Chicago Cubs: Where Have You Gone, Kris Bryant?

Over six seasons, Chicago Cubs star Kris Bryant has gone from being Babe Ruth to Pablo Sandoval. What happened?

In case you haven’t heard, Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant does-not-care-what-you-think.

Alright, he might have actually been more blunt than that, but I’ve been told it’s a family website. Suffice it to say he doesn’t spend much time listening to his doubters.

Yet as much as a player holding such views might be anathema to baseball fans reading a baseball blog, it’s a more than understandable position for Bryant to take. Honestly, it’s good advice for anyone to take in any walk of life- the haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate after all. But Bryant is still, even heading into 2021, better at baseball than most of the players that play, play, play, play, play.  So what gives? And what gives with the Bryant hate, I mean, not the random T-Swift riff we just went on.

The problem with Bryant is delivery on potential. Despite being a 24.3 WAR player, three-time All-Star, MVP winner, and World Champion before the age of thirty…he seems to widely be seen as having come up short. Which is what happens when every sportswriter in the Western world paints you as the heir to Babe Ruth for the two years leading up to your MLB debut.

Where Have You Gone, Kris Bryant?

On one hand, there was nowhere to go but down from his start. Bryant won Rookie of the Year in 2015, with that aforementioned MVP trophy and World Series ring serving as his follow-up act in Year Two. On the other hand, he has fallen significantly behind the WAR race among his star contemporaries that debuted around the same time. Francisco Lindor (28.7) and Carlos Correa (26.3) made 2015 appearances themselves; Mookie Betts (45.4) debuted just a year earlier, but has almost twice as valuable. Alex Bregman and Corey Seager made 2016 debuts, and while they do trail in WAR, you’d be hardpressed to find a team that would pick Bryant over those names.

If you put stock in fantasy player rankings, he’s not even considered a Top 10 talent anymore at the position. It just seems inconceivable for a talent that was so hyped up so recently. At the time of his call-up, I had just moved to a new state, and actually made a mnemonic device to remember my new license plate based on the best birthday present for me being getting Kris Bryant on my team.

Yes, loser. So my wife keeps telling me.

But when it comes to Bryant, is there really enough evidence to suggest he’s just dropped off this much? To borrow from another song, should baseball fans really be asking themselves, where have you gone Kris Bryant? Now, making a forced Joe DiMaggio comp might seem unfair, but I would argue it’s conservative based on the perception of the player from 2014 to 2016. So, where has he gone? The answer is…he never left.

From Billy Goat To Scapegoat

The truth is, Kris Bryant just seems to be who baseball fans have decided to blame for the absence of a Chicago Cubs dynasty.

In 2019, Bryant put up the second best HR total, third best BA, and third best OBP of his career during his third All-Star season. That’s…not a drop off. If you love your OBP and OPS, you can argue his best season was actually 2017, not his 2016 MVP campaign. But no ring followed that effort, and the Cubs never even made it back to the NLCS after that 2017 season.

Now, one could argue that most of the problems of the Cubs since 2016 had to do with a failure to prioritize starting pitching, overreliance on aging veterans, the emergence of the Milwaukee Brewers, and the buzzsaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers dynasty. But superstars are often viewed as a bust if they don’t either put up video game numbers or churn out championships. As the saying goes, pretty good. is not good enough.

All that being said, Bryant was abysmal in 2020. Career lows in every category, not just the counting stats. He couldn’t hit his weight. He made Jason Heyward look good. In a sure sign of the apocalypse, Kyle Schwarber had a higher OBP. No one is saying his stats weren’t disappointing

What I am saying is that the reaction from baseball fans of treating 2020 miscues as the straw that broke the camel’s back is seriously out of step with reality. Whereas the consensus appears to be 2020 was one bad season too many, the truth is that it would be more logical to argue it was the first season worth getting upset about.

Time to bounce back in 2021, Kris. Chicago Cubs nation turns its lonely eyes to you.