Chicago Cubs life without Cody Bellinger could become new reality

The Chicago Cubs had a fantastic start to spring from an offensive production perspective, but there was one player that was notably absent: Cody Bellinger.

We (along with most in Chicago sports media) have talked ad nauseum about whether or not the Cubs would pony up the necessary money to go get the 2023 Comeback Player of the Year, but Spring Training has begun and he’s nowhere to be found.

Bellinger is a part of what is being, somewhat less than lovingly, referred to as the Boras Four along with 3B Matt Chapman and LHPs Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery. 

MLB Trade Rumors ran a poll during the game on Friday asking fans to vote on which of the four will sign first and over 10,000 readers had responded at the time of writing this piece.

The unfortunate discovery I made, as a fan of a team that is only reasonably in the running for one of the four, is that Cody Bellinger was dead last in votes. 

Jordan Montgomery is seemingly close to a deal in Boston so the fact that he led the list with over 31% of the vote was no surprise, but Blake Snell coming in second with more than 30% of the vote was a shock. 

At the moment the team he’s most clearly connected to is the Yankees but in order to sign him to a $40 million dollar contract it would cost the team $80 million real dollars due to Competitive Balance Tax purposes. 

Next, Matt Chapman came in with almost 23% of the vote leaving Cody Bellinger with just a little over 15% of voters believing he’ll be the first of the four to sign. 

What does that say? To me, it says two things:

Cody Bellinger doesn’t have another realistic bidder to push the Cubs.

Baseball fans know that Jed Hoyer and company won’t spend a single cent over what they feel comfortable with.

It was great to watch the Cubs offense show up in a big way against the White Sox, but I’d love to get Cody Bellinger in a new (and shockingly terrible) Nike Cubs jersey as soon as possible.

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