Are the Cubs Going to Sign Kris Bryant Again

Former Cubs star Kris Bryant signed a seven-yr contract with the Rockies this jump.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Eight months agone, a blue-pinstripe-clad Kris Bryant sat exterior Coors Field, telling reporters how honored he felt each time he put on the Cubs' uniform.

On Thursday, he donned a Rockies warmup shirt in forepart of a locker begetting his name at Salt River Fields.

''It kind of has come full circumvolve with the 2 teams that were really on me coming out of the draft,'' Bryant said. ''I become a chance to play for both of them.''

The Cubs and Rockies play Friday at Sloan Park, pitting the team that drafted Bryant against the 1 that merely signed him for the next seven years. Bryant doesn't wait to be at that game. Veterans oftentimes go a abode-game-heavy schedule in jump preparation.

If Bryant did prove upwardly Fri in Mesa, he wouldn't recognize many players in the opposite dugout.

When the Cubs traded Bryant to the Giants at the trade deadline last season, they as well sent Anthony Rizzo to the Yankees and Javy Baez to the Mets. The only players from the Cubs' 2016 Earth Series team still on the roster are Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Kyle Hendricks.

''You tin can look at it like, hey, we're all getting older, and so there'southward new people coming in,'' Bryant said with a smiling during a conversation Th with the Dominicus-Times. ''That'southward the way I'chiliad looking at it. Definitely a different era of Cubs baseball and wishing them the all-time of luck — just not against us.

''It's always a special place for me, Chicago. We loved everything near our experience there, and we're going to love our whole experience here in Colorado.''

Along with getting older, Bryant, Rizzo and Baez had reached their concluding year of club control. And the Cubs didn't strike extensions with any of them. Rizzo memorably cutting off negotiations alee of Opening Day — a borderline he already had established — and held a news conference to say he was ''at peace'' with the impasse.

Somewhen, the Cubs charted a path without any of them, a decision that launched them into building back from a trade-borderline sell-off. Or, as the Cubs put it, building ''the next keen Cubs team.''

Concluding calendar week, Bryant signed a seven-year, $182 million contract, hoping to exist part of the next slap-up Rockies team.

''The Rockies, from the very outset, were like, 'We want you hither,' '' Bryant said. ''And that was a really skilful feeling, especially early on on. And information technology made me excited nearly the opportunity hither.''

The relationship went back much further than this offseason. Bryant thought he was going to be drafted by the Rockies at No. iii overall, correct after the Cubs' pick, in 2013. And when the Rockies came courting Bryant this winter, they didn't have to sell him on the stadium or facilities. During All-Star festivities terminal season, the dwelling side of Coors Field blew Bryant away.

After news of Bryant's signing got out, Cubs manager David Ross sent him a congratulatory text message. Chairman Tom Ricketts and president of business operations Crane Kenney also texted correct abroad, Bryant said.

''To run across what KB got,'' Ross said, ''just from his text dorsum, he seems pretty excited.''

The current Rockies reminded Bryant of the Cubs team he initially joined.

There are, of course, differences in market size. And it's hard to ignore the Rockies' trade saga involving Nolan Arenado or Trevor Story's defoliation when the squad held on to him through the deadline concluding summer.

Take a pace back, withal, and the similarities in trajectory are articulate. When the Cubs called Bryant up in 2015, they were in a six-year playoff drought and hadn't won the World Series in more than a century. The Rockies' final postseason appearance came in 2018, and they haven't won the Fall Classic in their history.

''You lot bring in a lot of veteran dudes who accept washed it earlier and have that playoff experience,'' Bryant said. ''And I certainly have that. In that location's some guys in this room that practice, too.

''Merely when you have someone that has been through the pressure cooker in a city that demanded a lot, I can use a lot of that experience, assistance answer questions here and atomic number 82 by case. And simply go out there and play, exercise what I know how to do. And hopefully we can write some history here, just similar I did in Chicago.''

Nine miles from the Rockies' spring-training site, the Cubs were also coming full circle.

President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer promised this phase wouldn't be a repeat of 2012 and 2013. And the Cubs' signings of Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki, who is scheduled to make his spring-grooming debut Fri, have supported that commitment.

But Hoyer is borrowing some tactics from the playbook he and his predecessor, Theo Epstein, used when they first took accuse of the Cubs' baseball-operations section.

With Bryant hoping to play a Jon Lester-type role with the Rockies, which veterans will pry open the Cubs' championship window? And might this trade-deadline play out for Contreras the same way last summer did for Baez, Rizzo and Bryant?

Asked what he had learned from experience in 2021, Bryant pondered for a moment.

''I don't think he needs any advice,'' Bryant said of Contreras. ''He's going to get out there and play with eye and passion, and I'm sure he won't even remember nearly information technology the whole year. That'south just who Willson is. That's why he's fun to play with.''

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Source: https://chicago.suntimes.com/cubs/2022/3/24/22995573/rockies-kris-bryant-wishes-former-team-good-luck-different-era-cubs-baseball-anthony-rizzo-javy-baez