Kris Bryant Switches Up His Swing, Crushes BP Bombs, Could Start Rehab Assignment Monday or Tuesday

So many wonderful Kris Bryant updates today. This all makes me quite happy:

If tomorrow goes well, then, we could see Bryant in a minor league game as soon as Monday or Tuesday. As Sharma says, Iowa is not home until Tuesday. South Bend, for what it’s worth, is home on Monday.

You can see Bryant’s two-handed finish in action – it’s gonna look weird in games, given how recognizable Bryant’s high, one-left-arm finish has been:

Swing changes make me nervous, especially as they relate to health, but given that this is just a change to the finish, maybe it’ll be OK. Bryant and Joe Maddon sure like it:

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, since Bryant still has some steps to get through before he returns, but when he does come back, there could be a short-term roster move in advance of September 1 (when rosters expand to the full 40-man). That could plausibly be David Bote being squeezed out of a spot for a couple days, after which he’ll return, but regular starts will be very difficult to come by with each of second, shortstop, and third base filled up with Daniel Murphy, Javy Baez, and Kris Bryant. Throw in Ben Zobrist and an eventually-returning Addison Russell, and it might be that Bote will have to continue to be good at the pinch-hit heroics thing.

As I said: we’ll get there when we get there.

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Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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