Cody's back, and so are the Cubs
Back to about as good as they were last year



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You have to hand it to Jed Hoyer1. Just when we thought he was being stubborn and risk averse and cheap, it turns out he was being stubborn and risk averse and cheap and right. He waited out the Cody Bellinger free agent market, believing that it wouldn’t ever develop and he was right. And in the end he came out a winner. He gets a four WAR player who can hit for power and average, run the bases and play Gold Glove caliber defense at two spots where the Cubs have no clear answers otherwise, and he only has to pay him $30 million this year and only has to pay him another $30 million next year if he sucks this year.
The re-addition of Bellinger takes the Cubs from a muddle in the NL Central where anybody but the Pirates could have won it and makes them the clear favorites. Funny how adding a really good player increases your chances of winning.
I spent a lot of time complaining that the deal Jed signed Cody to last offseason should have been two years instead of one. The Cubs were taking on the risk of Cody turning his career back around and purposely limiting the potential rewards. Well, Jed showed me. Cody is back for that second year and it only cost him potentially $68 million more than it would have then.
Crack baseball expert Bob Nightengale seemed really impressed that just hours after Bellinger signed his contract that he was already in camp taking his physical. Already? Bob, he’s nearly two weeks late. It’s not like he has a gas station in the Dominican to worry about, Cody lives like six minutes from the Cubs facility. He could have walked there.