Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs Reportedly Agree to Record $1.05M Contract

Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant has reportedly become the highest-paid second-year player in MLB history by agreeing to a $1.05 million contract for 2017.

Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports first reported the details of the deal Thursday. Jerry Crasnick of ESPN confirmed the pact between one of the game's top young stars and the reigning World Series champions.

Bryant is coming off a monster 2016 campaign. He posted a .292/.385/.554 triple-slash line with 39 home runs, 102 runs batted in and 121 runs scored en route to winning the National League's Most Valuable Player Award.

The 25-year-old University of San Diego product continued to shine in the playoffs with a .923 OPS and three homers across 17 games during the Cubs' journey to their first title since 1908.

His ascent to superstardom came on the heels of a similarly impressive rookie season. He had a .857 OPS with 26 home runs and 13 stolen bases in 2015. Those numbers were good enough to earn him NL Rookie of the Year honors.

ESPN Stats and Info provided another note about the memorable start to his career:

Bryant isn't spending too much time thinking about that early success, though. He's already looking forward to building off it during the new season.

Bruce Levine of CBS Chicago passed along comments the infielder made during a radio appearance on 670 The Score in February.

"It is nice to turn the page on last year," Bryant said. "It will be hard because people still want to talk about what happened last year. Still, it's great getting out and playing games again. We now can concentrate on this upcoming season."

His new record-setting contract comes as a measure of good faith by the Cubs ahead of his third year in the big leagues. USA Today noted the front office had the option to renew his deal at any price as long as it wasn't 20 percent lower than his 2016 base salary of $652,000.

Chicago will hope giving him more money now pays off when it comes time to start talking about what's likely to become a massive extension in the future. In the short term, the Cubs are counting on him to help lead the offense, which ranked third in runs scored last year, to another high-scoring season.