Kris Bryant: Spring Performance 'Didn't Matter As Much As I Thought'

(CBS) Cubs top prospect Kris Bryant isn't hiding his feelings about being sent to Triple-A Iowa to begin the season after a torrid spring training performance.

Bryant led all MLB players with nine homers and added 15 RBIs while hitting .425 with a ridiculous 1.652 OPS. The Cubs told him his spring performance would matter, but Bryant didn't feel like that was completely the case when speaking to ESPN's Pedro Gomez on Thursday, his first public comments since Monday's news that he was heading to the minor leagues.

"I don't want to say I'm mad or anything, I'm just extremely disappointed," Bryant told ESPN. "I wanted my performance to matter, and to me it felt like it didn't matter as much as I thought it would."

The main reason for Bryant returning to Triple-A is because if he plays two weeks in the minor leagues before being called up, the Cubs will gain another year of contract control, through 2021 instead of 2020. The Cubs have provided baseball explanations as well, with president of baseball operations Theo Epstein saying he's never in his career had a player debut on Opening Day and manager Joe Maddon saying that Bryant needs some more work defensively. Bryant is a third baseman, but the team has also been experimenting with him in the outfield.

Bryant's agent, Scott Boras, has been highly critical of the Cubs over the past several months, questioning whether ownership is committed to winning if Bryant wasn't on the Opening Day roster.

Despite everyone knowing what was coming, Bryant was still bummed by the decision.

"Baseball is such a performance-driven industry," Bryant told ESPN. "I'm a big believer if you go out there and perform and work hard and you earn it then I believe you should get that chance to play up there. I guess it was viewed differently than I thought.

"It's always been my dream to play in the big leagues. It will definitely be an emotional time for me. It's definitely going to be exciting, but I try to stay in the present moment. I feel like last year I had a pretty good performance and felt like maybe I did better than some guys that might be in the big leagues that got called up, but people do things differently. I'm here right now, in the present moment, looking forward to the future."

Asked by Gomez if there were hard feelings between him and the Cubs, Bryant said he didn't want to talk about it, adding it's an "honor" to play for the organization.