There was plenty of talk last spring about Kris Bryant's demotion to Triple-A Iowa after he dominated spring training by hitting .425/.477/1.175 (no, that's not a misprint, that's a SLG of 1.175). He was 17-for-40 with nine home runs.
Even though Theo Epstein and his baseball brass said that the demotion was for "baseball reasons," it seemed evident that at least one reason for doing it was to keep Bryant in the minor leagues long enough so that the Cubs would get one extra year of team control. Bryant wound up being called up for "baseball reasons," when Mike Olt hit the disabled list after suffering a broken hand.