2K23: Cody Bellinger

[revo]

After a torrid start to his career that resulted in a Rookie of the Year and MVP award by age 23, Cody Bellinger has arguably been one of the worst regulars in baseball over the last 3 seasons. Since the start of the '20 season, he has a 74 OPS+ and has fewer homers over those three seasons combined than he did in 2019 alone.

His K% rate has ballooned to 27.3% from 16.3% in 2019, and his BB% has plunged to 6.9% from 14.4% during his MVP season. His HardH% is also down to 38.2% from 49.0%. More troubling is his ability to hit fastballs: his wFB went from 30.1 in 2019 to as low as -15.2 in 2021, before it rebounded a bit to 4.0 in '22. Still, he was negative runs above average on all other pitches.

While all these negatives should make Belly a late round pick at best, fantasy players are still believers, as Belly has an ADP of 182, making him a mid-draft pick and a somewhat worthy gamble.

So what to make of him? Is the Mendoza-line Belly of '20-'22 the best we can hope for? Is there any chance at all he regains his previous greatness, or even a smidge of it? Or does the dramatic decline continue and he loses his job, or worse, is cut or demoted?

[Gregg]

This is a great question. As a Cubs homer I hope he is Comeback Player of the Year. I look forward to see what others are thinking.

We just completed our cut down to 19 players for our winter waiver draft. All teams will need to cut 5-9 more players depending on where we finished. I finished 6th I get 13 keepers. NL only 5x5 12 team $260 budget.

The current Bellinger owner only gets to keep 10. Bellinger is $26. I do not see any way he keeps him going into the auction. I believe he thinks he can trade him to one of us Cubs fans for a minor improvement. It costs him nothing and I would do the same. I am not interested at all at his salary.

I think $12 is the magic number for me. If he stalled at $11 early I do think I would say 12. I would not go higher.

[Sour Masher]

I think his current ADP values his appropriately, with some upside to make him a good pick inside the top 200. I do not see a return to MVP levels for him. THe biggest issue to me is his exit velocities have tanked. Most assumed it was related to his dumb shoulder injury he got from celebtrating, but he had some elite recorded exit velocities after that, and even a few after his surgery. But they have not been there at all in games. Without the fear of him smashing a ball into the parking lot, everything else fell apart for him. With all his tinkering, his stance has never been what it was when he was successful and I am highly skeptical he can ever get back to that. But he is great defensively, and has the talent to find a different type of groove as a player. One where he will accumalate decent enough numbers, overall, to be a viable CFer.

He also has enough talent and a big enough name that he is worth reaching for a bit simply for the real possibility that he goes on a hot streak early and converts some doubters into believers. It would be hard to trade him if he does that, but I'd shop him and try to get a guy in return that would have gone 50+ picks higher just a month or so before. I just would not believe that elite production would be sustainable at this point, so I'd look to move him if I could sell high. All that negative said, I see a guy who can/likely will put up some decent 4 category numbers, with BA/OBP being the one area he will really hurt you.

[Sour Masher]

I mean, there is value in a guy who will play every day, put up 20 hrs, 15 sbs, and combine for close to 150 combined runs and rbis, even if he is hitting .220-.230, and that is about what I'd expect from Belli, with a little bit of upside priced into that line.

[revo]

The biggest issue for me is his sudden inability to hit fastballs. If he can't hit fastballs, what can he hit? Plus, his splits vs. LHPs are extremely troubling. I think at best he's a strong-side platooner in CF, but with Christopher Morel having played in CF last season, and the Cubs deep bench (which may include Patrick Wisdom and Nick Madrigal), if he stays in his 3-year funk going into late-May early-June, don't be surprised to see an extended IR stint.

[Moonlight J]

I took him at 12.7 in a 15 team DC with a team where I have plenty of ability to absorb the batting average to catch the potential upside

[Sour Masher]

<p>

The biggest issue for me is his sudden inability to hit fastballs. If he can&#39;t hit fastballs, what can he hit? Plus, his splits vs. LHPs are extremely troubling. I think at best he&#39;s a strong-side platooner in CF, but with Christopher Morel having played in CF last season, and the Cubs deep bench (which may include Patrick Wisdom and Nick Madrigal), if he stays in his 3-year funk going into late-May early-June, don&#39;t be surprised to see an extended IR stint.

There is a lot of issues to be critical of with Bellinger, but his splits are not one of them.&nbsp; Of course, if you just look at his stats against lefties, they do look horrible, but there were not really much worse than against righties--he just sucked all over last year. In fact, he hit .213 against lefites and only .209 against righties last year, and his OPS was within 100 pts of each other. His career OPS against rights is .855 and against lefites .743. There are full timers who play great defense like Bellinger with worse splits.&nbsp;</p>