Kris Bryant expectations

[beckdawg]

Many of top 50 have fail. More have failed then made it. I would love for Olt to get some value but I will leave with a portion of an article about last year spring training.

There's a difference between being skeptical of spring training which you're well within your right to do and ignoring it. If you want to be skeptical you should point to the fact he's been about as 3 true outcomes as possible. He has 5 hits(2 HRs) 5 walks and 7 K's in 18 ABs meaning he's had exactly 1 out in play. I would however point out he also played well after being recalled from AAA last year. He hit .263/.370/.368 with 13.0%/34.8% bb/k rates in September in 46 plate appearances. You add in his .278/.435/.611 with 27.7%/38.8% and that's nearing the 100 PAs you talk about before starting to buy into something. I have no doubt his Spring Training numbers will come down some. That BABIP is unsustainable. But I'd also argue his K rate has the ability to fall quite a bit. Keep in mind it was 38.8% in the majors last season and he's obviously still early in adjusting(~6 months).

Either way, I'm not trying to suggest he'll be a super star. However, in the present game that is largely devoid of power he is a guy who can hit for power and also plays decent defense. If you compare him to someone like Adam Dunn, he's maybe not as good of a hitter but he's a vastly superior defender. So, if he ends up working in the .230 range batting average wise his 10-12% walk rate will likely put him in a similar area to Dunn in terms of OBP. That sort of player with cost control is extremely valuable.

My point is simply this. Hypothetically say he improves into that .230/.340 ba/obp range for the first 3 months of the season. You're talking about a player with 1.030 service time and who's earliest Arb is 2017. You look at the projected standings and it's not that hard to find some team that will likely be in the hunt and could use help at 3B. The Giants won the title last year and currently have Casey McGehee as their starting 3B who's had 2 seasons above 2 fWAR(2 in 2014 and 2.8 in 2010). The dodgers are running out Juan Uribe though I'd imagine they imagine Corey Seager as their long term starter there. The Angels are running out David Freese who's 31 and hasn't been the same player since leaving the cards. The padres are running out one of Will Middlebrooks, Yangervis Solarte, and Cory Spangenberg. As for other teams down the list farther, the Brewers have ARAM who's retiring after the season. The Dbacks have one of Yasmany Tomas, Jacob Lamb(prospect), Jordan Pacheco, and Brandon Drury. The twins don't have much but presumably they are waiting on Sano. Braves have next to nothing at 3B. And finally the phillies are counting on Maikel Franco to pan out.

That's mentioning nothing of injuries that are going to happen as well as teams that could use him as a DH. Now he may not net a top 50 prospect himself but as I said before, he's an interesting player probably as a package.

 

[brett05]

There's a difference between being skeptical of spring training which you're well within your right to do and ignoring it. If you want to be skeptical you should point to the fact he's been about as 3 true outcomes as possible. He has 5 hits(2 HRs) 5 walks and 7 K's in 18 ABs meaning he's had exactly 1 out in play. I would however point out he also played well after being recalled from AAA last year. He hit .263/.370/.368 with 13.0%/34.8% bb/k rates in September in 46 plate appearances. You add in his .278/.435/.611 with 27.7%/38.8% and that's nearing the 100 PAs you talk about before starting to buy into something. I have no doubt his Spring Training numbers will come down some. That BABIP is unsustainable. But I'd also argue his K rate has the ability to fall quite a bit. Keep in mind it was 38.8% in the majors last season and he's obviously still early in adjusting(~6 months).

Either way, I'm not trying to suggest he'll be a super star. However, in the present game that is largely devoid of power he is a guy who can hit for power and also plays decent defense. If you compare him to someone like Adam Dunn, he's maybe not as good of a hitter but he's a vastly superior defender. So, if he ends up working in the .230 range batting average wise his 10-12% walk rate will likely put him in a similar area to Dunn in terms of OBP. That sort of player with cost control is extremely valuable.

My point is simply this. Hypothetically say he improves into that .230/.340 ba/obp range for the first 3 months of the season. You're talking about a player with 1.030 service time and who's earliest Arb is 2017. You look at the projected standings and it's not that hard to find some team that will likely be in the hunt and could use help at 3B. The Giants won the title last year and currently have Casey McGehee as their starting 3B who's had 2 seasons above 2 fWAR(2 in 2014 and 2.8 in 2010). The dodgers are running out Juan Uribe though I'd imagine they imagine Corey Seager as their long term starter there. The Angels are running out David Freese who's 31 and hasn't been the same player since leaving the cards. The padres are running out one of Will Middlebrooks, Yangervis Solarte, and Cory Spangenberg. As for other teams down the list farther, the Brewers have ARAM who's retiring after the season. The Dbacks have one of Yasmany Tomas, Jacob Lamb(prospect), Jordan Pacheco, and Brandon Drury. The twins don't have much but presumably they are waiting on Sano. Braves have next to nothing at 3B. And finally the phillies are counting on Maikel Franco to pan out.

