Ivy League Cubs

By: Jake Russell

The Cubs worst nightmares are here–Cody Bellinger has opted into his contract for the 2025 season, meaning he’ll make 27.5 million dollars, and have another option for the 2026 season. There was some speculation that he may opt out, but it seems that he and Scott Boras ultimately decided against it.

This is a huge shakeup, so to speak, for Jed Hoyer and the Chicago Cubs’ offseason–and it makes his job a lot more difficult this offseason. Fangraphs now projects the Cubs to be at roughly 198 million dollars for the 2025 season based on arbitration estimates, leaving about 43 million dollars in luxury tax space.

While signing Juan Soto was already unlikely, this basically eliminates any possibility the Cubs ever had of landing the superstar outfielder. It seems as if the Cubs barely went over the first Tax Threshold in 2024, meaning they’ll likely be more hesitant to go over it again in 2025–a potentially fateful error regarding financial flexibility in 2025 and beyond.

Bellinger, quite predictably, regressed hard from his 2023 season. Though his results in 2023 were quite good, he had some worrying underlying metrics–which only got worse in 2024. Bellinger has essentially lost all sense of power and plate discipline he once possessed, trading them for less whiffs. Though he was a productive hitter in 2023, Bellinger likely needed to change some aspects of his approach to maintain that approach long-term, which he did not, and he regressed hard in 2024.

Giving into Bellinger and Scott Boras’ demands was never a good idea, seeing as Bellinger was due for some major regression, and now the Cubs have to navigate around the roster crunch of Bellinger being the worst outfielder on the team making 27.5 million dollars.

One option that likely will not happen is the Cubs could attempt to trade Bellinger. This could require them to eat some of his salary, which would be worth it, in my opinion, but there also likely aren’t very many other suitors for Cody Bellinger, especially at this price point.

The real issue with Bellinger is that he’s just making way too much money. It’s generally accepted that, on the free agency market, teams pay 8 million dollars for every Win Above Replacement (WAR). Bellinger was worth 2.2 fWAR last year, which equates to ~17 million dollars–a far cry from the 27.5 million they paid him. Similarly, Bellinger is currently projected for less than 3 fWAR per Steamer and ZiPS projections on Fangraphs.

Bellinger probably isn’t a bad player, but he’s making a lot of money to be a mediocre player–with a lot of downside if he can’t start hitting for more power again, or stop swinging at everything. There are still legit concerns with this profile, and the risk that he opts in for 2026 again is very high, and, unfortunately, it will affect the Cubs roster construction for this year and beyond.

Picture Credit: David Zalubowski, Associated Press