Although Shohei Ohtani has dominated trade rumors, there are other teams facing difficult decisions when it comes to dealing away star players. This is the case for the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs are currently in third place in the National League Central. The odds of the ball club making a playoff run are slim, so the MLB world is wondering if SP Marcus Stroman and OF Cody Bellinger will be traded.
Bellinger will be a free agent following the 2023 season. Stroman has a player option for 2024. Given his strong performance during the '23 campaign, Stroman is expected to opt out of his deal and test the free agent market.
Bellinger's situation is interesting. He's enjoyed a bounce back season following a pair of down years with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Cubs will either try to capitalize on his trade value right now or attempt to re-sign him. One thing Chicago cannot do is opt to keep him ahead of the trade deadline and then let him leave in free agency.
Since the Cubs probably won't make the playoffs, Bellinger departing in free agency would make the 2023 campaign a wasted one of sorts for Chicago from a Bellinger standpoint.
Today, we are going to look at three reasons why the Cubs must trade Bellinger amid his hot streak in July.
Cubs aren't ready to compete
The Cubs are trending in a positive direction. They entered a complete rebuild a few seasons ago when stars Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javier Baez were traded. The team has obviously failed to play competitive baseball since, but Chicago is on the verge of returning to the playoffs.
That said, they aren't there yet.
Cody Bellinger is going to seek a lucrative, multi-year contract in free agency. As a result, signing him to an extension, unless Chicago opts to overpay, will be a challenge. Their best bet is to trade him prior to the deadline and receive prospect capital. As mentioned earlier, there's no point in keeping Bellinger on the roster if there's a possibility of him leaving during the offseason anyway.
Capitalize on potential overvalue
Before diving into this section, it needs to be noted that Cody Bellinger is a former NL MVP and his resurgent 2023 season has been impressive. However, there is reason for concern. There's unfortunately a decent chance of regression occurring before too long.
Bellinger is in the midst of a tremendous month of July. He leads the league in a number of prominent offensive categories and his defense has remained steady in the outfield during the month. Although Bellinger's defense will likely stay consistent, the offense may not.
Cody Bellinger is not hitting the baseball hard. In fact, his current 31.3 percent hard-hit rate (per Baseball Reference) is the lowest mark of his career, even worse than 2021 and 2022 when he struggled mightily with the Dodgers.
He is hitting a decent amount of line drives, but Bellinger is laboring to put the ball in the air. His 26.5 percent fly ball rate is the third lowest mark of his career. This suggests that the power numbers may begin to dip at some point.
So why is Bellinger succeeding in 2023? He's cut down the strikeouts without question. Although that's a good sign, he still isn't drawing many walks. During his 2019 MVP season, Bellinger produced a career-high 14.4 percent walk rate. In 2023, he's walking just 7.7 percent of the time.
Cody Bellinger is back, in a sense. He's a reliable player. But capitalizing on his potential overvalue will be of the utmost importance for the Cubs. They may even be able to get a top 10 prospect in return for Bellinger at the moment given his strong performance and age (he's just 28-years old).
Cody Bellinger's inconsistency
Finally, it's difficult to trust a player who's been incredibly inconsistent over the years. Even if you believe that Bellinger's underlying 2023 numbers aren't a problem, there's no denying his frustrations from the past couple of seasons.
Following that '19 MVP campaign, he endured a down year in 2020. However, that can be written off since many players struggled that season due to it being shortened because of the pandemic.
In 2021, Bellinger's struggles became impossible to ignore though. He slashed .165/.240/.302 with a .542 OPS. It should be noted that he had previously battled a shoulder injury, so some were willing to overlook his underwhelming results.
Finally, in 2022, the Dodgers decided to move on following another difficult campaign. He slashed just .210/.265/.389 with a .654 OPS in 2022.
Some will argue that although 2021 and 2022 were down seasons, Cody Bellinger has found his footing once again and is worth the risk of trying to re-sign. The potential is there for Bellinger, but the Cubs' best bet is still to trade him now and let another ball club deal with the high-risk, high-reward.
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