That's mentioning nothing of injuries that are going to happen as well as teams that could use him as a DH. Now he may not net a top 50 prospect himself but as I said before, he's an interesting player probably as a package.

Wouldn;t he have to be at a 20%+ range to be in the same park as Dunn OBP wise?

 

[beckdawg]

Wouldn;t he have to be at a 20%+ range to be in the same park as Dunn OBP wise?

Perhaps I misread when looking quickly at dunn's stats. I was thinking he was around a .230 career hitter with 12%. Turns out he was .237/.364/.490 15.8%/28.6%. Regardless, if Olt is in the .330-.340 OBP range given his defense comparable to Dunn I think you could make the argument that they have similar value. In 2013 with the rangers in AAA Olt hit .213/.317/.422 with 13.1%/33.2%. So, if you adjust his BA slightly to .230 he'd basically be in that .330-.340 OBP range and given where he sits presently with K's and walks I don't think those rates are that unrealistic.

You could argue that he has more upside than that as well but given what we've seen in terms of underlying numbers this seems like a realistic expectation. It's easy to look at Olt's 298 major league PAs and see his .159/.248/.333 and 10.1%/37.9% rates and write him off. Maybe he ends up being a 4A player but his AAA numbers haven't been bad. Last season he hit .302/.348/.585 with 7.0%/28.7% in AAA. The season prior to that I already mentioned with the rangers and he didn't play that well after coming over to the cubs hitting .168/.276/.275 with 13.2%/24.3%. Given that he's basically at a 10% walk rate already in the majors seeing that come up 2-3% to match his minor league numbers wouldn't be that much of a shock. Additionally, seeing his k rate drop 5% again wouldn't be that shocking. As a reference point, Rizzo's dropped about 10% after his first extended look. I would argue Rizzo is a better overall hitter than Olt but the point I'm making here is that Rizzo's walk/k rate basically went back to his minors numbers.

Only 20 3B had a .320 or higher OBP last season. Only 13 had a .330 or higher and 8 had .340 or higher. Of those players with a .320 or higher OBP only 4(5 if you count Beltre at 19) had 20 or more homers(Seager, Todd Frazier, Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rendon). Olt's probably got 25-30 HR potential. Additionally, while Olt is a career .159 hitter presently he's also got a .207 BABIP. Some of that probably has to do with his line drive rate(13.2% career compared to 20.8% 2014 league average). Looking around at the other numbers the only thing that sticks out slightly is his 47.4% fly ball rate compared to the 34.4% league average last season. Fly balls tend to have a lower BABIP than normal as they are easier plays to make generally. However, this does go into part of his supposed change in approach. I wish I could remember where i saw the article but basically when he went back down to AAA that was something they wanted him to work on and he seemed to get it. He had more than enough of power and the gist of the article suggested he was trying to drive everything out of the park which the fly ball rate agrees with.

Again, all that might not mean much as he might just be a crappy player. All I'm trying to point out is that if they give him a month and he plays as well as he has in spring training then what's the hurry on Bryant? You could arguably play Bryant in LF I suppose but I'd rather Bryant be over prepared rather than come up and struggle. And additionally, if Olt does go out and hits for that .330ish OBP by the trade deadline he's going to be interesting for someone if we assume that Bryant/Russell is the cubs future 3B rather than the cubs keeping him. You're talking potentially about a 26 year old every day 3B with 25ish HR power when league average these days is more in the 15 HR range. His earliest FA date is 2020 as well so that's 5 years minimum of team control. He was the second big piece in the Garza deal and that was when there were large looming questions surrounding his health. So, if and admittedly it's a big if he turns out to be the player I'm suggesting then you're probably looking at a headliner trade piece. Him plus someone like Johnson probably nets you the top available arm at the deadline or something of comparable value.

 

[SilenceS]

Well, I'm no expert on Olt. I'm neither getting too excited about him nor am I ready to write him off, which was my point. I just don't see what the big deal about Olt is. It's a good thing to see him have a little better plate discipline. At best, he will give us some depth at multiple positions while giving the Cubs a little pop off the bench.

