MILWAUKEE — Anthony Rizzo, Javy Báez and Kris Bryant all said for years they wanted to stay with the Cubs long-term, and after all were sent packing in trade-deadline deals last week team officials have gone out of their way to suggest they might try to sign one or more of them back as a free agent.
But don’t bet on it — even if the Cubs provide a nice, fancy betting window at that big-money sports book they’re trying to build at Wrigley.
Those kinds of trade-and-re-sign reunions are rare in the first place. Sources also tell NBC Sports Chicago the Cubs don’t intend to pursue their former Big 3 core guys as free agents. And why would team president Jed Hoyer even engage again after already wearing all the bad optics and backlash of blowing up the core in 24 hours flat?
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The markets for one or two could always fall to a point where somebody falls back into the Cubs’ laps.
But even the players don’t seem to think reunions are all that likely.
“I don’t know if it is,” Bryant said. “I think Jed had told everybody when we did get traded, ‘we’re not closing the door.’ That’s what he told me. And I said, ‘Neither am I.’ “
At which point it was noted that Hoyer also said that about Kyle Schwarber when he non-tendered the lefty slugger last winter, and Schwarber wound up signing with the Nationals (then making his first All-Star team).
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“That’s true. And now he’s with the Red Sox,” Bryant said. “I’m just going to believe in what he says, that the door isn’t closed. …
“But if it is, I had great memories there,” he added. “I’m not closing the door by any means. I know that’s always out there: ‘They’re going to hate this, and they’re going to hate that and whatever Jed said.’ “
The fallout of the trades also included Hoyer pointing fingers at the players for not signing extensions in recent years, with Rizzo and Bryant pushing back — and Hoyer eventually walking back the comments.
Rizzo told the Kap & J. Hood show on ESPN-1000 that “it sounds like a bad breakup and the person saying that they’re fine when they’re not fine.”
Bryant, who said never heard a peep about extensions from the Cubs after failed negotiations in the spring of 2017, said he’ll always love Chicago and treasure the time he shared with the Cubs.
Even if the marriage is over.
“We can be friends,” he said. “I don’t know if that means I’m going to be playing there or what. But we can definitely be friends.”