When I hear people talking about Kris Bryant of the Cubs, I'm reminded of a quote by the immortal Roy Hobbs in The Natural. And it's a doozy...

 


People, legitimately, seem to believe that Kris Bryant is a "generational" talent, one that will transcend the game. I hear people suggesting he's going to be a top-5 third basemen this year. Others are taking him in the first or second round in dynasty leagues. In keeper leagues it's becoming quite common for Bryant to be off the board by the end of the 4th or 5th round. Hell, he's even going that early in some redraft leagues. The point is that people are expecting greatness from him in year one. Is that reasonable? Of course it's not. I know the majority of you aren't going to listen to what I have to say, you may not even read this entire piece but you should because some of you have lost your minds.

HISTORY

I know that comparing Player A to Player B is fraught with danger. I get it. I also understand that history can be a useful guide as we attempt to move forward in the world of sports. So I'm going to do something that I think is unfair to Kris Bryant. I'm going to compare him to some of the best third basemen who have ever played this game. I'll list for you 10 men, often regarded as somewhere near the top-10 of all-time at the position, and give you a sense of how they performed in their first full-time season. That means I'll remove any efforts with 85 at-bats or 45 games played. In order to be included a guy will have to have appeared in 120 games or had 450 at-bats in a season. In what follows I'll give the numbers of each man who played the hot corner in his first career season of 120 or 450. Here we go - in no particular order.

Note: * denotes the player had big league playing time before the season under discussion

Mike Schmidt* - .282-36-116-108

Eddie Mathews - .242-25-58-80

George Brett* - .282-2-47-49

Wade Boggs* - .361-5-74-100

Chipper Jones - .265-23-86-87

Brooks Robinson - .238-3-32-31

Adrian Beltre - .275-15-67-84

Ron Santo - .284-23-83-84 

Craig Nettles - .235-26-62-81

Scott Rolen - .283-21-92-93

*** Note that Mike Schmidt had hit .197 with 19 homers and 55 RBIs over his first two seasons in which he batted 401 times.

Again, I know you can't compare A to B, but just do yourself a favor and look at that list again. These aren't flunkies, these are the best of the best to have ever played third base. We can remove Boggs and Brett cause that really isn't the type of hitter than Bryant is. So we have eight guys left. Ask yourself the following question. What are your expectations for Bryant in 2015? How many of the above lines would be acceptable to you? I'm going to guess you will say Schmidt, Santo, Rolen and Jones are the only one. Even so, wouldn't you all expect more homers from Bryant, i.e., only the 36 homer total of Schmidt would suffice given the expectations?

A perfect example of the hysteria follows. 

@Trevfreeze asked the following on Twitter - why can't Bryant go .260-30-90 this season, and if so, would he be any different than Josh Donaldson?

My reply? Since 1994 do you know how many rookies have reached all three of those numbers? Mind you that's more than two decades of games played. The answer is three - Jose Abreu, Albert Pujols and Ryan Braun.

Follow up. Do you know how many third basement went .260-30-90 last year? How does the number zero make you feel?

THE MIKE MOUSTAKAS COMPARISON

Before you laugh off the title of this section check out the data. It's a legit comparison folks, whether you want to believe it or not.

Mike Moustakas: 2007 second overall selection
Kris Bryant: 2013 second overall selection

Mike Moustakas: Baseball America #9, Baseball Prospectus #7 in 2011
Kris Bryant: Baseball America #1, Baseball Prospectus #5 in 2015 

Mike Moustakas: .322-36-124-94 in 118 games in 2010 in Double/Triple-A
Kris Bryant: .325-43-110-118 in 138 games in 2014 in Double/Triple-A

Mike Moustakas: 67 strikeouts in 2010
Kris Bryant: 162 strikeouts in 2014

What has Mike Moustakas done to this point of his big league career? He's been an utter FAILURE.

.236/.290/.379 with 52 homers, 199 RBIs and 182 runs scored in 514 games over four seasons.

He's been an unmitigated disaster... despite being every single inch of the prospect that Kris Bryant currently is.

Let me repeat... Mike Moustakas was a prospect on par with Kris Bryant.

Let that sink in for a moment.

FORMER #1 PROSPECTS WITH BASEBALL AMERICA

Let's take a look at how the #1 prospect in baseball has done of late. Here are the guys from 2000-10.

2000: Rick Ankiel
2001: Josh Hamilton
2002: Josh Beckett
2003: Mark Teixeira
2004: Joe Mauer
2005: Joe Mauer
2006: Delmon Young
2007: Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008: Jay Bruce
2009: Matt Wieters
2010: Jason Heyward

Of those 11 men, how many became superstars? The only real misses were Rick Ankiel, Delmon Young and Dice-K, so we can infer (unscientifically), that Bryant should have a good career at the very least. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS

You have all lost your minds.

Mike Trout has poisoned everyone to think that there will be some superstar birth every season in the big leagues. Let me lay the truth down for you. Players break down every year. Sometimes we see it coming, sometimes we don't. At the same time stupendous rookie seasons are few and far between. They hype around Bryant is at a fever pitch right now and honestly, I think there's more out of control love for him than there was for Trout and Bryce Harper a few years back.

If Kris Bryant doesn't go Mike Schmidt all over pitchers this season I bet more than half the people who draft him this season will be disappointed in the Cubs' slugger. If you feel that way you're a fool. Hope he pulls a Chipper Jones, Ron Santo or Scott Rolen, and if he does consider yourself lucky to have had that level of production. Just keeping it real folks.

The Oracle out.

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