Hey, You Can Kinda Sorta Watch Cody Bellinger Hit a Homer in Cubs Gear

“Kinda sorta” is doing some HEAVY lifting up there, but I figure if I was eager to see any baseball I could get, many of you would be, too.

So this is Cody Bellinger, getting in work in Arizona in Cubs gear, hitting one of many batting practice dingers. Thanks to John Antonoff for the video:

Cody Bellinger Revenge SZN.

Batting practice homers get you only so far, for as much as I enjoy watching them. With Bellinger, he and the Cubs are betting he can get himself back to something closer to what he was at his peak than he was the last two years. That’s the whole point of a pricey one-year deal for a 27-year-old former MVP.

But “closer to” is not “the same as,” and nobody should be expecting, or even hoping, for a return to what Bellinger was in 2017-2019. Instead, you just hope that he can become something above-average, with more time to get fully healthy, with more offseason to undo some bad swing habits created by the injuries, and maybe make some very modest tweaks with the help of some fresh eyes.

It’s possible. Something like the .239/.333/.455/112 wRC+ line he posted in the shortened 2020 season? I think that’s about as much as you could realistically hope for – but you CAN hope for it. With his glove, that’s a 3 to 4-win player. A perfect outcome for both Bellinger and the Cubs.