Two wrongs don’t make a David Wright.

If there’s a lesson from Kris Bryant’s time — or lack thereof — with the Rockies, it’s that.

As we celebrate the return of another blessed baseball season, the diamond wonks on the Grading The Week team wanted to clarify a few things to the Cubs fans in the Front Range and all across the world watching the latest in the Bryant saga.

First, the majority of Rockies fans don’t dislike Kris Bryant. Or shouldn’t. Not personally. Not even professionally, really. The man’s a symptom of franchise ineptitude. Not the cause.

He’s done. Nobody wants to say it, because of lawyers and agents and agendas. But everybody’s thinking it. Bryant showed up at Camelback Ranch in pain last week and was put on the 60-day disabled list to open the season, with no clear timetable for a return.

There are no winners here. It’s just … sad. Sad and stupidly expensive. The Rockies’ third baseman/outfielder/DH isn’t dodging his seven-year, $182-million contract. If anything, there’s a chance he’s shortened his career by actively trying — and pushing — to come back and justify Colorado’s expense. Especially in 2022 and ’23, the first two seasons of that deal, when the Rox were desperate and the ink had barely dried.

Second, none of this happens without Nolan Arenado. Or rather, none of it happens without the Rockies botching the Arenado thing so badly that CEO Dick Monfort and the family felt obligated to take this massive swing to try and replace him.

In other words, they messed up twice.

Worse yet, they gave in twice to desperation — and set the franchise back about a decade, competitively, in the process.

Kris Bryant saga gets sadder — D

In February 2021, the Rockies slammed shut their own competitive window, one that had peaked too briefly in 2017 and ’18, by trading Arenado and $51 million to the Cardinals for Austin Gomber and four stiffs. By the end of August 2025, none of those five players were on an active MLB roster.

In March 2022, roughly a year after the worst trade in franchise history, they decided to fill the Nolan-sized hole they’d created themselves by giving Bryant a seven-year deal.

Insiders winced. Pundits shrugged. The nicest thing anybody said at the time was that it looked like an overpay for a guy who was about to land on the wrong side of 30.

And as we know now, sadly, he landed with a thud. Bryant’s played just 170 games in purple. He appeared in 48 games over the last two seasons. It’s anybody’s guess whether he’ll suit up ever again.

That’s $233 million in payroll — $51 million to the Cardinals and $182 million to KB23 — that could have been used toward improving the roster while Arenado was still here. And should have, in hindsight.

The Rockies signed Bryant to be their David Wright, and they got it — only it was Wright after the age of 30, when a lower back stress fracture for the ex-Mets star led to spinal stenosis and, eventually, retirement in 2018 at 35 years old.

Bryant turns 35 next January. His $182 million is guaranteed. Super agent Scott Boras got him the money — and made Monfort look like a fool for giving it.  Now they’re among the loudest hawks on opposite sides of a potentially ugly labor impasse that looms once MLB’s collective bargaining agreement ends on Dec. 1.

Monfort is pushing for a salary cap. Boras is drawing a hard line against a hard cap and warning his clients not to cross it.

Bryant, meanwhile, looks trapped in the middle — while the labor tussle to come makes it even less likely that Boras would recommend one of his clients do Monfort a solid and negotiate a more painless settlement. Are you kidding?

If Rox fans want to point fingers, they should point them at the owners and agents who steered this car off a cliff. Don’t hate the player. Hate the guys who broke a franchise’s back in order to make him their poster child.

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