The Rockies announced Thursday that outfielder Kris Bryant has been placed on the 10-day IL (retroactive to May 31) with a bruised left heel. Bryant was out of the lineup yesterday after fouling a ball off his left foot in Tuesday’s game. Outfielder/designated hitter Charlie Blackmon was reinstated from the bereavement list in a corresponding move.
It’s the first IL stint of the season for Bryant but the fourth since signing a seven-year deal with the Rockies. He missed time late last season due to plantar fasciitis in this same foot and was also shelved due to back troubles.
The former NL Rookie of the Year and MVP is putting the ball in play and drawing walks at above-average rates so far in 2023, but he hasn’t yet delivered much in the way of power. Bryant has just five homers and six doubles in 214 plate appearances this season, giving him a .111 ISO (slugging minus batting average) that’s 50 points below the league average. Overall, the 31-year-old is hitting .263/.346/.374 with a 9.8% walk rate and 17.3% strikeout rate.
Bryant has moved across the outfield grass from left to right field in 2023, accommodating fellow free-agent signee Jurickson Profar. He’s already totaled a career-high 317 innings in right field, but defensive metrics have panned his work there (-7 Defensive Runs Saved, -3 Outs Above Average). It’s certainly possible that his slate of injuries over the past year has hampered his range and contributed to those poor marks. After ranking in the 71st percentile of MLB players in average sprint speed as recently as 2021, Bryant sat in the 50th percentile in 2022 and is in just the 35th percentile so far in 2023, per Statcast. He also ranks in the 17th percentile of big leaguers in terms of Statcast’s outfield jump metric.
With Bryant on the shelf, the Rockies will likely go with an outfield alignment of Profar, Brenton Doyle and Randal Grichuk from left to right. Their bench currently has backup catcher Austin Wynns, utility infielder Alan Trejo and corner infielders Mike Moustakas and Elehuris Montero, which doesn’t leave them with a traditional fourth outfielder. However, Nolan Jones — who’s mostly played first base since his recall — can slot into an outfield corner, as can the veteran Blackmon. Grichuk, meanwhile, has ample experience in center field, should Doyle need a day off or need to exit a game due to injury.
Great signing
Blackmon’s was pretty bad too. Got one really good season tho. Cool player tho. Surprisingly his career WAR is “only” 19. About the same as Marcell Ozuna. Bryant is a disaster signing so far.
There’s really no surprise that these were disaster signings. That’s pretty much what Colorado does.
No one except hiflew likes what the worst FO in baseball does……
Great trade for Cubs! Even if the rerun wasn’t great, it forced them not to resign him!
It surprised me that the Giants and Rockies apparently didn’t watch any cub games. Bryant has always had back injuries. He’s always spent time on the IL, sometimes four times in a season. Rendon is a fantastic player but unfortunately we’ve only seen glimpses of that. If he had stayed healthy, the Angels might be leading their division.
Giants?
You do realize they got him a mid season trade when the team won 107 games and were trying to make the wild card? The Giants didn’t sign him to a 7 year deal, the Rockies did.
The Giants traded for him during the cub’s mass clean out. They should’ve known about Bryant’s penchant for spending most of a season on the IL. At least they were smart enough to not re-sign him. The Rockies, I have no idea why they signed, and to a seven year contract no less.
The Giants got what they expected out of 50 games with Bryant. .
262 BA 7 HR .344 OBP .444 SLG .788 OPS
Yeah, I am so glad the Giants didn’t sign him and I was shocked when the Rockies gave he a 7 year deal.
When the Giants (and Cubs for that matter) showed zero interest in being Bryant back after making the mid-season trade for him, it spoke volumes!
It’s funny to me because Cubs fans had a different opinion of Bryant but I always thought he was a selfish, me first player. I remember the Cubs telling Bryant he needed to take some launch angle out of his swing so he could hit the high fastball and Bryant, defiantly, added more launch to his swing because “it’s what works for him”.
Everyone knew that this was an asinine signing the second that it was announced…except the Rockies. Kind of like the Padres and Hosmer.
We just have to chalk it up to groupthink within the organizations. They convince themselves that the money and years match up with the talent, and injury history is in the past and has nothing to do with future health. At some point they snap out of it when reality becomes impossible to ignore.
And add in the age factor. One of the things these lower-tier GMs have in common is that they think “their” player is not going to decline as they age. When you sign a 26 year old for 10 years, you should get 5 good years, and 5 declining years. When you sign a 30 year old for 7 years, you are likely to get 1 good year and 6 declining years.
Not really putting up great numbers either…
He started out strong, but he has been slumping for the past few weeks. Oddly he played well while the team was losing and slumped when they started winning more often.
Hopefully it’s just the injury, he really should be putting up at 30 homers a season especially in year 2 of 7 for you guys.
