2024 Chicago Cubs Payroll Projections after Cody Bellinger contract

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In the words of the not-so-stellar President of the United States Gerald Ford, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” Or in the words of Janine Melnitz from Ghostbusters, “WE GOT ONE!”

Regardless of the angle from which you look at this Cody Bellinger contract you have to like it.

As a Cubs fan, you’re getting the top-hitting free agent on the market this season (outside of the hybrid Shohei Ohtani) and you’re getting him on what could be as long as a three-year deal or what could be as short as a two-year or even one-year deal and we’re going to look at the implications to all three of those options below.

Option One: Three-years $80 million dollars

This scenario is probably the most unlikely of the three.

According to Jeff Passan, the deal is front-loaded with Bellinger receiving $30 million in each of the first two seasons and $20 million in year three, making an opt-out after the 2025 season pretty likely. That being said, we’ll look at it anyway.

What it would mean for Bellinger:

In this scenario Bellinger could be as good as he was last season or a below average player.

If he’s not any good then obviously it behooves him to stay on the roster and earn the remaining $50 million guaranteed rather than hitting the open market and potentially taking a smaller payday.

If he’s as good as he was last season he could still look at the free agent crop for the 2024-2025 offseason and see Pete Alonso at a position that Bellinger plays and not want to compete with him on the open market so he sticks around in Chicago for another $30 million in 2025 in his age-29 season and reassesses after the season on whether or not he can get a megadeal before his 30th birthday.

What it would mean for the Cubs:

According to Spotrac, this would put the Cubs at a projected Opening Day payroll of almost $229 million dollars, or about $8 million dollars under the first tier of the Competitive Balance Tax.

That still gives them some flexibility to add at the deadline in 2024 but it puts the team in a position that ownership has vocally said that they don’t want to be in.

Things would get a little easier in 2025 as the Cubs will shed more than $10 million dollars worth of dead money from the Trey Mancini and Tucker Barnhart contracts, as well as Kyle Hendricks and Drew Smyly’s combined $26.5 million dollar contracts. That will lead the team to have about $100 million dollars to work with under the first tier of the tax next year but you have to assume that Justin Steele’s arbitration deal (or extension if the Cubs buck their past trends) will be more expensive than his $4 million dollar hit in 2024.

In 2026 the Cubs would have removed the risk from this deal completely. They feel confident that Bellinger will be a valuable player until he’s 30 years old but didn’t want to pay him top market dollars after that and that logic has sound reasoning. In 2026 his cap hit drops to $20 million and the Cubs add him to the list of players (Seiya Suzuki, Nico Hoerner, Ian Happ, Jameson Taillon) who are free agents following the 2026 season.

Bellinger still being on this contract, not necessarily being with the team, is probably the worst case-scenario for the Cubs and it’s really not all that bad of a scenario.

Bellinger remaining on the third year likely means that he hasn’t put together two seasons before this that would earn him more than a one-year $20 million dollar contract going into his age-31 season, and that would mean he’d been mediocre at best.

However, at $20 million dollars the contract wouldn’t be an albatross that would prevent the team from targeting big free agents and even if the batted-ball projections at the end of 2023 are the norm he plays Gold Glove defense at two positions to give days off to guys. Is that what you want to see at $20 million? No, but it could be much worse.

Option Two: Two-years $60 million dollars

Both of the remaining scenarios seem equally likely. Even in our article that pleaded for the Cubs to sign Bellinger to a player-friendly deal, we didn’t have the AAV at $30 million, so sticking around for a second big payday doesn’t imply anything about his onfield performance, positive or negative.

What it would mean for Bellinger:

Much like the three-year deal this won’t necessarily paint a picture of whether he played well or he played poorly.

While players would love to get more guaranteed money, locking in $60 million dollars and then being able to hit the open market again prior to his age-30 season gives Bellinger an opportunity to secure more than if he’d signed a long-term deal right now.

If he had signed the deal that was advocated earlier this week, eight years for $200 million dollars that would have likely been his last big league contract as it would have ended after his age-36 season.

However, by signing this deal he can potentially still get that “overpay” in two years (with a higher Competitive Balance Tax threshold) meaning in order to match the value of that massive original deal he would just need it to be a six-year $140 million dollar deal, but if he plays as well as we expect he should be able to surpass that.

What it would mean for the Cubs:

This is the ideal scenario for the Cubs. If Bellinger opts out after the second year that means that he believes he can do better than $20 million on the open market which means he’s been a solid player that has been worth his value as a free agent.

In this scenario, he’d walk while Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch, Matt Shaw, Owen Caissie, Cade Horton, Ben Brown, and Jordan Wicks are all still in pre-arbitration and Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Nico Hoerner, and Jameson Taillon are entering the final years of their deal. That would mean that going into the 2025-2026 offseason the team would have the flexibility to build the roster in a way that would fill the holes that will present themselves as prospect hype fizzles out or injuries pop up.

Option Three: One-year $30 million dollars

As I said, this version of the deal and the two-year version strike me as the most likely of the three options. In this scenario, Bellinger proves that 2023 wasn’t a fluke and he hits the open market as the top position player available prior to his 30th birthday because he thinks he can get more than $50 million guaranteed.

What it would mean for Bellinger:

This means that he mashes.

We already know he can play defense and this year he proves it by playing center field when PCA needs a day off but plays a majority of the time at first base where he likely wins another Gold Glove. He puts together another season where he hits .300 and joins the 20/20 club for homers and stolen bases.

In this world, the eight-year $200 million dollar deal we posited becomes a possibility and he pocketed another $30 million in 2024 on top of it so it’s a win-win.

What it would mean for the Cubs:

If Bellinger puts together the season listed above and the prospects are as valuable as we all hope they are, this could mean the Cubs win the 2024 World Series. Bellinger seems to love Chicago, so in order for him to walk:

Someone would need to be offering the deal outlined above and that tends to happen for guys that perform in October
He’d need to feel like his job in Chicago was done.

If he’s no longer on the books at the $30 million dollar mark it would allow the Cubs to allocate those funds elsewhere going into the 2025 season. If Michael Busch, Matt Mervis, or Haydn McGeary don’t appear to be the answer at first base they could look at Pete Alonso. Or if they have their answer to the first base question they could look to fill the hole in the rotation left by Kyle Hendricks with a star like Corbin Burnes or Gerrit Cole.

I think I speak for everyone when I say if the Cubs entered the 2025 season with a World Series ring and Corbin Burnes rather than Cody Bellinger at $50 million over the next two seasons, we’d all be pretty happy.

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