which lead to three straight NLCS, a World Series and I believe 5 straight playoff appearances…. That is a pretty successful run, not as successful as they thought it would be but you can see why they would want to use the same basic blueprint that brought them so much success.
The Cubs signed an Ace, a number 3, a middle of the order hitter, the best catcher on the open market and offered Correa a 7 year contract… Obviously the moves made were not enough to contend but there were not standing not making moves. .
drasco0361 hour ago
I’m so sick of ignorant fans referencing to the Cubs ownership as cheap.
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Same as some fair amount of Red Sox fans. If you read some of their comments over the past two years, you’d swear that we were a small-market team with no payroll.
Was extending any of their “core” players worth it? Would Bryant, Baez or Rizzo make much a difference on this team?
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That’s what fans, and writers, often miss. The Cubs are weak because they got old. Extending Rizzo, Baez, and Bryant would simply made them older and more expensive, not better.
FWIW, this will be like Soto, The Nats could give him a $450M extension today, and guess what? They’ll finish 29th. Or trade him for 2-3 top prospects, and finish 30th.
They’re cheap because they stopped spending once they got caught trying to be shady with the ABA requirements for a redone stadium. Look at their contracts handed out after that all came to light
But who needs facts… you stay mad at all us ignorant folk, while you blatantly disregard the crux of the complaint against the Ricketts
Not properly contend? How much money do you think it’d take to, “properly contend” (whatever tf that means)? Keep shifting the goal posts when you get called out for your bad takes though…
They’re in the middle of the pack for spending now, with a bad team. What arbitrary level of spending do they need to meet to satisfy you? Not every team can spend 300m/yr like the dodgers do.
If they don’t spend money when they have a legitimate shot to contend, I’ll join in on the “cheap” bandwagon, but spending just to spend doesn’t make much sense.
DarkSide8304 hours ago
not cheap in payroll amount, but the decision to cut payroll and not properly contend I’d argue can still be called cheap.
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They weren’t going to contend. They missed the playoffs by 19 games last year, and will miss it by another 20+ games this year. They might have two good players on the team, maybe another 3-4 decent players.
In other words, they aren’t close to a playoff contender. Had they chosen your route and extended Rizzo, Baez & Bryant, they would’ve added another 5 years of ineptitude.
You can’t simply spend your way out of being bad.
DarkSide, you’re kind of making my point. Some fans always find a reason to cry “cheap”
Lol. Bryant is injured, imagine that.
Lots of injuries this season. Is it because of shortened spring training, lack of serious off-season preparation, injuries / surgeries delayed until after new CBA or beginning of season? Maybe the players know they’ll continue to get paid and come back whenever they want to.
Are there, in fact, more injuries this year?. It seems that way every year if you just eye test it.
It depends on what season you are comparing 2022 to. If you are comparing it to any of 2015 to 2019, then yes, there have been more player days on the IL at this point in the season. If you are comparing it to 2020 or 2021, then no, there have not been more player days on the IL to this point in the season.
You probably also should take into account that many of those player days on the IL are the COVID IL and not as a result of an injury. Not sure how to quality that since some teams do not differentiate or announce COVID IL stints as such.
Would be an interesting study.
From what your saying it seems pretty likely that when Covid absences are subtracted from the data list of injuries, it will turn out that injuries are not any higher than normal. I’ve seen nothing so far indicating that injuries are significantly up this year. It just always SEEMS that way.
Over the course of that seven year deal I’d be surprised if Bryant plays more than the equivalent of one full season.
That seems overly pessimistic
So he’s going average 23 games/year? I’ll take the over.
I will take the over.
Even with his hamstring injury which he got by hustling around the bases the Red Sox got taken on that trade.
Renfroe is a stud man, he will be back soon. I’m a padre fan and I hated that trade, Sept we did get cronenworth out of it. But losing renfroe hurt bad. I love seeing him rake though.
His career OPS+ is 109. That’s raking? Renfroe is a league averagish player.
Which makes him 4-5 times the player jbK was for us last year.
And in the 10 games prior to last night, he was, in fact, raking. Which is maybe what damascusj was referring to.
Its 9% above average. Outside of an outlier season in 2020, he is 14% better than average. He is basically Wil Myers but with better defense.
More than half of all MLB players were either 40% better or worse than their career averages in 2020, so when it comes to discussing the stats of players that played both before and after that, just throw the season out completely.
He doesn’t rake, but being above average for MLB players means you are good.
The best acquisition Colorado could make right now would be a new GM.
Even better, a new owner. **it flows downhill.
Yes. It’s all the owner.