Homers are nice, but they are not the be all and end all. As long as he is putting up singles and doubles and knocking in runs, I am satisfied. Right now the Rockies biggest problem is that only 1-2 guys are ever swinging hot at the same time.
hiflew: You’re right. RBI, no matter how the come, are the be all and end all. If you hit a homer, you get a run which is the goal. But the other team can put together a bunch of hits and score a bunch of runs. For pitchers, it’s wins. That’s more important than strikes or balls or other stats he puts up. Wins are the only stat that means anything. And I also think velocity is irrelevant. If a batter hits a single with a velocity of 100+ and another batter hits a dunker over the IF at, say, 50mph, they both result in a single. MPH is also irrelevant.
Shocking!
10 HRs, and 4 DL trips since signing with Colorado. For perspective, in that same time frame, Patrick Wisdom has 39 HRs and Christopher Morel has 25. I know both have extremely bloated K rates, but my point is, as tough as it is to see fan favorites leave, the Cubs were very smart not to commit here. Same with Javy. A disaster since getting to Detroit. Same with Jake when he left. Willson too. I’ll always miss Rizz, and he’s still playing well, so that was probably the only “miss”, considering the lack of production we’ve got out of 1B the last year and a half. Our division is weak AF, so we’ll see what happens the rest of the way. Not very optimistic about this year though.
Not resigning Schwarber was a mistake too in my opinion. Agree on the rest of what you said though.
I loved Schwarbs, and certainly miss his moon shots, but the guy is at the Mendoza the last year and a half. He’ll hit you some bombs and draw some walks surely, but 20 mill-ish a year for 200 strikeouts a year and not much defense? Probably the biggest 3 true outcomes guy in the league right now. And to be clear, there is still some value there and I don’t dislike him, but I know some Philly fans and they are pretty frustrated with him right now.
Well, June 1st and he’s hitting .161 (w/o any IL time)
Yeah frustrated is one way to put it….We all thought with the shift ban he’d hover @.245……Hitting him 5th is a serious hole right now, but where else can he hit? Hoping he rebounds, but just to get him over .200 for the season will be Ichiro-like…
Schwarber and Wisdom in the middle of the same lineup would be frustrating. Lots of guys left on base with all those K’s…..
let me add this: Schwarber -1.0 WAR and Bryant -0.5 WAR. A lot of salary for that. Good for Cubs fans, you’d think
I miss all the Bloom-haters saying what a mistake it was to allow Schwarber to leave (usually the same “fans” that thought it was a mistake to trade for him).
Schwarber did a lot for the Sox in the short time he was there. I wish he would have stayed but it all comes down to money, not loyalty.
Those players left because the cubs, for some reason, decided it was time for a complete rebuild. There were so many players coming and going the next year, you didn’t know who was on the roster. They made moves this year to fill some holes, but they’re still a ways off to be considered a contender in the NLC.
The only player the Cubs wanted to keep, the only player they made an extension offer to, was Rizzo.
The frustrating thing is that none of the Cubs “superstars” ever improved and that is the exact opposite of who the Cubs invested in this past year. Swanson, Happ and Hoerner have steadily made improvements over the course of their careers while Bryant and Baez regressed, Schwarber widely has been the frustrating player he was for the Cubs and Rizzo just continued to be a rock.
Schwarber isn’t good defensively, but he is the reigning NL home run champ. Apparently that supercedes and other bad spots in his game.
I don’t see how non-tendering Schwarber was a mistake. He’s a lot like a left handed Patrick Wisdom but Wisdom plays good defense and doesn’t walk, Schwarber walks and plays awful defense.
This guy is made of glass.
ANYONE that fouls a ball off their foot like he did will be headed to the IL. This was not a Bryant issue, this was just bad luck.
I don’t believe the Cubs ever had a real chance to sign Bryant long term but boy did they dodge a bullet.
he wasn’t already on the IL? shocker
What’s more valuable… KB to the Rox or an IOU for a Lambo?
At least Harry and Lloyd got to drive around in the Lambo.
If I’m responsible for paying the IOU… then probably KB
About 14 months ago, when the Rox signed Bryant, I said it was only a matter of time before the Rox traded him to the RS, along with a $52,000,00o check. And I was quite serious.
Who’d have believed that, in only 14 months, that trade would no longer even be considered by the RS? And the worst part is, no one even said a word about my suggestion. That is how bad a signing this was. On the day the deal was signed, the Rox would’ve had to cut a $40M check just to dump the contract.
That’s what the Rockies do. I wouldn’t be surprised to see KB find some life if he is eventually traded elsewhere though.
Colorado is where careers go to stall out or die.
As I recall, he said he wanted to settle his young family in one place long-term – and stay there.
His contract included full no-trade rights – so he’s very likely to be in Colorado for the duration.
Montfort needs to go away.
