Kris Bryant can't wait

On Monday afternoon, Chicago Cubs prospect Kris Bryant had a miserable day at the plate by his recent standards, merely going 1-for-3 with an opposite field double off the wall.

Normally, he does stuff like this and this and this.

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Bryant is now nine games into his second spring with the Cubs and he's 10-for-23 with two doubles, six homers and an OPS of 1.804. No other ballplayer on any team has hit more than three spring home runs.

By now, you're all no doubt familiar with Bryant's resume. He led all minor league players in homers last season, hitting 43 bombs across two levels, stealing 15 bags and slashing .325/.438/.661. He was the game's top amateur player in 2013, then the minor league player of the year in 2014. Bryant may not be a flawless prospect — he struck out 162 times last year — but the Cubs have yet to find a level at which he struggles.

As Chris Cwik discussed on Friday, Chicago now encounters a tough-but-awesome problem regarding Bryant's debut — it's the usual service-time game, really. Delaying his arrival by two weeks gains the team another season of control of the player; delaying his debut by two excruciating months could avoid super-two status. Obviously no reasonable analyst would argue that Bryant isn't the best option to start for the Cubs at third on opening day. However, no reasonable baseball executive would be eager to swap two weeks of Bryant in 2015 for a full year of his services down the road, in what should be his prime.

For fantasy investors, the dilemma is this: If you draft Bryant in March, how long will he sit on your bench as a useless decoration? Does he have a shot at the opening day roster, or will he be a mid-April arrival, following the George Spring protocol? Or will he seriously be shipped to Iowa until early-June?

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Considering the team's expectations for the current season, it seems, to me, unlikely that the Cubs will stash Bryant for months. Fans would riot; winnable games would be lost. My current expectation is that Bryant will reach the majors shortly after tax day, roughly 10 or 12 games into Chicago's season. Thus, I've ranked him as if we'll get nearly a full season of production in 2015. As of this writing, Bryant is tenth on my board at third, which makes me extremely bullish relative to the industry (though not quite as bullish as Del Don).

We can say with confidence that whenever Bryant arrives, he'll be a heart-of-the-order hitter for the Cubs. It hardly seems crazy to hope for something like a 75-28-90-10-.268 rookie season. Bryant still offers profit potential at his current Yahoo ADP (131.6), despite the hype. Feel free to offer a full-season projection in comments, as well as an ETA. If you're buying, let's hear it. Drafting and dealing? Please discuss.

This is a conversation, gamers, not a monologue...

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