Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Why All the Outrage?

The Cubs demoted their stud third baseman Kris Bryant to the minor leagues yesterday and for some reason this has made the MLB player's association upset, but its been like this for years. How many studs have had a very good spring training and have gone down? Pittsburgh Pirate center fielder and current face of the Pirates Andrew McCutchen made his debut in June, Mike Trout the eventual face of the whole sport made his debut for the Angels in July, David Wright made his debut for the NY Mets in July, Miguel Cabrera, the best hitter in the majors, made his debut for the Florida Marlins in June. Why didn't all these eventual all stars make their team out of camp? For the same reason that Bryant didn't. Keeping Bryant in the minors for a couple more weeks gets the Cubs another year of control over Bryant. The same way the Pirates had an extra year over McCutchen and the Mets over Wright. It's the business of the sport.

Keeping a player from getting a certain amount of playing time allows the controlling team to keep the player in the arbitration process for one more year and allowing the team to push back the big money contract for one more year. As much as Cubs fans have suffered they should understand that GM Theo Epstein has a plan. Epstein never said that this would be the year that all of their young studs would make the immediate jump and run away with the NL. Is that going to happen eventually? Maybe. Maybe not, but one thing that shouldn't change is the business of the sport. Yes, the MLB player's association is strong, but I'm pretty sure the owners aren't about to change something that benefits them so much. Bryant is not going to be the last player that is sent down by a team trying to save a few bucks.