Kris Bryant's service time manipulation grievance will be heard

Kris Bryant

Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant and the Major League Baseball Players Association have filed a grievance, claiming that the team manipulated his service time in 2015, thus preventing him from becoming a free agent until after the 2021 season.

Bryant is hoping to be declared a free agent after the 2020 season. Arbitrators were expected to hear the grievance this week.

To recap, Bryant by all rights should have broken camp with the Cubs as their starting third baseman in 2015. He batted .425 with nine home runs and 15 RBIs in 40 at-bats that spring training, but he ended up being among the last cuts.

Bryant was sent to Triple-A Iowa to start the season, and told he needed to "cut down his strikeout rate" or some other such nonsense, while Mike Olt opened the season as the Cubs third baseman.

To this day, it remains unclear what alternate baseball universe we're living in if anyone believes Olt is or was a better player than Bryant.

In any case, Bryant was promoted to the big leagues April 17, 2015, and he went on to make the All-Star team, win NL Rookie of the Year and help the Cubs to a 97-win season, a wild card berth and a trip to the NLCS.

However, 2015 did not count as a year of service time for Bryant. You have to spend 172 days in the majors to qualify for a year of service time. Bryant was in the bigs for 171 days in 2015. He was called up one day too late. How convenient.

Fortunately for the Cubs, Olt went down with a right wrist injury at that same time, providing the team some cover for its obvious service time shenanigans. The Cubs can claim that they called Bryant up at that specific time to replace an injured player.

I don't think Bryant is going to win this case. The Cubs didn't violate the rules; they merely violated the spirit of the rules. And legally, that's probably not enough for an arbitrator to grant Bryant free agency a year early.

That said, I hope Bryant wins. Do I care about what this means for the Cubs? Not even a little, but I am a fan of Major League Baseball, and I'm sick and tired of seeing talented players held in the minor leagues for too long, just so teams can gain an extra season of control of those players.

I want to see the best players on the field. End of story.

Obviously, the White Sox have been guilty of service time manipulation. Eloy Jimenez should have been called up at the end of the 2018 season. He was not. And he was going to start the 2019 season in the minors, too, until he signed a team-friendly eight-year contract with the Sox.

Suddenly, Jimenez was the starting left fielder for the Sox, and all that talk about him "needing to work on his defense" went quiet.

The Sox also are manipulating service time for Luis Robert. He should have been called to the majors in 2019. He was not. And he won't start the 2020 season with the Sox, either, unless he agrees to a team-friendly contract extension.

Or, unless Bryant wins his case, and it scares the crap out of all the teams pulling these shenanigans.

You see, if Adam Engel is starting in center field for the Sox on Opening Day, that's just preposterous. Robert should be in that position. Engel over Robert in 2020 is every bit as ridiculous as Olt over Bryant was in 2015.

Triple-A and Quad-A players shouldn't be getting starting jobs over All-Star quality talent in Major League Baseball. One way or another, this nonsense needs to end.