One of the most fascinating conversations regarding the Yankees are about their outfield and how they’ll address it this upcoming offseason.
You might read this title, the author of this article, and the subject at-hand and think this piece will just detail how Kyle Tucker should get boatloads of cash from Hal Steinbrenner in a different form, but no.
This is instead about Cody Bellinger, the team’s starting left fielder during the 2025 season and the player whom reporters are considering to be a real-deal commodity on this market.
Numerous suitors, the Dodgers, Mets, Blue Jays, all of these teams reportedly serving as real competition to draw him away from the Bronx with bids above the Yankees’ market
I too remember when he was one of the top commodities on the baseball market with the perception being that his incumbent team would be outbid…is this another Scott Boras mirage?
Should the Yankees Truly Buy Into the Cody Bellinger Rumors?
For starter’s the outfield market is just weird this year; the Yankees opened by nabbing Trent Grisham who was widely regarded as the third-best player at the position in this free agent class with the Qualifying Offer.
The top of the market player is Kyle Tucker, a 28-year-old left-handed corner outfielder who has been one of the 10 best hitters in baseball over the last five years while being a quality defensive outfielder.
His problem? No one really knows who wants him, and the guy who seemed poised for a $400 million contract might have to cash-in some good fortune to get over $300 million.
Cody Bellinger is now viewed as the player who will demand the attention from outfield-needy teams in free agency, but let’s actually dig into the smoke here.
It’s the Blue Jays, Dodgers, Angels, and Mets as teams who have been credibly reported as teams with interest in him, and there’s already some shakiness to these teams.
Out of the gates, the Dodgers’ interest in Cody Bellinger has come with some heavy asterisks, with ESPN reporting that there’s doubt about whether they’d be able to outbid the Yankees here.
The Blue Jays, Mets, and Angels make sense as suitors because of their roster construction, and in the case of LAA and TOR, their ballparks make sense for Bellinger as well.
You could argue the Mets, who are both well-ran and have seemingly limitless money, would be a big challenger, but Will Sammon of The Athletic noted that a trade of Nimmo does not mean a pursuit of a big outfield free agent.
The Dodgers and Blue Jays seem to have other priorities in mind that will distract them from Cody Bellinger unless he falls into their laps.
I don’t want to just write-off the Angels in this, but I’d be shocked if they can outbid the Yankees here and actively choose to essentially blow the offseason budget on him.
The named suitors don’t strike me as nearly as interested in Cody Bellinger as the Bronx Bombers are, and I also cast doubt on the notion that the market has truly changed their tune on him.
The career of Cody Bellinger has been a strange one, but the last three seasons have told us that Cody Bellinger on a year-to-year basis has been…the same guy.
Instead of wild turbulence we’ve seen steady data in what he should be offensively, a player with a medicore xOPS who overperforms it by pulling the ball in the air.
His Pull AIR% only increased by about 2% from 2023 to 2025, so the notion that he’s doing something noticeably different to the profile that teams were afradi of is false.
Bellinger is also a worse defensive centerfielder now than he was then and is two years older, so while the consistent profile could aid his financial earnings, the other variables offset that.
He was projected for about a $100-150 million contract after his 2023 season, I don’t see why that range will have swung wildly in the industry two years later for simply maintaining the evaluation held that he could be a ~115 OPS+ hitter.