Cody Bellinger Injury Has Huge Implications for Cubs, This Month and Next Year

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs are hot, but after a pitch hit Cody Bellinger in the hand Wednesday night, they have to adjust to being without their highest-paid player for the second time this year. It's a change with short- and long-term ramifications.

Image courtesy of © Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this month, I wrote that nothing should dissuade the Cubs from behaving as sellers this month, ahead of the MLB trade deadline. Even as they've heated up (with five wins in their last six games), that has remained true, but losing Cody Bellinger until what figures to be early August seals the deal. The only thing material impact it should have is making it impossible (rather than merely difficult and unlikely) that the team will trade Bellinger this month.

It also all but ensures that Bellinger will opt into his $30-million salary for 2025. He hasn't played well enough to this point to come back from an injury like this one and put up numbers that will give him or Scott Boras any confidence about testing the market again this winter. For all intents and purposes, this injury locks Bellinger in as part of the team's medium-term lineup. That should only increase the team's urgency in trying to find a trade partner palatable to one of their two valuable corner outfielders, each of whom have no-trade clauses around which they have to work. Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki have real trade value, and although it might be hard to move them because of those clauses, it becomes even more important now, since Bellinger should be their plan for right field going into next season.

While Bellinger is gone, of course, the Cubs lineup will be diminished. He hasn't been the same star-caliber slugger he was in 2023 in his second go-around with the North Siders, but he's still been an essential cog. Without him, Christopher Morel is back in the top five of the batting order, which signifies an offense with insufficient depth.

On the other hand, Bellinger's absence creates some opportunities for this team, too. Morel is slated to be the DH Thursday night, with Miles Mastrobuoni getting another start at third base. His glove makes his bat worth a little bit longer an audition, and the same goes for Pete Crow-Armstrong. The next few weeks will be a valuable audition period for Alexander Canario, allowing the team to assess whether he should be one of the players prioritized if and when Happ or Suzuki are dealt. Canario got the call to replace Bellinger on the roster.

Morel can and should still occasionally start at third, so the team can get looks at Crow-Armstrong and Canario side-by-side in the outfield, with either Happ or Suzuki at DH. The team has had to patch holes and shift resources all season, so this won't be an unfamiliar feeling. It is, however, the latest uncomfortable reminder that Bellinger's durability is part of his long-term outlook. It was a pair of injuries (one to his shoulder, one to his knee) that derailed him after an MVP-caliber start to his career in Los Angeles, and injuries will have cost him at least a month of total time in each of his first two seasons with the Cubs, by the time he returns from this one. It's probably a bigger part of the reason why teams were reluctant to meet the Cubs' fairly conservative offers to him this winter than it was a part of the conversations about him, and now, it looms as a factor that mitigates any optimism about his future over what remains a player-friendly contract.

If the Cubs were five games better, this injury would hurt worse. As it is, they weren't going anywhere, anyway. They still lose some value because of this development, but they also gain some chances to better understand and evaluate young players, so while Bellinger will be missed, the organization can benefit from his brief absence, in a couple of ways. Hopefully, his recovery time will be on the short end of the spectrum of possibilities, and the actual playing time lost will be minimized by the upcoming All-Star break. 

View full article