The Case of Kris Bryant: Service Time Manipulation and Its Negative Impact on MLB

Feb 2 ## Feb 2 The Case of Kris Bryant: Service Time Manipulation and Its Negative Impact on MLB

By Christopher Murphy, @ChrisMurphy1326

During Spring Training in 2015, Kris Bryant was on fire. Massive crowds flooded Sloan Park to see the number two draft pick who many believed could be the key to finally changing the Cub’s fortunes. He did not let them down. Bryant proceeded to have the most dominant Spring Training by any player in recent memory, let alone a rookie who had never played a big-league game.

Twitter feeds exploded with videos of Bryant rocketing balls deep into the Arizona afternoon sky and the delirious hype train rolled on in Chicago. By the time the Cactus League closed its doors, Bryant was on top of the leaderboard with nine home runs in 40 at-bats. But it wasn't just the dingers that had people talking, Bryant put up an MLB The Show create-a-player caliber slash line of .425/.475/1.175.

In college at the University of San Diego, Bryant won the Golden Spikes Award, the Dick Howser Trophy, was the Collegiate Baseball Player of the Year, and American Baseball Coaches Association Player of the Year. After his first year of professional baseball, Bryant was chosen as the Minor League Player of the Year by USA Today and Baseball America. At that point, he was widely considered to be the number one prospect in all of the game. Add in a monster Spring Training and it seemed like this guy was pretty good at baseball. Some might even dare to say he was ready for the big leagues.

Not so fast though, you see the Cubs did not agree. Kris Bryant needed to work on his defense and cut down on his swing and miss tendencies. Weirdly, it only took until April 17th for him to fix those issues enough for the Cubs to be confident in calling him up. In a very convenient coincidence, the timing of his promotion to the majors meant that he would miss the cutoff point by a single day for his service time to be considered a full season. This meant that the Cubs would control him for an entire extra year until the end of the 2021 season, instead of him becoming a free agent once the 2020 season expired.

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Of course, I’m just being snarky. Everyone on the planet, including the Cubs, was well aware that Kristopher Bryant was ready to play big-league ball when the 2015 season began. This was a guy who entered the league and immediately won the NL Rookie of the Year Award and then followed it up by winning the NL MVP Award in 2016. If ever there was a test case to see the lengths MLB teams would go to maintain another year of control over top prospects, Bryant was it. The Cubs were manipulating the service time rules set out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players association and the league. This loophole has plagued the league for years and it must commit to closing it unless baseball wants another lockout in 2021 when the CBA expires. Currently, the product is damaged as young superstars are kept out of the big leagues where their talent should be on display.

When this happened to Bryant, he and his superstar agent Scott Boras did not let the manipulation go unnoticed.

“I really wanted my performance this spring to matter,” Bryant said at the time. “I just felt it didn't matter as much (to them) as it did to me.”

Words were not Bryant’s only weapon though. In December of 2015, he filed a grievance that accused the Cubs of holding him down in the minors intentionally to gain another year of control over him (which is exactly what happened). Major League Baseball may want to look into the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment because it took them FIVE YEARS to make a ruling on the case. On January 29th of this year, an arbitrator sided with the Cubs and determined Bryant would be under team control for two more years. This gives the Cubs much more value whether they are looking to trade Bryant or simply hold onto him until his contract is up. Although, Bryant has expressed frustration with the Cubs many times over their handling of his 2015 call up. This may impact his willingness to sign an extension with the team (even if he has denied any hard feelings), a downside of holding prospects down longer than needed.

While the Cubs did not directly violate any rules, it is clear that they acted in bad faith and for self-motivated reasons that undermine the good of the game. It was abundantly clear that Bryant was one of the best players in the organization and Cubs fans were drooling to see him out there on opening day. The 2015 Cubs ended with the third-best record in baseball (97-65) that also happened to be the third-best record in their own division. The Pirates snagged a single extra win to edge the Cubs out while the arch-rival Cardinals took the division with 100 victories. In the playoffs, the Cubs defeated the Pirates on the road in the Wild Card game and then took down the Cardinals in the NLDS before falling to the Mets in a battle for the NL pennant. Having Bryant on the team for the first few weeks of the season could have helped the Cubs win the division, where they wouldn’t have had to burn the red hot Jake Arrieta in a do or die game to start the postseason.

But that is pretty much besides the point. What matters is the fact that baseball currently has a system that encourages teams to hide away their best talent in the minors so they can control them for a longer period of time. While the decision the Cubs made makes sense from a strategic viewpoint and is within the rules, it violates all common-sense and moral principles. Still, the Cubs are not the only team willing to offend a top prospect and be worse off in the short term in favor of long term gains.

Last season, the Blue Jays held Vlad Guerrero Jr. down in AAA for an extra few weeks so they could control him through the 2025 season. This was after Guerrero Jr. mashed his way through the minors and compiled some mind-blowing stat lines. The same story seemed to be playing out with White Sox prospect Eloy Jimenez until he signed a long-term extension that negated the issue. In San Diego, veteran players Eric Hosmer and Manny Machado had to take Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler out to dinner in order to convince him to start the season with rookie Fernando Tatis Jr. on the roster instead of manipulating his service time.

The Mets made news when they decided to open the 2019 season with rookie sensation Pete Alonso on the roster. They traded an extra year of control for a stellar early-season performance that won Alonso the National League Rookie of the Month Award for March/April. His hot start snowballed into a National League Rookie of the Year campaign that saw him lead MLB in home runs. He also crushed his way to a thrilling home run derby victory over Guerrero Jr. under the bright lights of the national showcase. Look at that, fun things happen when elite young players are actually in the big leagues. Maybe most importantly, Alonso seems to love the Mets and their fans, something that could bode well for future contract negotiations. Making a player happy seems valuable, but it is clear that many teams find an extra year of control more enticing.

This all seems to be building to a crescendo that will play out in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations that will take place when the current deal runs out in 2021. With commissioner Rob Manfred and the players already beefing on other topics such as slow free-agency, pitch clocks, juiced balls, batter limits for pitchers, automated strike zones, and more, service time manipulation presents another obstacle to compromise. MLB needs to re-evaluate its rules in order to encourage the best product to be on the field at all times while allowing players to cash in on their skills without having to wait an extra year. It's good for the fans, the players, and anybody who cares about the health of the league. Unless baseball wants to risk another disastrous lockout, Manfred should commit to closing this loophole and start reaching out to teams and the players association in order to find a common-sense compromise.

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