Three Stray Cody Bellinger Discussions

There is nothing new going on with Cody Bellinger this week, but a few discussions that popped up on Twitter/X got me thinking about a trio of stray points I wanted to make. These points do not comprise the entirety of my thoughts on the Cubs and Bellinger, as I’ve discussed those before in ways both pro and con. They are just three items that I found myself musing over this week, and I thought you might want to see them.

Cody Bellinger and the Brandon Nimmo Deal

There was a time when I thought it was a little crazy to think that Cody Bellinger would top the deal the Mets gave outfielder Brandon Nimmo last year. Although Nimmo was a year older then than Bellinger is now, he’d had a more consistent track record in recent years, and had significantly better offensive numbers overall in his career. Bellinger is the better and more versatile defender, but both have missed chunks of time with injuries. So even coming off a great and resurgent 2023 season for Bellinger, if you’d asked me in, say, August, whether I thought he would out-do Nimmo’s eight-year, $162 million deal with the Mets, I would have said no chance.

Do I still feel that way? Well, kinda. I do still think Nimmo’s deal was an overpay by the Mets, which sets up a bit of an unreasonable baseline for Bellinger (and other comps). Then again, the market has CLEARLY trended up in free agency the last two years, so even if Nimmo’s deal seemed high last year, I’m not so sure it would seem high if he signed it this year. And we know Scott Boras has been shooting much higher for Bellinger this offseason than the Nimmo deal.

Of course, no deal has come yet for Cody Bellinger, and with his suitors potentially dwindling and concerns about the contact quality persisting, I’m just not sure Bellinger is going to top Nimmo’s contract, whether it’s a fair comp or not.

Still, here’s how I see things: because of the way inflation proceeds in the game, because Boras represents both outfielders, and because there is always a sense that the next guy has to beat the last guy, I expect Boras and Bellinger to feel a need to beat Nimmo’s deal in at least SOME way. Primarily, I’m sure they’ll want to top the $162 million guarantee. But if they can at least top the $20.25 million AAV by a reasonable amount, then there is some face-saving there. It still moves the price tag forward for center fielders of this tier. So on and so forth.

The Two Long-Term Risks

Everyone knows the main risk with respect to signing Cody Bellinger to a very long-term deal: he might break again. Either literally, in terms of injury, or figuratively, in terms of the deep depths of what happened to his production in 2021 and 2022. Every long-term contract bears this particular risk to some degree, but not every player seeking a long-term contract has had seasons quite as bad as Bellinger did, and not quite as recently, either.

Here, though, I just wanted to add that there’s a more subtle risk to the Cubs, specifically, on Bellinger. We know that Bellinger adds value because he can play both center field and first base. It’s awesome. But in a world where Pete Crow-Armstrong comes along and establishes himself as the starting center fielder at some point in, say, 2025, then you’d most likely be looking at Bellinger as a full-time first baseman, at least until one of Ian Happ or Seiya Suzuki was no longer locking down a corner outfield spot.

And if Bellinger’s offensive production falls into the more realistic projected range for him going forward (something in that 110-115 wRC+ area), then you have to ask … how much would you really want to pay for that level of performance from a first baseman? The answer, sadly, is not all that much.

Now, to be clear, Bellinger would still add value because he COULD head to the outfield for stretches when you needed him to (which is inevitable). And it’s important to reiterate that this is just a RISK, not a certainty (although PCA very well could be the long-term starter in center field, that is not yet a lock).

But this possible outcome for many of Bellinger’s future seasons if he stayed with the Cubs means that signing him to a $200+ million contract, in a world where future budgets for baseball operations are sadly real, doesn’t make a lot of sense. He understandably wants to be paid like a premium defensive and offensive center fielder. On the Cubs, it’s not a certainty that he would be that particular guy for more than a year or two.

In other words, it’s a more subtle risk factor to keep in mind when considering the totality of risk in a deal for Cody Bellinger. That doesn’t mean I don’t want Bellinger back on the Cubs. I do! But some thoughtfulness is necessary.

