Welcome to the 2025 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2025. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.

No. 42, Kris Bryant (-0.5 rWAR)

Yes, dear reader, Kris Bryant actually played for the Colorado Rockies in 2025. You’d be forgiven if you’d forgotten that the highest-paid player on the payroll — earning $27 million — suited up during the regular season.

The Bryant entry for this series has become rote during his four years in Colorado. I wish I could write that he finally made good on his contract and was a key veteran piece in the lineup, providing the role model and leader the team needs. I wish I could write that the future was bright with Bryant as the proven start of a team looking for an identity. I wish I could write that he was a good player for the Rockies in 2025.

The sad reality, however, is that Bryant lasted just 11 games into the season before being sidelined the rest of the year with lingering and debilitating back issues. It was another disappointing chapter for the former MVP and was a rather indicative representation of the Rockies’ current state.

Entering the season, the Rockies were optimistic that Bryant could stay healthy despite learning about a debilitating disease in his back that was making playing baseball difficult. Bryant and the Rockies had worked diligently to focus on a workout program during the offseason designed to strengthen his core and increase flexibility. With the right plan in place, the Rockies could maximize Bryant’s time on the field and salvage what was already a much-maligned signing.

The offseason regimen seemed to have paid off as Bryant swatted a 462-foot home run early in spring training with an exit velocity registered at 111.8 mph with a 77.5 mph bat speed. It was a vintage Bryant swing that inspired hope that perhaps this was the year that he could figure things out in Colorado.

However, that home run came in his second game of spring training. In total, he went just 4-for-31 over 14 games with a home run and a double. However, he did seem to have a keen eye at the plate with seven walks against eight strikeouts. While the production wasn’t ideal, Bryant was at least looking okay at the plate and penciled in as the starting designated hitter for the club come Opening Day.

Before the injuries kicked in, Bryant labored to a miserable .154/.195/.205 slashline with two doubles, one RBI, and two runs scored. He also struck out 13 times against just two walks across 41 plate appearances.

The lumbar degenerative disk disease in his back started to flare up, and Bryant traded in plate appearances for doctor visits and the quest to find some sort of treatment plan that would allow him to return.

“I want to do everything I can,” Bryant said in May. “I want to play baseball. It’s fun when you’re on the field. And the last couple years are really the first time in my whole life of playing baseball where I’ve had to deal with things like this, and it’s been just extremely frustrating for me, waking up and being in pain each day. That’s just really frustrating.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite responded to any of the forms of experimental treatment, leaving surgery as his last true option to still consider, which leaves his playing career more and more in question.

And that is ultimately the sad reality for Bryant and the Rockies. After four seasons in Colorado, Bryant has played in just 170 games. He is still on the books for three more seasons, earning roughly $27 million per year, and yet there is no prospect of him playing any sort of significant role.

Retirement continues to loom large over Bryant’s big league career. It’s tragic to see a player who seemed destined for the Hall of Fame be reduced to a husk of his former self because of factors beyond his control. Hopefully, he can find some sort of treatment that enables him to reduce or limit the pain, but not for the sake of the Rockies, but rather for the sake of his family and young children.

As Colorado begins a transition into a new era, it’s clear that Bryant has no real future with the Rockies. The easiest course of action would be to outright release him and absorb the impact of the dead money. Alternatively, perhaps there is some sort of buyout or revision that could be done to the contract. People love Bobby Bonilla Day, right?

The writing is on the wall, and while it is understandably a difficult decision, it’s time for the Sun to set on Kris Bryant’s Rockies tenure, perhaps even his career.

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