When Will Kris Bryant be Called up?

Mar 10, 2014; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Chicago Cubs third baseman

signs autographs prior to the game against the San Francisco Giants at Scottsdale Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The recent promotion of 21 year old shortstop Javier Baez has led to speculation over when Chicago will call up their other highly touted Triple-A infielder, third baseman Kris Bryant.

In light of Baez’s arrival, promoting Bryant would seem logical. At 22, Bryant is almost a year older than the now-rookie shortstop and a better prospect as well. In Baseball America’s recent mid-season top 50 prospect rankings, the UC San Diego standout was ranked as the game’s #2 prospect, Baez checked in at #7.  Bryant is also ahead on the lists compiled by both Baseball Prospectus and ESPN.com’s Keith Law.

On the field, Bryant is a more accomplished and polished hitter than Baez. The second overall pick from last year’s amateur draft, Bryant has torn apart Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa this season, posting a meteoric .341/.446/.685 line (in comparison to Baez’s .260/.323/.510) and ranking second to the Texas’s Joey Gallo in all of North American professional baseball with 36 home runs.

His approach at the plate is superior, as he doesn’t suffer from as high strikeout rates or the same mediocre plate discipline His 13.8 BB% is well above the MLB average of 7.8%, and his 26 SO% is not ideal, but in today’s game, not terrible either. Meanwhile Baez posted a 7.8 BB% (a career high) and a 30 K%.

Bryant has been hot of late, too, as he rides an 8 game hitting streak, during which time he has hit three home runs and posted .561 on base percentage.  Baez was called up in the midst why not do the same for his Iowa teammate.

But as, ESPN.com senior writer and former Blue Jays scouting executive Keith Law, in conversation with fellow writer Buster Olney, explained on Tuesday night’s Baseball Tonight podcast, Bryant’s unencumbered success is precisely the reason that he remains in Triple-A, even as Baez hits walk-off home runs for the Cubs.

“Teams like it when young players struggle in the minor leagues,” Olney said to Law, “they think its an important as part of their development, and I know from talking with the Cubs people, that they were glad that Baez not only worked through [some difficulty] but came through it on the backside.”

“…..Well Bryant has barely been in Triple-A,” Law began, contrasting the pair of prospects”and hasn’t struggled anywhere yet, and you want to at least see any player go around a league twice so that pitchers have the chance to adjust to him, try something different, maybe get him out, and let him make adjustments. Baez was in Triple-A longer”

The Cubs want Bryant to strikeout and pop-up and ground-out for a period in Triple-A, so that when he inevitably goes through a similar slump in the big leagues, he will know how to deal with failure and how to make the proper adjustments.

Baez’s case is about as strong an example of this principle as you can find. Through his first 28 games in Triple-A, he was completely overmatched, with an anemic .151 batting average, a .484 OPS, and 45 strikeouts in just 106 at bats. But slowly he changed his approach, worked his way back up, and in his last thirty games at the level, Baez hit .310/.364/.698 with 12 home runs and 33 RBIs.

Until Bryant goes through a rough patch and adapts accordingly, or until next May rolls around and Triple-A pitchers still have yet to figure the young slugger out, he will probably remain with Iowa. Either way, don’t expect to see him in September, and Opening Day of 2014 seems unlikely as well.

There are other, more logistical, considerations at play here as well. Drafted just last season, Kris Bryant is not a member of Chicago’s forty man roster and putting him on it now would give them less flexibility to add new players in the offseason. Service time also weighs heavily, as the Cubs can hold Bryant, a Scott Boras client, from free-agency for another season simply by leaving him in the minors until the end of next April.

Of course both of these issues were present for Baez as well. It appears, though, that the young shortstop’s track record superseded them in his case. As illustrated by his splits in Triple-A, as well as those in his first tour of Advanced-A, and to a lesser extent Double-A, Baez has a history of struggling when he first enters a league, before taking stock, changing his approach, and ultimately succeeding. Chicago evidently expects the same to happen in the majors.

“Bringing [Baez] up now to the majors means he’ll probably see a couple of pitchers twice….scouts will quickly develop a plan to get [him] out,” Law explained, “And I think [the Cubs] want to have Baez come up and scuffle a little bit… and get that adjustment period started now.”

For his part, Cubs President of Baseball Operations has stayed his usual tight-lipped self amidst all the rumors.

“I don’t believe in making grand pronouncements as an organization or making statements. I think we want the talent, and ultimately the performance of our players, to speak for themselves.” Epstein told NBC Sports, “So I’m not going to get into what this means or what this signifies, other than it’s the right step for Javy’s development. And there are others behind him who – at the appropriate time – will follow.”