Im perfectly fine with that. I just have a hard time with some posters trying to say he figured it out because of spring training. Not saying you.

 

[beckdawg]

Im perfectly fine with that. I just have a hard time with some posters trying to say he figured it out because of spring training. I also find it funny the same ones trying to justify Olt turning the corner are the ones that have hated on Baez for the same thing just 4 years younger. Not talking bout you by the way.

I'd argue that's not the same comparison. While both have astronomical k rates, Baez isn't and hasn't ever walked at a similar clip to Olt. Olt's best walk rates in the minors were 16.4%(A+), 14.5%(AA), and 13.2%(AAA). Baez best walk rates in the minors were 7.9%(AA), 7.8%(AAA), 6.2%(A+). Even if we throw out the pre-AAA numbers you're talking a difference of 5.4%. over a full season that's roughly 50-60 points in on base. Last season the absolute worst player in the majors with qualified PAs was Matt Dominguez with a .256 OBP(4.8% walk rate). You throw 60 points of OBP on him and he jumps from 143 to 103 in terms of player rankings. That's basically going from last to middle of the pack on the down side. Obviously Dominguez has nothing to do with Baez. But the point I'm trying to make is that a player like Olt(or Bryant for that matter) who walks at a high clip has to do far less to be a useful player. If Olt hits .200 with a 13% walk rate like in the minors he's probably a .320-.330 OBP player where league average was .314 last season. If Baez hits .200 as a 8% walk rate player he's probably in the .280-.290 range OBP which makes him among the bottom 15-20 players in the league last season. I'd also argue that Olt has a defensive edge vs Baez given what I've read about both.

While I'm not personally convinced in Olt(I'd say I'm optimistically hopeful), I think it goes back to what I've said in the spring training thread. Largely spring training doesn't mean much. I mean Rizzo's played pretty crappy. However, for players who've yet to prove them selves like Olt and Baez it does matter as it's a chance to prove themselves. Olt looked better upon his call up from AAA in Sept. He's now playing well in Spring Training. If you want to buy into someone improving those are the steps you'd like to see. Progress isn't always linear though I think people want to believe it is. So, I think some might take too much stock in Olt's Spring Training because as I said he played well and Sept. and now is playing well so he's linear progressing where as Baez looks as bad as he did last season. If Baez does figure it out it's not likely to be in a linear fashion. He'll likely be crap one month and then suddenly really good if he figures it out.

 

[SilenceS]

I'd argue that's not the same comparison. While both have astronomical k rates, Baez isn't and hasn't ever walked at a similar clip to Olt. Olt's best walk rates in the minors were 16.4%(A+), 14.5%(AA), and 13.2%(AAA). Baez best walk rates in the minors were 7.9%(AA), 7.8%(AAA), 6.2%(A+). Even if we throw out the pre-AAA numbers you're talking a difference of 5.4%. over a full season that's roughly 50-60 points in on base. Last season the absolute worst player in the majors with qualified PAs was Matt Dominguez with a .256 OBP(4.8% walk rate). You throw 60 points of OBP on him and he jumps from 143 to 103 in terms of player rankings. That's basically going from last to middle of the pack on the down side. Obviously Dominguez has nothing to do with Baez. But the point I'm trying to make is that a player like Olt(or Bryant for that matter) who walks at a high clip has to do far less to be a useful player. If Olt hits .200 with a 13% walk rate like in the minors he's probably a .320-.330 OBP player where league average was .314 last season. If Baez hits .200 as a 8% walk rate player he's probably in the .280-.290 range OBP which makes him among the bottom 15-20 players in the league last season. I'd also argue that Olt has a defensive edge vs Baez given what I've read about both.

While I'm not personally convinced in Olt(I'd say I'm optimistically hopeful), I think it goes back to what I've said in the spring training thread. Largely spring training doesn't mean much. I mean Rizzo's played pretty crappy. However, for players who've yet to prove them selves like Olt and Baez it does matter as it's a chance to prove themselves. Olt looked better upon his call up from AAA in Sept. He's now playing well in Spring Training. If you want to buy into someone improving those are the steps you'd like to see. Progress isn't always linear though I think people want to believe it is. So, I think some might take too much stock in Olt's Spring Training because as I said he played well and Sept. and now is playing well so he's linear progressing where as Baez looks as bad as he did last season. If Baez does figure it out it's not likely to be in a linear fashion. He'll likely be crap one month and then suddenly really good if he figures it out.

