Kris Bryant owes Russell Wilson a steak dinner. Or seven.
If DangeRuss hadn’t turned into PondeRuss, Bryant would be the most vilified sports figure along the Front Range this side of Kendrick Perkins. Imagine if Wilson had appeared in just five games for the Broncos because of injuries and didn’t throw so much as a single touchdown pass at home.
That’s more or less what you got from Bryant, whose 2022 season line included 42 games, 160 at-bats and zero homers at Coors Field — all for an $18 million salary last year and, reportedly, a full no-trade clause.
The Rockies were 20-22 when he played. They were The Bad News Bears when he didn’t.
One year in, and Bryant’s $182 million contract’s already chasing down Mike Hampton’s $121 million deal in 2000, Ian Desmond’s $70 million in 2016 and Denny Neagle’s $51.5 million in 2000 for the worst big buys in Rockies history.
There’s only one way out of this club, baby.
And it’s not in the tub.
As the less-than-inspiring 2023 narratives on Blake Street go, perhaps the most compelling — and crucial, given whatever wins can be milked out of this “Major League” roster of has-beens and never-will-bes — just might be what becomes of Bryant’s career.
Is the 2016 National League MVP, the guy who teased 40 homers, still in there, somewhere? Or is he another broken-down Dick Monfort lemon, one of GM Bill Schmidt’s man-crushes signed three years too late?
While the Broncos have plugged in support pieces around Wilson — especially on the coaching staff and along the offensive line — in an effort to determine whether he’s got anything left in the tank, the Rockies are largely running it back. Replace Randal Grichuk and Brendan Rodgers with Jurickson Profar and Mike Moustakas, grab some rosary beads, and hope for the best.
But if Schmidt and manager Bud Black truly want to keep Bryant upright, they’re going about it all wrong. He’s 6-foot-5 and on the wrong side of 30. With a barking back and a recurring foot problem, KB should be a 1B/3B/DH type, not tasked with helping to patrol the most cavernous outfield in Major League Baseball.
Yet the Rockies stick him in the grass anyway. And then wonder why he can’t play for weeks on end. It puzzles the will, which is par for the course.
Monfort and Schmidt keep trying to catch lightning — not with a bottle, but a butterfly net. The Rox operate inside a pocket, parallel baseball universe, detached from the reality that surrounds them and pummels them senseless, a cocoon of wealthy denial.
Instead of spending big and pushing chips in like the Padres or cycling in waves of kids like the Rays or Orioles, the Rockies choose to cast an imprisoned fan base into interminable baseball limbo, that vast Homeric darkness between “let’s go for it” and “tear this thing down to the studs.”
Instead of taking their lumps with Nolan Jones or Zac Veen, they sign Profar and Moustakas, an outfielder nobody wanted and an infielder nobody wanted, to create a clog at the top of the depth chart.
Ask the Broncos the price you pay for falling in love with a formula while the rest of your division starts doing laps around you. The Rockies rode to back-to-back playoff berths in 2017 and ‘18 on the strength of The Beatles in the infield — Nolan, Story, DJ — and cost-controlled, front-line starting pitching. Roll the clock ahead five years, and the Fab Three are long gone while those same starters are no longer top-of-the-line. Or cheap.
Per Spotrac.com, the Rockies in 2020 spent just 5.02% of their total payroll on their rotation. This spring, that ratio’s jumped to 22.9%, with more cash ($37.7 million) spent on starting pitching than the Braves ($34.5 million), Brewers ($34.3 million), Rays ($21.63 million) and Guardians ($21.1 million), all of whom have kinder postseason odds.
Which proves the adage that perhaps the only thing worse than the Rockies dismissing you is the club embracing you. Marquez and Freeland are more emotional attachments than logical ones now, fading heroes who’ve either leveled off or regressed before the age of 30. Charlie Blackmon is a willing fielder with an unwilling body, making Bryant the new hope in right field.
When he plays. If he plays.
“I recently talked with K.B. about where he is physically, and mentally, and he told me he feels great,” manager Bud Black told the Post’s Patrick Saunders a few months back. “His offseason workouts were not comprised and he’s encouraged that he’ll be exactly where he needs to be (in spring training).”
One more summer. One more to steer the narrative. One more to salvage a legacy. One more before the spirits of Hampton and Neagle start visiting Monfort in the middle of the night, rattling golden chains like ghosts of Christmases past, cheering for Bryant to let them off the hook for good.
