Potential Landing Spots For A Cody Bellinger Trade

I think the Cubs would like to either clear almost all of Bellingers salary, or use him to acquire one of their needs. If the Yankees need the Cubs to eat 11+ and aren't offering them anything that helps the 2025 Cubs then they're a bad fit. There are other teams that would jump on Bellinger at 16m and probably offer something worthwhile.

1 minute ago, 17 Seconds said:

is it at all possible the cubs keep bellinger? maybe if they get Sasaki?

Bellinger doesn't project well enough to directly displace anybody. Happ, PCA, Tucker, Suzuki, and Busch all project to be better at their respective positions. That valuation is closer with respect to PCA and Busch, but they're both considerably cheaper and could be important pieces moving forward.

Counsell likes to tinker. So maybe he shuffles Bellinger around and gives everybody an extra day off, and we're all set in event of an injury. But that also keeps Seiya as DH all year -- which he reportedly would be unhappy with. And it keeps us from utilizing our top prospects who are sitting in AAA waiting for their chance to be our 4th OF. (Alcantara and Caissie).

From a roster construction standpoint, I just don't see keeping Bellinger around as a smart move. Now, if trading Michael Busch would get us a cost-controlled young starter... yeah, maybe. Or if PCA nets us Tarik Skubal or something. Okay. In those circumstances, I could see Bellinger sticking around. I just don't see those circumstances as likely enough to warrant much consideration.

If no one is offering anything of value for Bellinger(salary relief would be value to me) then the Cubs could keep Cody and play him at 1st and Busch at 3rd. I don’t like the idea of Busch at 3rd, but if they can convince a team they can do this, maybe they do get what they want for Bellinger. If we play this plan out and trade for Luzardo they still have $10M they can spend for one more pen arm. I mean the team played Morel at 3rd last year. Can Busch be worse? 
in the end, trading Cody and using his salary to add a guy who can play 1st and 3rd and handing more money for the pen would be the way I would hope they would go. But if their backs are Against the wall and no one is as I g them enough money, maybe they keep him. 
The other option is Bellinger to the Phillies, Castillo to the Cubs and Seattle gets Bohm. Seattle sends a prospect to the Phillies to even the deal up for the Phillies. 

23 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

If no one is offering anything of value for Bellinger(salary relief would be value to me) then the Cubs could keep Cody and play him at 1st and Busch at 3rd. I don’t like the idea of Busch at 3rd, but if they can convince a team they can do this, maybe they do get what they want for Bellinger. If we play this plan out and trade for Luzardo they still have $10M they can spend for one more pen arm. I mean the team played Morel at 3rd last year. Can Busch be worse? 
in the end, trading Cody and using his salary to add a guy who can play 1st and 3rd and handing more money for the pen would be the way I would hope they would go. But if their backs are Against the wall and no one is as I g them enough money, maybe they keep him. 
The other option is Bellinger to the Phillies, Castillo to the Cubs and Seattle gets Bohm. Seattle sends a prospect to the Phillies to even the deal up for the Phillies. 

Oh fun, the Morel experiment/disaster all over again.

Busch is not a 3b. We need to let that go. The Cubs had ample chance to give him a look there last year. They didnt. They won't this year.

19 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Busch is not a 3b. We need to let that go. The Cubs had ample chance to give him a look there last year. They didnt. They won't this year.

Hey now, I think you're forgetting about his 0.1 innings played at 3B last year.

In all honesty, I can imagine there's certain scenarios where Busch logs a dozen or so games at 2B due to various injuries and player availability. He did get three starts there last year, and Nico may be out to start the season.

But the odds of Busch logging any real time at 3B are so small as to be approaching nil.

Heyman doing his best to show Yankees have other options

$10 million is just such an absurd amount for a guy who is a solid player, just a bit overpaid. If 10M is going, a good prospect better be coming back.

I wonder if they  would be willing to move Busch + for a SP and keep Bellinger ? The SP would need to be pre arb most likely  on this scenario 

Not sure if already posted, but Dom is tight with Happ, so maybe he knows something, maybe not. Figured I’d post anyways

20 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Busch is not a 3b. We need to let that go. The Cubs had ample chance to give him a look there last year. They didnt. They won't this year.

