Breathe easy: Bryant’s fine — and he thinks he has another gear
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — On March 16, 2022, news broke that shocked the baseball world: Kris Bryant had reached a seven-year, $182 million deal with the Rockies. The former National League Most Valuable Player would change into the centerpiece of a workforce trying to find a brand new identification following three consecutive shedding seasons and the departures of star sluggers Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story.
Exactly one yr later — and after Colorado completed 68-94, with Bryant showing in solely 42 video games — neither he nor the Rockies can look again on his first season in purple pinstripes with a lot fondness.
Nagging again and foot issues sidelined Bryant for a lot of the 2022 marketing campaign. But he entered Spring Training this yr wholesome, and he received off to an amazing begin on the plate, launching three residence runs in his first eight Cactus League video games.
Then he wakened Monday morning with again stiffness. And Rockies followers abruptly discovered their blood strain rising. After all, again accidents — and plantar fasciitis, for that matter — may cause issues for years.
But within the Rockies’ clubhouse, Bryant knew what this was.
“I think every person in here has back stiffness sometimes, just playing baseball,” Bryant mentioned after going 2-for-3 with a pair of singles in his return to the lineup Thursday because the Rockies misplaced to the Padres, 7-1, at Salt River Fields. “And that’s really all it was. Last year, it was more like playing through back problems, and then you just keep making it worse and worse. And then it takes longer to recover from it.”
When Bryant signed his huge contract 12 months in the past, projections of what sort of numbers he may put up now that he had Coors Field as his residence ballpark had been inevitable. And the place would the Rockies be in a single yr? In three? In 5?
Fast-forward to the current, and Robert Burns’ proverb concerning the best-laid plans of mice and males had reared its ugly head as soon as once more. But if there’s any participant who possesses the suitable disposition to deal with what has occurred to Bryant over the previous 12 months, it’s Bryant.
Say what you’ll about his seemingly charmed baseball life — he made the defensive play that clinched the Cubs’ first World Series title in 108 years after an MVP marketing campaign throughout his second Major League season — but it surely hasn’t precisely been easy crusing since.
In truth, you might say we’ve by no means really gotten to see the most effective of Kris Bryant. Over his first three MLB seasons, he posted a .939 OPS with 94 homers and 18.3 bWAR. In the 5 seasons since, his OPS is almost 100 factors decrease, and he has produced simply shy of 11 WAR. That’s what a slew of accidents, to not point out a once-in-a-century pandemic, will do.
Does Bryant have a very particular season in him, one which leaves his nice 2016 within the mud?
“You could look back at like Barry Bonds, maybe. He had like every stat one year was like the best it could possibly be,” Bryant mentioned. “But I feel like as baseball players here, I don’t know if anybody’s actually put together a season where it’s like, ‘Oooh, look at this stat sheet — I did everything unbelievably well.’ Even in my best years, there were areas where I’m like, ‘Man, I really wish I did this better.’”
Still, he thinks there’s a monster yr in him.
“Oh, definitely,” Bryant mentioned. “It’s important to have that desire and that will. And I know I still have it because even in Spring Training games, when things aren’t going my way, I’m frustrated. It’s when you lose that fire and that desire that you probably shouldn’t be playing baseball anymore.”
Sometimes it’s harmful to look forward a yr or three. But typically it’s OK to muse about, say, seven? As he and a number of other of his Rockies teammates put together to fly to his hometown of Las Vegas for this weekend’s two-game sequence in opposition to the Royals, one may forgive Bryant for questioning what it might be like if there have been a Major League franchise there sometime.
“They’ll probably get a team just in time for when I retire,” he joked earlier than somebody introduced up the prospect of him and fellow Las Vegan Bryce Harper becoming a member of forces for one final run on the finish of their careers.
“That would be cool,” Bryant mentioned. “I don’t know if I’d want to, but maybe my kids will force me to.”
There are the best-laid plans. And then there are projections that really do work out. Only time will inform.