Baez has looked horrible? Have you watched any of the games? He is having really good at bats. He is making a ton of hard outs. He has struck out 6 time in 23 AB's. Olt has struck out 7 times in 18 AB's. Baez will take his walks. This is where spring training will skew numbers by simple sample size. Where have you read about Baez D? I have seen mostly solid play. Bryant has been pretty awful at third. Olt will never play enough on this team for his D to matter much.

 

[brett05]

Perhaps I misread when looking quickly at dunn's stats. I was thinking he was around a .230 career hitter with 12%. Turns out he was .237/.364/.490 15.8%/28.6%. Regardless, if Olt is in the .330-.340 OBP range given his defense comparable to Dunn I think you could make the argument that they have similar value. In 2013 with the rangers in AAA Olt hit .213/.317/.422 with 13.1%/33.2%. So, if you adjust his BA slightly to .230 he'd basically be in that .330-.340 OBP range and given where he sits presently with K's and walks I don't think those rates are that unrealistic.

You could argue that he has more upside than that as well but given what we've seen in terms of underlying numbers this seems like a realistic expectation. It's easy to look at Olt's 298 major league PAs and see his .159/.248/.333 and 10.1%/37.9% rates and write him off. Maybe he ends up being a 4A player but his AAA numbers haven't been bad. Last season he hit .302/.348/.585 with 7.0%/28.7% in AAA. The season prior to that I already mentioned with the rangers and he didn't play that well after coming over to the cubs hitting .168/.276/.275 with 13.2%/24.3%. Given that he's basically at a 10% walk rate already in the majors seeing that come up 2-3% to match his minor league numbers wouldn't be that much of a shock. Additionally, seeing his k rate drop 5% again wouldn't be that shocking. As a reference point, Rizzo's dropped about 10% after his first extended look. I would argue Rizzo is a better overall hitter than Olt but the point I'm making here is that Rizzo's walk/k rate basically went back to his minors numbers.

Only 20 3B had a .320 or higher OBP last season. Only 13 had a .330 or higher and 8 had .340 or higher. Of those players with a .320 or higher OBP only 4(5 if you count Beltre at 19) had 20 or more homers(Seager, Todd Frazier, Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rendon). Olt's probably got 25-30 HR potential. Additionally, while Olt is a career .159 hitter presently he's also got a .207 BABIP. Some of that probably has to do with his line drive rate(13.2% career compared to 20.8% 2014 league average). Looking around at the other numbers the only thing that sticks out slightly is his 47.4% fly ball rate compared to the 34.4% league average last season. Fly balls tend to have a lower BABIP than normal as they are easier plays to make generally. However, this does go into part of his supposed change in approach. I wish I could remember where i saw the article but basically when he went back down to AAA that was something they wanted him to work on and he seemed to get it. He had more than enough of power and the gist of the article suggested he was trying to drive everything out of the park which the fly ball rate agrees with.

Again, all that might not mean much as he might just be a crappy player. All I'm trying to point out is that if they give him a month and he plays as well as he has in spring training then what's the hurry on Bryant? You could arguably play Bryant in LF I suppose but I'd rather Bryant be over prepared rather than come up and struggle. And additionally, if Olt does go out and hits for that .330ish OBP by the trade deadline he's going to be interesting for someone if we assume that Bryant/Russell is the cubs future 3B rather than the cubs keeping him. You're talking potentially about a 26 year old every day 3B with 25ish HR power when league average these days is more in the 15 HR range. His earliest FA date is 2020 as well so that's 5 years minimum of team control. He was the second big piece in the Garza deal and that was when there were large looming questions surrounding his health. So, if and admittedly it's a big if he turns out to be the player I'm suggesting then you're probably looking at a headliner trade piece. Him plus someone like Johnson probably nets you the top available arm at the deadline or something of comparable value.

I love your analysis and can read this all day long. Even when I disagree with the conclusions.

 

[beckdawg]

Baez has looked horrible? Have you watched any of the games? He is having really good at bats. He is making a ton of hard outs. He has struck out 6 time in 23 AB's. Olt has struck out 7 times in 18 AB's. Baez will take his walks. This is where spring training will skew numbers by simple sample size. Where have you read about Baez D? I have seen mostly solid play. Bryant has been pretty awful at third. Olt will never play enough on this team for his D to matter much.

