The New York Yankees have their replacement for Juan Soto, or at least a man who can take Juan Soto’s place on the field.
The team traded with the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday for 2019 NL MVP Cody Bellinger, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passanbetting on a talented player who bounces back after a few difficult years. The Cubs also send $5 million to the Yankees, getting right-handed reliever Cody Poteet in return.
The money will reportedly to cover $2.5 million of Bellinger’s $27.5 million salary in 2025 and $2.5 million of his 2026 salary or the buyout if he does not exercise his player option. Per Bob Nightengale of USA TodayBellinger has been told he will play center field for the Yankees, with Aaron Judge moving to right field after covering center for all of 2024.
Bellinger’s father, Clay, was part of the Yankees organization from 1999-2001.
Soto’s record-setting contract with the New York Mets left the Yankees in dire need of a corner outfielder with enough pop to slide into the middle of the order. Bellinger could meet those demands and was available via trade due to his contract with the Cubs, which gives him player options for 2025 and 2026 that will pay him a total of $52.5 million.
The move ends a two-year tenure for Bellinger with the Cubs, which isn’t a huge surprise considering the team was rumored to be shopping him even before it signed Houston Astros star Kyle Tucker, who had a similar role, took over in a blockbuster transaction. . Two years after starting on a clean slate in Chicago, Bellinger will once again look to regain his stardom with a new team.
Cody Bellinger’s career has been chaotic
Bellinger is one of the many people for whom 2019 feels like a very long time ago.
In his third season in the Majors, Bellinger was a 23-year-old MVP with the Los Angeles Dodgers and on his way to signing the kind of mega-deal that young, offensively dominant outfielders tend to land. By Baseball Reference’s calculations, he was worth 8.6 wins above replacement in his 2019 MVP season, a higher number than the career highs of Soto and Tucker.
He then performed perhaps the most expensive high five in baseball history.
After hitting a game-winning home run in Game 7 of the 2020 NLCS, Bellinger dislocated his right shoulder while celebrating with Kiké Hernández and was never the same afterward. He had dealt with shoulder injuries earlier in his career, but this one required surgery and heralded the worst year of his professional career.
Bellinger was legitimately unplayable in 2021 and only slightly better in 2022, while his swing continued to look bad. Instead of paying him an arbitration salary that would likely exceed $17 million, the Dodgers non-tendered him and released him a year earlier than expected.
The Cubs then opted to acquire Bellinger low on a cushion contract and were rewarded with a 2023 season that earned him NL Comeback Player of the Year. His shoulder finally seemed healthy, or at least he found a way around the problem, as he hit .307/.356/.525 for his new team.
Bellinger then opted to test free agency, partially restoring his value, but suitors were slow to meet his asking price. He was one of four notable clients of mega-agent Scott Boras whose free agency extended into spring training, and the result was a lower-than-expected three-year, $80 million deal to return to the Cubs.
The deal has opt-outs after both the first and second years, so Bellinger was essentially preparing to enter free agency once he had another good season. That didn’t happen in 2024, when his numbers declined across the board, Bellinger opted into the second year of his contract and his contract became a bit of an albatross for the North Siders.
And so they decided to get rid of Cody Bellinger’s wild ride by trading him. At 29, Bellinger should theoretically have a few more years to find his swing again, but it’s worth wondering how old his shoulder really feels at this point.
