5 players the Chicago Cubs should trade this offseason

2. Kris Bryant

Bryant has been on fire lately, with five home runs and a 1.720 OPS over the last six games entering Monday. With two home runs on Sunday, he set a Cubs’ franchise record for home runs in the first five seasons of a career (137) and joined Ron Santo and Aramis Ramirez as the only third baseman in franchise history with multiple 30-home run seasons.

A shoulder injury hampered Bryant, as he only played 106 games and set career-lows in home runs (13) and OPS (.834). He has been healthier and better this season, but he has also been streaky.

Bryant hit just .230 in April with three home runs. Up to April 26, when a broken bat during that game seemed to spur a hot streak, he had just one home run. Then he flat-out raked in May (.333, 10 home runs, 1.162 OPS), and mostly kept it going in June (. 300 with an 877 OPS) and July (.302 with a .928 OPS). But prior to his recent run, he was hitting just .249 with a .773 OPS over his first 205 plate appearances after the All-Star break. A cortisone shot in his ailing right knee seems to have helped spur Bryant’s recent hot streak too.

With two more years of arbitration eligibility left, and the deals Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado got last offseason in mind, the Cubs and Bryant don’t appear to be even talking about a contract extension. It’s not necessarily an urgent matter, with those two years of team control in mind, but the Cubs have a lot of big decisions to make in the coming years regarding their current core. If owner Tom Ricketts continues to plead poverty, someone will have to go.

Bryant might become that odd-man out, as tough as it would be for Cubs’ fans to stomach. But if a really big move is on the radar this offseason, it would likely center around the former Rookie of the Year and NL MVP.