I don't get many games on tv so I can't say I've watched. I've mostly been reading recaps on bleacher nation/cubs den. As for looking horrible, I honestly hadn't looked at Baez's stats but I knew that him striking out a lot in the first few games was a thing plus the whole DWL and people(not me) were making a big deal about it. That's all I meant. As for the defense, from what I've read the talk was that Olt was probably above average at 3B and Baez at best was average at 2B. People will have differing opinions but I haven't read anything on Olt that contradicts that where as there has been some large questions about Baez and some who think he'll be fine. I don't have a specific article(I could probably dig something up if you must have it) but the scouting rankings on Baez prior to last season had him at a 40-50 fielding with a 65(IIRC) arm. Olt was in the 55 range for fielding and 60's for arm.

As for Baez taking his walks, the point is he hasn't. You can say it but we're talking over 1300 PAs in the minors and he's never been above 8% plus the 200 or so in the majors at 6.6%. That's right around league average which would be fine if his k rate was also around league average but it's not. I've more than said my piece on Baez in the past so I'm not going to get into it anymore than that. The only point I was trying to get across is that if you have a flaw such as Olt/Baez's high k rate you have to do other things to make up for that. Again I'd rather not get into whether or not Baez will do that because I've already said as much at length. At this point, it's not even a debate that someone who walks more often has an easier time being a productive player. We have close to 15 years worth of teams actions to prove that's their present belief. I mean look no farther than Choo getting that enormous contract last off season to point this out. He didn't have nearly any of the typical stats you look at to warrant such a contract but was coming of a .400 OBP season.

Either way, Olt doesn't even have to be that much better in order to be an every day player. If he ups his BA 40 points you're probably talking about him being close to if not better than league average. Anything more than that is gravy. Finding 40 points of BA for a player who had a .203 BABIP and k'd at a 37.9% rate over his first 298 PAs isn't that hard especially when said player has hit substantially better since September. None of that guarantees anything but I think there's a lot of meat left on the bone for improvement for him. That's not to say Baez doesn't have some just that besides the walk rate his BABIP was about 50 points lower than Baez's as well. So, when you see someone who played well in September and is playing well in ST then I don't think it is outlandish to believe it will continue. In the past 20 years the lowest BABIP of any player in any individual season with qualified PAs was Aaron Hill in 2010 at .196. Simply put Olt's BABIP was basically as bad as it gets.

Maybe some people are solely buying into his ST and if they are that's obviously premature. But that doesn't mean there's not significant additional reasons to believe in an improvement from him.

 

[chibears55]

If Olt has positive numbers the first 2-3 weeks of season while Bryant in Iowa..
Look for Olt to stay at 3B for the most part with Bryant playing LF when he comes up...

 

[brett05]

If Olt has positive numbers the first 2-3 weeks of season while Bryant in Iowa..
Look for Olt to stay at 3B for the most part with Bryant playing LF when he comes up...

Has he even played the position as a pro?

 

[SilenceS]

I don't get many games on tv so I can't say I've watched. I've mostly been reading recaps on bleacher nation/cubs den. As for looking horrible, I honestly hadn't looked at Baez's stats but I knew that him striking out a lot in the first few games was a thing plus the whole DWL and people(not me) were making a big deal about it. That's all I meant. As for the defense, from what I've read the talk was that Olt was probably above average at 3B and Baez at best was average at 2B. People will have differing opinions but I haven't read anything on Olt that contradicts that where as there has been some large questions about Baez and some who think he'll be fine. I don't have a specific article(I could probably dig something up if you must have it) but the scouting rankings on Baez prior to last season had him at a 40-50 fielding with a 65(IIRC) arm. Olt was in the 55 range for fielding and 60's for arm.

As for Baez taking his walks, the point is he hasn't. You can say it but we're talking over 1300 PAs in the minors and he's never been above 8% plus the 200 or so in the majors at 6.6%. That's right around league average which would be fine if his k rate was also around league average but it's not. I've more than said my piece on Baez in the past so I'm not going to get into it anymore than that. The only point I was trying to get across is that if you have a flaw such as Olt/Baez's high k rate you have to do other things to make up for that. Again I'd rather not get into whether or not Baez will do that because I've already said as much at length. At this point, it's not even a debate that someone who walks more often has an easier time being a productive player. We have close to 15 years worth of teams actions to prove that's their present belief. I mean look no farther than Choo getting that enormous contract last off season to point this out. He didn't have nearly any of the typical stats you look at to warrant such a contract but was coming of a .400 OBP season.

