One of the bigger individual storylines down the stretch for the Chicago Cubs is how Cody Bellinger performs, setting himself up for an easier or more difficult decision on the opt-out baked𓄧 into his contract. Bellinger can walk back int🌟o free agency (with a $2.5 million buyout), or he can stick around for another year at $27.5 million, with another decision to make (a $2.5 million buyout or a $25 million salary) the following offseason.
The story is important to the Cubs, of course, because while they assuredly still like Bellinger as a player and would find ways to use him next season, he is probably not the best use of those funds for 2025. The Cubs have a clear-cut, full-time center fielder in place now in Pete Crow-Armstrong, and a clear-cut, full-time first baseman in place now in Michael Busch. While Bellinger would be a great fit in right field (with Seiya Suzuki DH’ing), that does limit the Cubs’ options to upgrade the offense in other ways, both positionally and budgetarily speaking. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable guess to posit that the Cubs would probably prefer Bellinger opted out, all else equal.
But will he?
On the season, Cody Bellinger is hitting .266/.330/.431/111 wRC+, a clear step back from his resurgent 2023 season (.307/.356/𒀰.525/136 wRC+). His walk rate and strikeout rate are both actually better than last year, but his power h🌳as dipped, and that has made for the primary difference.
To that point, I found it interesting that Bellinger’s agent, Scott Boras, about his client, suggesting that the vagaries of the weather at Wrigley Field were to blame for Bellinger’s step back. Dropping one of his typical metaphors – albeit a confusing one, since I’m pretty sure it is comparing weather to weather – Boras indicated that the weather this year at Wrigley Field was simply not favorable to offense: “The Farmer’s Almanac — when it doesn’t rain, the crops don’t grow. It doesn’t mean it won’t rain in the future. It just meant that, this year, you can’t predict it. It didn’t rain. And I don’t think it falls on anyone’s shoulders. It doesn’t fall on the players. It doesn’t fall on the GM or the baseball ops head. It just didn’t rain.”
In other words, to the extent Bellinger didn’t produce as much power this year at Wrigley Field, that’s less his fault and more about Wrigley’s down home run park factor this year (at 87, Wrigley was 13% less friendly to home runs this year than a neutral park, which is the lowest it’s been in a long time). And it is true that, in a year when the wind more frequently blows out, Wrigley can quickly go from a home-run-neutral (or worse) park to an extremely homer-friendly ballpark. Doubles were also disproportionately down this season at Wrigley. We know, anecdotally, that the wind just did not blow out much this year.
But does that actually explain the step back in Bellinger’s production this season?
Bellinger’s production is indeed different at home and on the road this year (.249/.308/.413/104 wRC+ at home, .280/.349/.447/117 wRC+ on the road), but you’ll note that his ISO is nearly identical at home and on the road, and he’s hit 8 homers at home and 9 on the road. Given that the big park factor issues at Wrigley this season have been largely about home run and doubles suppression, I don’t know how much that really informs us about Bellinger’s season. Sure, maybe if the park were more friendly for dingers he’d be producing over and above at home, but I think that starts to get close to “well, if he just hit the ball further his numbers would be better” territory. Not sure that actually means anything at all.
Instead, a much simpler explanation for a drop in power production could be that Bellinger’s groundball rate has gone up a bit this year, his barrel rate has gone down a bit, and his line drive rate has gone down a lot.
So, on the ultimate question of the opt-out, I would just note that Cody Bellinger has, overall, been pretty good offensively this year as a 29-year-old quality defensive outfielder, who can also play quality defense at first base, and who runs the bases well. Heck, there have been only seven center fielders this season who’ve posted a better wRC+ than Bellinger. It’s easy to lose sight of how good he’s still been, relatively speaking.
A guy with that profile, at that age, and without a Qualifying Offer attached, *USUALLY* can count on getting more than two years and $50 million in free agency. Because of the injury issues and the two massively down years, as well as some regression from 2023 to 2024, I have to leave it at “usually.” It’s possible the remaining two years on his deal with the Cubs (plus an opt out) is better than he and Boras expect to find on the market.
All in all, though, I tend to think this is still headed toward an opt out and a payday closer to nine figures for Bellinger, even with a reduced AAV. We’ll see how he finishes the season up, at which point things might even be more clearly leaning in one direction or the other.
Over the last two months, by the way, Cody Bellinger has been hitting .267/.337/.480/124 wRC+, so he’s definitely found a better level as the season has gone on. If he stays hot for the final three weeks, then the decision probably becomes very easy.
