New Cubs center fielder Cody Bellinger wasn’t interested in excuses for his poor performance at the plate the past two seasons.
Multiple times during his introductory press conference via Zoom on Tuesday he deflected questions about how injuries may have affected his swing.
“I think my favorite thing that I’ve learned is, you can’t change the past, but you can learn from it,” he said. “There were definitely injuries involved, and your body wasn’t moving how it used to, and I can go on and on. But, looking forward, where I’m at right now, I’m feeling really good and confident and strong.”
The Cubs, in offering Bellinger $17.5 million guaranteed for one year (with a 2024 mutual contract option), are betting they’ll at least be able to help Bellinger improve from his last two seasons with the Dodgers, when he posted the third-worst OPS among qualified center fielders.
“He’s a really good fit,” manager David Ross said at the winter meetings two weeks ago, “from a perspective of, it is great defense, great base-running, left-handed bat, with the potential to have an uptick offensively.”
Best-case scenario: Bellinger reclaims the offensive success of his 2019 MVP season. If he doesn’t, he still bolsers the Cubs’ defense up the middle, which is set up to be the club’s strong suit next season.
Bellinger concedes that 2023 is “definitely a big year” for him. Neither he nor the Cubs are expected to pick up the 2024 mutual option, which effectively pushes $5 million dollars to next year’s payroll. The short-term deal amounts to a pillow contract, a term coined by Bellinger’s agent Scott Boras, that will set the stage for his next deal.
“It’s definitely important; I’m not gonna say it’s not,” Bellinger said. “But I think that where I’m at right now, and how I feel mentally, physically, I’m in a pretty good spot. And it just makes me excited to start working out with the staff and talking through whatever we need to talk through to get going.”
Bellinger’s last two seasons were affected by plenty of injuries, but most notably he underwent surgery on his right shoulder in November 2020 and broke his left leg in the first week of the 2021 season. That’s where the feeling Bellinger alluded to, that his body wasn’t moving how it had before, came into play.
Now, mechanically, Bellinger is focussed on his lower half. And he’s working on translating “body-specific training,” as opposed to generalized strength training, into the batting cage.
“Just being athletic and letting my ability take over,” he said.
The Cubs provide some familiarity as Bellinger adjusts his swing. Assistant hitting coach Johnny Washington was a minor-league hitting coach in the Dodgers’ system while Bellinger was making his way up through the ranks. Washington left for the Padres organization in 2016, but Bellinger said they stayed in touch.
“He’s just an intelligent guy and loves baseball,” Bellinger said. “And he’s known me since I was 17, 18 years old.”
Bellinger was 17 when the Dodgers selected him in the fourth round of the 2013 MLB Draft. He’d spent his whole career in the organization, until the Dodgers non-tendered him last month, thrusting him into free agency.
“A little bittersweet,” Bellinger said. “... But at the end of the day, man, I understood. I don’t have any hard feelings. I get it. And I took it as a new opportunity.”
Less than three weeks later, he agreed to terms with the Cubs.
“I’m excited that I’m going to be able to do this at Wrigley Field, in a Cubs jersey,” he said. “And I understand how special it is to play for both organizations. Pretty cool.”