Either way, Olt doesn't even have to be that much better in order to be an every day player. If he ups his BA 40 points you're probably talking about him being close to if not better than league average. Anything more than that is gravy. Finding 40 points of BA for a player who had a .203 BABIP and k'd at a 37.9% rate over his first 298 PAs isn't that hard especially when said player has hit substantially better since September. None of that guarantees anything but I think there's a lot of meat left on the bone for improvement for him. That's not to say Baez doesn't have some just that besides the walk rate his BABIP was about 50 points lower than Baez's as well. So, when you see someone who played well in September and is playing well in ST then I don't think it is outlandish to believe it will continue. In the past 20 years the lowest BABIP of any player in any individual season with qualified PAs was Aaron Hill in 2010 at .196. Simply put Olt's BABIP was basically as bad as it gets.

Maybe some people are solely buying into his ST and if they are that's obviously premature. But that doesn't mean there's not significant additional reasons to believe in an improvement from him.

We have very different definitions of significant. What was his increase in September? A better BA and OBP. His OPS was .738 in september. He struck out at over a 40% clip. He is striking out at a 38% clip in ST. If you just take his numbers in September. He was on pace for 200 K's in a season. Also, his increase in AVG. and OBP. led to a decrease in power by the 0 homers he hit that month. The sample sizes are by far to smalll. But, there has been no significant increase just hope.

 

[chibears55]

Has he even played the position as a pro?

Maddon said yesterday he going to start getting looks in LF now...

have to think he gonna get some games in LF when season starts in Iowa...
wondering if it cause of arm , Olt having a good spring, or both

 

[brett05]

Maddon said yesterday he going to start getting looks in LF now...

have to think he gonna get some games in LF when season starts in Iowa...
wondering if it cause of arm , Olt having a good spring, or both

I'm just hoping because he is so young that the position change does nothing to affect his swing.

 

[SilenceS]

Maddon said yesterday he going to start getting looks in LF now...

have to think he gonna get some games in LF when season starts in Iowa...
wondering if it cause of arm , Olt having a good spring, or both

They wouldnt push Bryant off third for Olt. Maybe Russell but not Olt. If he goes to left, it means the Cubs dont believe his D will be good enough at third or they envision Russell there. I havent seen a ton of Bryants D, but he has made some real bad plays this spring.

 

[SilenceS]

I'm just hoping because he is so young that the position change does nothing to affect his swing.

Why would it do that? Pujols, Braun, and a plethora of others have had to move. He would also be moving into an easier defensive position.

 

[brett05]

Forget it, I am going all in. He wins the 2015 ROY over Soler.

 

[beckdawg]

We have very different definitions of significant. What was his increase in September? A better BA and OBP. His OPS was .738 in september. He struck out at over a 40% clip. He is striking out at a 38% clip in ST. If you just take his numbers in September. He was on pace for 200 K's in a season. Also, his increase in AVG. and OBP. led to a decrease in power by the 0 homers he hit that month. The sample sizes are by far to smalll. But, there has been no significant increase just hope.

Think we need to talk about scope. You're acting like I said things suggested he'll be an all-star. I gave you at least 3 reasons he could be "better." Hell, I could say his unsustainably low BABIP and the fact he's played less than 300 PAs in the majors is significant reason to believe in a real improvement. The only thing definitive I've said is I thought with a small improvement in his batting average he can be a average 3B with decent power and if that happens a player with 5 years of team control has large value.

 

[Bear Pride]

If Olt has positive numbers the first 2-3 weeks of season while Bryant in Iowa..
Look for Olt to stay at 3B for the most part with Bryant playing LF when he comes up...

According to Maddon, both Olt and Bryant are going to get some time in the OF, so who knows at this point. To me, the player that's going to dictate changes is Russell. If he pushes his way up sooner than later, that's when i see Bryant making the switch, maybe. I personally don't think they will give up Coglins OBP unless we replace it with Russell's.

 

[2323]

I'm just hoping because he is so young that the position change does nothing to affect his swing.

Stop trolling.

 

[TC in Mississippi]

According to Maddon, both Olt and Bryant are going to get some time in the OF, so who knows at this point. To me, the player that's going to dictate changes is Russell. If he pushes his way up sooner than later, that's when i see Bryant making the switch, maybe. I personally don't think they will give up Coglins OBP unless we replace it with Russell's.

I'm not convinced that Russell won't force himself up and wind up at 2B if Baez continues to struggle. All the noises out of the Cubs are that Castro is their long term answer at SS and they would not move him off the position for a rookie. Given Maddon's belief that veterans have earned certain privileges this isn't hard to believe at all. They have different strengths but Castro and Russell grade out virtually the same at SS.