Fair enough. I don’t really like the idea either. Just tossing it out there as something the Cubs should at least leave out there so they have some leverage when talking  a Bellinger trade. I still think they will get Bellinger done. They just need to let the Yankees know they could pivot if they don’t give them what they want. TBH, I am more interested in saving money than getting a prospect for him. 

12 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Fair enough. I don’t really like the idea either. Just tossing it out there as something the Cubs should at least leave out there so they have some leverage when talking  a Bellinger trade. I still think they will get Bellinger done. They just need to let the Yankees know they could pivot if they don’t give them what they want. TBH, I am more interested in saving money than getting a prospect for him. 

The pivot is Carter saying to the media recently that with Bellinger’s flexibility they would have no problems keeping him on the roster position wise. Mariners, Giants, Phillies being floated around over the past week or so are also pivots. These orgs are working with more data than we can comprehend, do you really think the Cubs floating “We’ll stick Busch at 3b” is really going to make the Yankees flinch? 
 

17 minutes ago, KCCub said:

The pivot is Carter saying to the media recently that with Bellinger’s flexibility they would have no problems keeping him on the roster position wise. Mariners, Giants, Phillies being floated around over the past week or so are also pivots. These orgs are working with more data than we can comprehend, do you really think the Cubs floating “We’ll stick Busch at 3b” is really going to make the Yankees flinch? 
 

 

 

I don’t know. But isn’t that what Hawkins is actually insinuating by his statement of Bellinger’s versitility? If Cody could play 1st that would mean either they would trade Busch or Suzuki or Busch would play 3rd. 

1 minute ago, Rcal10 said:

I don’t know. But isn’t that what Hawkins is actually insinuating by his statement of Bellinger’s versitility? If Cody could play 1st that would mean either they would trade Busch or Suzuki or Busch would play 3rd. 

The insinuation is that they don't have to trade Bellinger.  They don't have to make a trade for playing time purposes, 6 players for 5 spots(OF/1B/DH) is fine.  In practice they likely do have to do it to make the money work to upgrade the pitching staff and bench like they want.

27 minutes ago, KCCub said:

The pivot is Carter saying to the media recently that with Bellinger’s flexibility they would have no problems keeping him on the roster position wise. Mariners, Giants, Phillies being floated around over the past week or so are also pivots. These orgs are working with more data than we can comprehend, do you really think the Cubs floating “We’ll stick Busch at 3b” is really going to make the Yankees flinch? 
 

 

 

He can say that all he wants but I can’t imagine anybody believes it. If Bellinger stays, guys are either playing out of position for one of your ~4 best hitters will be on the bench every day. It doesn’t have to be Bellinger, but somebody has to go and Bellinger is the best candidate. 

I think you *could* hold onto Bellinger and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world

In practice I imagine there's a focus on exploring all avenues with the Yankees because that's the one option for getting most/all of his deal offloaded. If you're resorting to eating/offsetting money another round of teams likely enter the fray such as the Phillies, Mariners, and Royals.

8 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

He can say that all he wants but I can’t imagine anybody believes it. If Bellinger stays, guys are either playing out of position for one of your ~4 best hitters will be on the bench every day. It doesn’t have to be Bellinger, but somebody has to go and Bellinger is the best candidate. 

That’s kind of the point of my post. We act like what is said in the media is going to influence or force a billion dollar club with unlimited data and scouting resources to be scared. In reality, what is said in the media does not matter. No club is suddenly going to believe we are keeping Bellinger if we leaked we’re trying Busch at 3b. Same with Hawkins’ quote, no one actually believes we are keeping Bellinger because of the financial need for his $$$ elsewhere. 
 

With that said, you can absolutely find PA’s for these guys without having people out of position. What if PCA struggles? Stick Bellinger in CF. Going against a tough lefty? Stick Bellinger at 1b or CF. Injuries? Days off? As TT pointed out, it’s not that hard to find PA’s with 6 guys for 5 spots. 