Kris started tailing off in the power dept. with the Cubs somewhere after Maddon got the bright idea to start playing him in the OF, even though there wasn’t a need to make room over at 3rd for someone else. Kris got into some bad slumps where he was whiffing at avg. stuff and the way he seemed to get out of those was by becoming more of a contact hitter. So at that point with the Cubs, he was mostly a singles/doubles hitter. It was when he started slogging around in the Cubs OF that he started getting injured and became someone that you didn’t want to sign long term. And as LONG AS you continue to play him in the OF, he’ll be more likely to get injured, more so as he ages. Stick him at DH and work with him (his dad still isn’t his “coach”, is he?) and maybe he can regain some RBI potential. If he wasn’t rich with a nice family, I’d feel sorry for him.
Interesting take, it’s not accurate, but interesting all the same.
Bryant’s power never “fell off” because they moved him to the outfield. He dropped off in 2017 but he played 3rd base that year almost exclusively. Then he messed his shoulder up on 18, and bounced back to a 31 homer campaign in 19.
He also wasn’t taken off third without cause, he was a below average defender at third, he wanted to show his defensive versatility (talked about how much he loved playing center field) and was kind of pushed into the outfield so Wisdom could play. The move to the outfield was also to help keep him healthy since he was having back issues playing third base.
Maddon started experimenting with Bryant in the OF WELL before Wisdom was with the Cubs. At the time, he wasn’t perceived as a below average 3rd baseman and theoretically would improve if you just leave him parked there. There also wasn’t anyone else who would have benefited the club to be there instead of KB. He had minimal experience in the OF and you don’t get healthier running around out there, especially at Wrigley. CF? Ha. My take was that he started to get moved out there more often because Maddon was the puppet master and liked to do outside the box stuff just to be different. I don’t know when the power drop off began (I’ll pour through some old game film and get back to you) but he certainly developed the overall rep of not being clutch in RBI situations.
Actually, yes, he was a poor defender. After 2016, he only posted a positive defensive WAR once, which was 2020 in only a handful of games. After he got hurt in 2018, the consensus opinion from opposing GMs was he was bad defender and couldn’t continue holding down third.
And yes, Maddon had Bryant play outfield before Wisdom (and injuries). He played the outfield in 19 games in 2015, 69 games in 2016 (also happened to be his best years) then dropped to just 9 in 2017, he played in 27 games in the outfield in 2018, but only 18 starts. The majority of those came after he returned from his shoulder injury protect him. 2019 he played a bit more because his back was bothering him and the decision was made to play him in the outfield more often to ease off on his back. You can “ha” all you want but that is the facts.
Imo, Bryant’s inability to drive in runs had a lot more to do with the Cubs decision to have Schwarber lead off and occasionally Zo. Neither guys were strong runners at that time or a threat to steal. On top of not being able to take the extra bases on hits, pitchers were very comfortable executing their game plan against KB which was high fastballs and burying pitches in the dirt. It allowed for the perfect storm
Well, originally he wasn’t a poor defender and I don’t believe he was considered to be one and then Maddon started flipping him around and removed any permanence at 3rd. Right now for sure, he’s not an OF’er (somehow, he got the rep for being “versatile” but he was never good out there) and with foot injuries, you probably don’t want him slogging around there anymore. But, there’s that contract.
On the RBI’s, my perception from watching a lot of his Cub AB’s with guys on base was that he wasn’t a good hitter in “clutch” situations. Then again, who is? Not sure. My perception also was that at some point, he changed his batting approach to become more of a contact hitter, at least partly to stay out of slumps. Used to be a decent baserunner so singles and doubles weren’t; so bad. Anyway …. given that he doesn’t have a hard, compact swing, he’s probably never going to be a power hitter at this point.
It took some digging but quote from an opposing gm after the 2019 season:
I like Bryant but he is not a Top 30 player in baseball in my opinion. He is mediocre at best as a defender at third base. His swing has changed dramatically since 2016 and I question if he is truly 100% healthy. Sure, he has ability and he is a big, strong man but his offensive impact is nowhere close to what he looked like when the Cubs won the World Series.
His defense declined after he injured his shoulder, not because they played him some in the outfield.
Also, in 2019, only 77 RBIs but
.955 ops with 2 outs risp
1.125 late and close
Men on .977
To me, pretty clutch. He also crushed it with a guy on third with 2 outs.
Why the Rockies signed this man is beyond all comprehension
Dude has for sure spiraled down to basically nothing. Was such a stud those first few seasons. Even as a cards fan I liked him
How did he stay off the dl for two months should be the question asked.
Don’t put “meanwhile” in the middle of a sentence. Start the sentence with it.
“Grichuk, meanwhile, has ample experience in center field, should Doyle need a day off or need to exit a game due to injury.”
Bad writing.
“Meanwhile, Grichuke has ample experience in center field, should Doyle need a day off or need to exit a game due to injury.”
Better writing.
Better use of punctuation, (ie: commas, colons and semicolons) would eliminate the sentence fragments littering your critique of writing.
Lmao fail
“ie: commas, colons and semicolons”
Should be:
i.e. commas, colons, and semicolons
Don’t get on me for not overusing/abusing punctuation when you can’t get it right yourself, you bum.
Speaking of punctuation (something I typically never mention), “meanwhile” probably wasn’t needed at all. 🙂