NEWSLETTER
I’ll cop to it right now plainly, in case I’ve otherwise been a little mealymouthed about it: I have at least some concerns about the Cubs signing Cody Bellinger to the kind of monster contract that will impact other roster decisions for years to come.
I acknowledge and celebrate all the GOOD things that could come with a signing. Bellinger provides great defense at two positions and the incredible ability to move seamlessly between them in-game. He reinvented himself a bit this year as a higher-contact, higher-average hitter, and thus bounced back at the plate in a major way. He’s beloved in the clubhouse. He’s a hard-worker. He runs the bases well. He’s only 28. He provides some lefty power. I could go on, and I don’t want to yada yada over any of this stuff, because they comprise the reasons I would OF COURSE BE TOTALLY FINE with the Cubs signing Bellinger to a long-term deal. I’m not arguing against it!
Instead, I’m just making plain that I have a few concerns.
First, even if you can explain away his dreadful 2021 and 2022 seasons by way of injury, that is its own concern for at least two reasons: (1) injuries can take a cumulative toll over the years and lead to more injuries and more degraded performance, and (2) it could be that Bellinger’s success at the plate is HEAVILY dependent on him being at a very high level of health, which guys simply aren’t always. Those dreadful seasons happened. If it happened before, it can happen again.
Next, there is the aging curve, and the relationship to Bellinger’s defense. Bellinger is not yet old (he’ll be 28 until July), and you’re actually getting a number of “still prime-ish” age years in his next deal. But Father Time comes for us all, and the history of center fielders staying very good in center field after age 30 is not robust. If Bellinger has to move to first base in a more permanent way in the coming years (or maybe a corner outfield spot, depending on other moves), his value is reduced relative to the kind of deal he might land. And the budget is not infinite, much as we wish it was.
Lastly, the 2023 performance. It was so good by the results. So very, very good. We watched it happen, and Bellinger was so key for the Cubs’ offensive success. But how much of that was skill-driven and how much was luck-driven? The batted ball metrics would tell you that Bellinger was good this year, but not even close to “134 wRC+” good. Indeed, if going just by the advanced metrics that evaluate the quality of a batter’s contact, Bellinger was more like an average hitter who simply did a good job of not striking out.
Maybe that’s not fair or accurate, but offensive regression is a serious concern. It has to be when a guy is succeeding in a way that doesn’t always repeat itself. I mean, Bellinger had a .387(!) BABIP with two strikes this year, despite a mere 25.7% hard contact rate in those situations. Is that really repeatable or indicative of a skill?
ACTUALLY MAYBE!
HA! SEE, this is going to a good place! On this final Bellinger concern, I do find some relief in the latest from Sahadev Sharma, which you must read today:
The piece is ranging, and gets into so many interesting things. You just have to read it to kind of soak in all the insights that these scouts are offering, including how they believe Bellinger will age very well.
For today’s purposes, though, I wanted to share the section that leapt out at me, as it directly addressed one of my main Bellinger concerns:
Hitting coach Dustin Kelly believed a lot of Bellinger’s soft contact was due to his focus on just putting the ball in play with two strikes. Watching Bellinger, you could see him shorten up with two strikes, trying to do whatever he could to bloop a single into the short outfield. Presented with this idea, all four scouts agreed it was real.
“We’ve gone so far down the elevate and celebrate path that absolutely yes, that’s a skill,” Scout A said. “I don’t want to sound like Clint Eastwood, a get-off-my-lawn person, but there are players and teams that are finally doing this again and it stands out. It is extremely a skill.”
“I fully buy that,” Scout D said. “He clearly has an adaptable approach and he’s willing to change things with two strikes. He’ll sacrifice some power to put the ball in play. I buy that that’s behind some of the average to lesser exit velocities. Even with those poor metrics I’m buying that he’s a better-than-league-average hitter.”
“I agree with the hitting coach,” Scout C said. “Bellinger made noticeable changes to make contact with two strikes, and that will increase his BABIP while lowering his exit velocity. He found ways to put a ball in play rather than strike out.”
Let me add as well that Bellinger’s line drive rate with two strikes was nearly 26%, which is outrageously high for those situations. Isn’t it possible that he figured out a way to trade power for a PARTICULAR type of contact with two strikes? A Luis Arraez-like ability to hit a looping line drive that falls right into that goldilocks zone for a hit? We certainly saw a whole lot of it this year.
All in all, this isn’t going to COMPLETELY alleviate my concerns about the batted ball metrics, much less the other items discussed above, but I do like what I’m hearing. And because Bellinger has always been a desirable target for all the GOOD reasons discussed above, I’m still hopeful the Cubs can make a serious run at retaining him (while also adding another impact bat to the lineup).
Oh, and let me conclude with one really GOOD batted ball thing for Bellinger, which I only recently discovered and also made me feel better about his 2023 performance: Bellinger’s Sweet Spot% was in the 86th percentile this year. What does that mean? Well, a ball hit in the sweet spot range is somewhere from an 8-degree to a 32-degree launch angle, which is the range where you are most likely to get a hit (you can kind of picture it in your mind).
No, Bellinger didn’t really hit the ball all that hard this year – his hard hit rate and barrel rate were scary bad – but his contact was consistently placing the ball in the range where you get a lot of hits. That has to mean something, right?