3 minutes ago, KCCub said:

That’s kind of the point of my post. We act like what is said in the media is going to influence or force a billion dollar club with unlimited data and scouting resources to be scared. In reality, what is said in the media does not matter. No club is suddenly going to believe we are keeping Bellinger if we leaked we’re trying Busch at 3b. Same with Hawkins’ quote, no one actually believes we are keeping Bellinger because of the financial need for his $$$ elsewhere. 
 

With that said, you can absolutely find PA’s for these guys without having people out of position. What if PCA struggles? Stick Bellinger in CF. Going against a tough lefty? Stick Bellinger at 1b or CF. Injuries? Days off? As TT pointed out, it’s not that hard to find PA’s with 6 guys for 5 spots. 

Agreed, it is not hard to find AB for all guys. If only the Cubs were a major market team they could keep Bellinger and still get a good pitcher and some pen and bench upgrades without worrying about their payroll. 

In theory, it's very possible for everyone to get plenty of starts and we're paying the manager a lot of money (relative to other managers) to figure things out. That said, these are still human beings, and at the Happ/Suzuki/Bellinger level of player, I'm not sure that's a setup they'd be happy with. We've already heard a little of that with Seiya and I suspect he'll get more starts in the outfield than what would make sense on paper. I also think it's moot and Bellinger will be traded any day/minute.

25 minutes ago, KCCub said:

That’s kind of the point of my post. We act like what is said in the media is going to influence or force a billion dollar club with unlimited data and scouting resources to be scared. In reality, what is said in the media does not matter. No club is suddenly going to believe we are keeping Bellinger if we leaked we’re trying Busch at 3b. Same with Hawkins’ quote, no one actually believes we are keeping Bellinger because of the financial need for his $$$ elsewhere. 
 

With that said, you can absolutely find PA’s for these guys without having people out of position. What if PCA struggles? Stick Bellinger in CF. Going against a tough lefty? Stick Bellinger at 1b or CF. Injuries? Days off? As TT pointed out, it’s not that hard to find PA’s with 6 guys for 5 spots. 

That can’t be the point of your post if we fundamentally disagree about the feasibility of actually using this many RF, 1B, DH types. I’m saying they can’t, and every mlb team knows they can’t. Hawkins’ words ring hollow to me. 

2 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

I’m saying they can’t

Fully disagree.

4 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

and every mlb team knows they can’t. 

Change “can’t” to “won’t” and I fully agree.

11 minutes ago, Illiterate Scholar said:

In theory, it's very possible for everyone to get plenty of starts and we're paying the manager a lot of money (relative to other managers) to figure things out. That said, these are still human beings, and at the Happ/Suzuki/Bellinger level of player, I'm not sure that's a setup they'd be happy with. We've already heard a little of that with Seiya and I suspect he'll get more starts in the outfield than what would make sense on paper. I also think it's moot and Bellinger will be traded any day/minute.

As a starting point, one of Busch or PCA is likely to sit against all LHSP in that setup. Those 2 are among the bigger variance options so there's a non-trivial chance one of them is not starter caliber(at least with the bat). Bellinger has exceeded 130 games once in the last 4 years, Seiya has never exceeded 140 games in MLB, and PCA has had a significant injury in his past and plays a reckless brand of baseball.  You combine those with the regular 10-15 games of rest players need in the modern game and I think this is a problem that exists way more in our December brains than the June reality.  If it does, it is an incredible problem to have and probably means the team is winning a lot of games.

3 hours ago, JD94 said:

Not sure if already posted, but Dom is tight with Happ, so maybe he knows something, maybe not. Figured I’d post anyways

 

 

You are correct. They've developed a brotherhood over the last few years. I believe dom when he mentions things. 

3 hours ago, JD94 said:

Not sure if already posted, but Dom is tight with Happ, so maybe he knows something, maybe not. Figured I’d post anyways

 

 

I'm still waiting for that big move that he said was coming a couple years ago 😅

15 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

As a starting point, one of Busch or PCA is likely to sit against all LHSP in that setup. 

Once the Cubs sign all of the LHSP's, this will no longer be a problem. 😜