The first help wanted ad the Yankees would post this offseason — if such things were done — would look like this: Need a lefty-batting, in-his-prime, strong defensive center fielder (further versatility also valued) who hits for average, power, runs the bases well, is a high-end athlete, with championship pedigree who limits strikeouts. High salary negotiable.
The 2023 version of Cody Bellinger fits the criteria like hand to Gold Glove. He did not win that award last season for the Cubs as he did in 2019 for the Dodgers. But he remained a strong defender in center (and perhaps even better at first base) while winning a Silver Slugger.
The key item, though, in that previous paragraph was “2023.” For in 2021-22, Bellinger was among the majors’ worst regularly used players to the point that Saturday will be the one-year anniversary of the Dodgers non-tendering a player who won the NL MVP in 2019 and was a core piece in 2020 of their first World Series winner since 1988.
Bellinger signed a one-year, $17.5 million pillow contract with the Cubs and hit 26 homers, stole 20 bases, had an .881 OPS and produced a career-best 15.7 strikeout percentage.
What interested teams like the Yankees will have to determine is whether this was a revival befitting the player Bellinger was the first four years of his career or was this a walk-year blip? In addition, what are the implications that when it came to hitting the ball hard and consistently hard, Bellinger feebly resembled Harrison Bader.
That combination left me wondering, in a piece I wrote for Post+, if a Yankees team that currently does not possess a championship roster should lock up more substantial future money on a player with Bellinger’s big-upside, big-downside profile. But I was not with him for 162 games last year. David Ross and Andy Green were as the Cubs manager and bench coach, respectively; both have since been dismissed.
Let’s say that Bellinger and his representative, Scott Boras, are going to like their eyewitness testimony more than my detached concerns.
“Cody, for me, metrically, it’s not going to jump off the page,” said Ross, who was replaced by Craig Counsell as Cubs manager. “He doesn’t hit the ball the hardest of anybody or have this super-disciplined approach, but his bat-to-ball skills are one of those things I haven’t seen in a long time for a player that produced what he did this year with power, gap-to-gap ability, stolen bases. Putting the ball in play with his skill set really stood out to me. His ability to have a productive at-bat when he wasn’t great early was something, and then it all came together. And this is a guy who wants to play every day. He just loves to play baseball, loves to compete.”
Green said, “He’s young and crazy athletic. He can defend at an elite level at a high-value position in center and then just go play Gold Glove first base, too.”
Both Ross and Green cited health and change of scenery in helping Bellinger. He suffered a dislocated shoulder celebrating a NLCS Game 7 homer in 2020 and the belief is the lingering pain/loss of strength led to swing changes that resulted in him hitting .193 with 29 homers in 239 Dodgers games in 2021-22. Bellinger was fully healthy in 2023.
“I know he felt he had a lot of mechanical faults and got away from trusting himself and turning it loose,” Green said. “But the guy that we had this year carried us when we went from 10 games under .500 to back into the playoff race.”
Both also said that Bellinger committed to putting on weight/muscle during spring training because he felt he could maintain his athleticism and felt he needed to restore some oomph in his swing. Ross said he thought as he bulked up from 190 pounds in February, Bellinger’s performance (and confidence) enlarged, too. And Ross and Green also cited Bellinger’s two-strike results.
“Honestly, it was otherworldly how he hit in those situations,” Green said. “It was like he was playing glorified pepper, like he could just smack a ball to left field for a hit.”
Of the 372 players who had at least 100 plate appearances with two strikes, Bellinger’s .271 average trailed only NL batting champ Luis Arraez’s .314. His .725 OPS in those spots was sixth best. Bellinger had a .137 average with two strikes between 2021-22 with a .403 OPS.
Both Ross and Green also used the same term “great teammate” in describing Bellinger, with Ross saying he was “no maintenance.”
In 2023, Bellinger ranked in the bottom third among regularly used hitters in exit velocity, barrel percentage and hard-hit percentage. Those who rely on analytics often see emerging with good numbers via bad results in these areas as having benefited from luck and, thus, are more dubious to maintain success moving forward.
Ross and Green acknowledged the metrics, but both mentioned the backspin Bellinger gets on balls in the air and felt he got extra distance in that manner. Both thought his athleticism and familiarity with big markets in Los Angeles and Chicago and ability to move to first adeptly as he ages make him less risky as a long-term sign. Though interestingly, the Yankees have been associated with Bellinger and Ross is very close with Aaron Boone and yet Ross said nobody from the Yankees had to date called to ask his opinion of the free agent.
“I do think that he’s going to age just fine,” Ross said. “And the ability to play first base is real. He gets great jumps from the outfield, but he played a great first base obviously. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen somebody with that kind of skill set — center and first base. But I think it’s real, man. He gained confidence in his strength component as the season went on. The defense and that really stood out to me.”