Cody Bellinger is headed back to the Windy City after agreeing to a 3 year, $80M contract with the Chicago Cubs the team announced.
Bellinger, who hit .307/.356/.525 in 2023 en route to winning the NL Comeback Player of the Year award, was hoping to cash in on a lucrative long term deal this offseason. Unfortunately, as his agent Scott Boras pointed out earlier, the market for long term deals cooled significantly after some of the big money contracts were handed out in the opening days of free agency.
Boras remarked that team payrolls were “regressing” this offseason, leading to Bellinger signing on for a shorter term deal, before hopefully finding a better fit after the season.
In all likelihood, the 28 year old will opt out of his current deal following the 2024 campaign. However, should anything go awry this summer, such as injury or a down year, Bellinger will have the built in clauses to allow him to re-up with the Cubs for another $30M pact next year before once again having another opt out provision to weigh.
The 2019 NL MVP posted career highs in stolen bases (20) and batting average (.307) last season, and reportedly had meetings with several teams this offseason. However the big money deal never materialized, leading Bellinger and Boras to explore other avenues to get the versatile slugger onto a roster before spring training wraps up.
“He’s part of this club. He’s one of us. There was a little void in here, for sure, before he came back,” SP Kyle Hendricks told reporters at the team’s spring training facility after news of the signing. “Just seeing him in here, man, getting a hug, smiling. I know he’ll be back to work soon. But yeah, just seeing his body, seeing his face in here, was just amazing.”
Bellinger will need some time to ramp up baseball activities, but should be ready for some on field reps sooner rather than later. The Cubs are next in action vs. the Kansas City Royals in a 3:05pm ET spring training game Monday.
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.