Will Kris Bryant be the first true utility player to win MVP?
When you're hitting over .300, leading the league in homers, and a lock to knock in 100 runs, you're going to be in the heart of the MVP discussion. At 24 years old, Kris Bryant has put up these numbers going into the final month of the regular season, not only making his case for top value in 2016, but also making it known that he could be this productive for the next decade.
Yet when you try and check his defensive box, you can't. Bryant is one of the best "super-utility" players of this era, playing multiple positions, each requiring a different skill set and preparation. It has made him an irreplaceable asset in the Chicago Cubs' machine and set the tone for all of baseball to take notice of the power of versatility. Bryant is a utility player who isn't just there to give better players a day off. He's a fixture in one of the best lineups in Major League Baseball.
No matter how you slice Bryant's stats, he's clearly playing at a superstar level, but his versatility gives him an edge in the MVP race that can't be discounted -- and might be historic.
With baseball defenses shifting all over the field to account for hitting tendencies, you can award bonus points toward Bryant's MVP case. He has left field, center field, right field, first base, shortstop and third base in the defensive section of his resume. With shifts, he is playing everywhere between those traditional defensive spots, too. According to Baseball Info Solutions, Bryant has at least break-even Defensive Runs Saved at every position he has played. This is also true for his positioning metrics, with the one exception of when balls are hit to his left and he is playing third base. And these days, positioning is every bit as important as skills.
Bryant won't be in the Gold Glove conversation for any particular position (maybe this is the year we add utility to the Gold Glove?). Still, looking at Bryant only through this lens misses his true defensive value.
If you look at the last 15 years of utility players -- those who played at least 10 games at three different positions, with at least 300 plate appearances -- Bryant's 2016 WAR (7.6) ranks second, trailing only the 2009 season of teammate Ben Zobrist (8.6), according to Baseball Info Solutions and based on FanGraph's WAR totals. And we still have another month left in the season.
Let's say you're not a big WAR fan as a case for MVP. Well, consider what Cubs manager Joe Maddon calls the hidden value in versatility. The analytics are now refined enough to track every ball and where they've been hit off every pitcher. From this data, you can produce a "weight" representing the frequency at which a ball is hit to a certain position on the field, based on real historical evidence. When it comes to the infield, it makes sense to put your best defender where you can now project the majority of balls will be hit.
Javier Baez is the Cubs' best defensive infielder, so you want him to play where the most action is. Defensively, because Bryant can move around, you can place Baez where he most benefits the overall defense. If Bryant was only a "pure" third baseman, you could not upgrade third base defensively without losing Bryant's bat. Now you can keep Bryant's bat and cover, with your best defender, the spot where most of the balls are projected to travel.
Utility defense is nothing new to baseball -- the need to have someone on the roster who can play just about anywhere is a time-honored tradition -- but in the case of Bryant, you're adding a deadly bat. It is rare air to be a force offensively while providing so many defensive options for a manager. According to Elias, only once in the history of the MVP award has a winner played 10 or more games at three different positions that included both the infield and the outfield. Johnny Bench, 1970 NL MVP, played more than 10 games at catcher, first base and left field.
Playing a single position used to be an art form, signifying a ballplayer was uniquely suited to his specialty. But now, no infielder has a true position. Even a shortstop knows being called a shortstop may not provide any clue as to where he'll physically be on any given play.
The impact of Bryant's versatility goes beyond defense. It is felt in pitching and bench depth. It reduces the need to use two players for any one move. Whomever pinch hits could play defense at the position of their strength, and Bryant can then just be moved to accommodate him. This can also help in a double switch.
New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi expressed the pitching benefit of having a swing man like Bryant. "I need that guy. ... It can allow me to carry an extra pitcher."
Bryant is an everyday All-Star starter and a versatile bench player all wrapped up into one. There's no need for a specialist on the bench for every situation, and having one fewer specialist on the bench gives the Cubs an extra arm -- especially beneficial for the playoffs, and before rosters expand in September.
This is all outside the actual physical challenge Bryant is undertaking by playing multiple positions. To be up to speed from so many angles on the field, to learn the slices, hooks, dips, and dives of a variety of positions both in the infield in the outfield, and to do it well, is a skill. You must have game-ready knowledge of cut-offs and relays, double-play pivots, rundowns, scooping balls out of the dirt, and playing balls off an ivy-covered brick wall. At times, Bryant is navigating all of this in the same game.
It was often said during my career, particularly by legendary baseball sage Syd Thrift, "Have bat, will travel." Your career goes only as far as your hitting, but now with Kris Bryant, we find that if you know how to use more than one glove while putting up offensive numbers, you -- and your team -- can go even further, and do so using fewer position players.
Whether or not Bryant wins the NL MVP award, to me, this is the very definition of value.
