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This next week for the Chicago Cubs always feels like playoff baseball. If they have a good week, they will be able to be in a situation to buy at the MLB's August 1st trade deadline. If they have a losing week, it appears all bets are off, and the team will sell off its valuable assets in Cody Bellinger, Marcus Stroman, and potentially others. However, looking at what has transpired throughout the season to get us where we are, identifying what's going on now, and how things can still shake up over the remainder of the season provides reason to believe that the Cubs still have a shot in the NL Central.
The Cubs have several reasons to believe they're turning the corner and can turn on the jets in the second half. Now, Let's go ahead and glance over why the Cubs need to be buyers this season, no matter what. Collectively, all five of these reasons make sense for the Cubs to be buyers at the deadline, regardless of what happens over the next week of baseball games.
5 reasons the Chicago Cubs should buy - Cody Bellinger is back in MVP form
With all the talk of how much Cody Bellinger could hypothetically net the Cubs in return at the trade deadline, let's shift gears and understand how much keeping him also makes sense. We've already discussed how we will be staying if the Cubs keep winning. For a guy that struggled to get anywhere near his MVP season in 2019 over the past three seasons, Bellinger is now fully healthy from the nagging issues that caused his decline in the first place. Slashing .319/.369/.549 over the season with 14 homers and 44 driven in, his 144 wRC+ puts him in great company, currently 8th in the NL.
Nevertheless, his season numbers are phenomenal, but his month of July has propelled him back to the original heights that led to his MVP season in the first place. This month, Bellinger is slashing a ridiculous .452/.475/.795 with an OPS north of 1,200, ISO of .342, 237 wRC+, and even more impressively, a minuscule 8.8% K rate in 80 plate appearances. It's unrealistic to expect Bellinger to sign a contract extension during the season, but they still need to try to show him how much they want him around. His type of season is what can help put the Cubs on his back and what leads me to my second point.