Cody Bellinger Isn't Going Anywhere, This Month or This Fall

Jed Hoyer came right out on Monday and said it. Unless the Chicago Cubs defy what the first three-plus months of the season have shown us, they’ll be set to sell ahead of the Jul. 30 trade deadline. We’ve already heard rumblings about a handful of veteran players who could be dealt before that point. Perhaps most intriguing among them, though, is Cody Bellinger. 

Bellinger’s return was seen as something of a non-negotiable issue last winter, in terms of the Cubs’ 2024 fortunes. The team hadn’t added any other hitters with a track record to speak of, and Bellinger was coming off his best year since 2019. His average (.307), isolated slugging (.218), and strikeout rate (15.6%) were all at their best since that point, while his 20 steals represented a career-high total. They had to have him.

It took until the extreme end of February, but the deal got done. It’s the combination of that deal and Bellinger’s 2024 performance (to say nothing of his current injury) that make navigating a potential trade a daunting task.

Tabling the finger injury for a moment, Bellinger’s 2024 has been…not what his 2023 was. After a 134 wRC+ last year, he’s barely above the threshold for average this year, at 108. He’s managed to maintain similar strikeout and walk numbers to last year but isn’t replicating anything else. Most notable among the trends is the absence of power. He’s at a .141 ISO and a 7.6 percent HR/FB ratio; those figures are the lowest of his career.

If the Cubs have any interest in trading Bellingeer, they have to overcome some issues more complex than a slightly underwhelming offensive season. In a vacuum, it’s fine production. He could offer supplementary offense to a contender while providing the ability to play a stable outfield and first base. The structure of the contract, though, likely washes out on-field value questions, in favor of financial ones.

Bellinger’s contract was presented as a three-year pact. In reality, it's a series of one-year deals, because he has an opt-out after 2024 and another player option for 2026. Those two options add up to $50 million; it would require a pretty intense suspension of reality to believe that a prospective team might be willing to take him off the Cubs’ hands given the current circumstances. And that was before the injury.

Bellinger was eligible to come off the IL on Sunday, but there’s no timetable for an actual return. That leaves a minuscule window in which he could come back, perform well, and wind up involved as a part of legitimate negotiations prior to Jul. 30.

The timetable alone makes such a trade difficult to fathom. Even if we strip away the injury context, it’s just not something that seemed realistic at any point leading up to the end of the month. While the Cubs would surely love to move that contract off the books for the next two years, the control he has via the opt-out will torpedo his trade value, and the team won't want to trade him for nothing.

Jed Hoyer finds himself in an interesting position ahead of this deadline. Most of the other sellers emerging on the market knew this would be their position, or have a clear set of players who make sense. This was not the plan for the Cubs, and their leverage in trade discussions about several potentially valuable pieces is tough to pin down. It’ll be difficult enough to muster up the ability to move players from elsewhere on the roster. A trade of Cody Bellinger is a complete impossibility.