The Creative Contract and Guarantee Size

This one, I don’t really have a super hard conclusion or anything. I just thought it was an interesting and important discussion.

Let’s say the big, $200+ million deal never comes together for Bellinger and Boras. In that even, they’ll have a couple choices. They can take the largest deal they can get – six years and $150 million or something? Would that be the high end of a deal for Bellinger if his market never gets hot? – or they can get creative to preserve flexibility.

We have seen Boras opt for the latter before with Carlos Correa on his first deal with the Twins. Not unlike Bellinger is now, Correa was a young free agent at the time with some questions that kept teams from wanting to go super-high-dollar-super-long-term. In that situation, it made some sense to take a one-year deal, confirm just how great you are, and get rid of the mild burden of being attached to draft pick compensation.

But Correa was CLEARLY better than a player who would have to take a PURE one-year deal. So instead, he got the security of a multi-year deal, with the opportunity to make it a one-year deal if he had a good sense (which he did, so he did).

The contract was nominally three years and $105 million, but because it came with opt outs after years one and two, it was really more of a one-year contract that came with some insurance for Correa: if he was great again, he could hit free agency again still on the right side of 30 (same as Bellinger would), but if he had a disastrous year, he would have the security of at least having that relatively big guarantee. It was his “ope, my career just fell off a cliff, so at least I did get this one pretty big payday” fallback.

This kind of contract for Cody Bellinger has been discussed and speculated about before. I’m not hitting anything new on that front.

But what had me discussing it this week is the question of just how big that guarantee part would have to be for Bellinger to forgo the first option I mentioned (just taking the biggest traditional deal he can get). Correa’s contract stands as – if I’m remembering correctly – the largest guarantee a player has ever received for a contract that included an opt out after just one year.

You can understand why teams would REALLY not want the guaranteed portion to be all that large if they are also giving a one-year opt-out. If they’re the ones on the hook for paying out that insurance, so to speak, they don’t want to have to pay out massively, especially when their BEST outcome in the deal is merely one good season at something close to market rate.

I’m not sure whether Bellinger could top the Correa guarantee on this kind of deal. If you’re looking at them as comps, there’s not really a comparison. At the time he signed with the Twins the first time, Correa was a year younger than Bellinger is now, and was coming off a much bigger platform year (6.2 WAR versus 4.1 for Bellinger). Moreover, while Correa did have some injury questions, he never had an offensive year that approach the depths Bellinger sank to in 2021 and 2022. Correa was a much better bet to be a 4+ WAR player in his first year of the deal than Bellinger is in 2024.

So, outside of the type of deal we’re talking about, I don’t really see this as a Nimmo situation where you have to consider a direct comparison. I don’t think Cody Bellinger can realistically expect to beat Carlos Correa’s AAV *or* total guarantee from that first deal with the Twins.

Even at something simple like a three-year, $90 million deal, with an opt-out after the first year and straight $30 million annual salaries, that is not a lot of upside potential for the team, and quite a bit of injury/performance protection for the player. Bellinger would be sacrificing something in the range of $60 million in present guarantee ($90 million versus $150 million) in exchange for a chance to land a $200+ million contract next offseason after he shows that he’s still the same guy, opts out, and is unattached to draft pick compensation. The team, in turn, is risking $60 million in dead money in 2025 and 2026 if Bellinger goes pumpkin in 2024.

I don’t know. I think the structure could make a lot of sense for both the Cubs and Cody Bellinger if his market doesn’t get going, but I have a little trouble coming up with the precise numbers that make sense for both sides. That 3/$90M level doesn’t quite sound right to me for the team, but 3/$60M (or whatever) doesn’t sound right for Bellinger.

You could try to play around with the years, but you’re going to run into the same problem of offering “too much insurance” paired with a one-year opt-out. Maybe what I’m bumping up against is the very reason that you don’t see a lot of long-ish-term deals with an opt out after the very first year.