When Cody Bellinger was expected to further ascend into the upper echelon of the league’s best players, he sunk.
When Bellinger was expected to continue to plummet, after perhaps the best team at developing talent gave up on him, he bounced back.
But even Bellinger’s rebound season prompted head scratches as he thrived in a vastly different manner than he had previously.
Bellinger is probably not the MVP who smoked 47 home runs in 2019.
He is probably not the unplayable lineup black hole who hit .165 in 2021.
Is he the more contact-oriented, solid-if-not-spectacular piece who reemerged last season?
Unraveling the mystery of the most prized free-agent center fielder in baseball will be paramount to all teams that are bidding for his services, the Yankees included.
Perhaps the most unpredictable of the big-money players on the open market is the 28-year-old outfielder who has, at different times in his career, been among the game’s best and the game’s worst hitters.
From his Rookie of the Year season in 2017 through the 2019 campaign, Bellinger hit the sixth-most homers in MLB (111) and posted the 11th-best OPS (.928) while winning a Gold Glove with the Dodgers.
In 2020, he was merely good in the shortened season before crushing a tie-breaking home run in Game 7 of the NLCS — and injuring his right shoulder celebrating.
After winning the World Series, Bellinger required surgery on that shoulder and has never appeared to be the same.
In 2021 and 2022, Bellinger might have been the most hopeless bat in baseball: Among 161 hitters with at least 850 plate appearances, his .611 OPS was dead last.
The Dodgers, who excel at maximizing talent, non-tendered the former MVP.
The Cubs took a $17.5 million flier on his upside, which paid off. Bellinger played solid defense in center and at first base, and posted an .881 OPS while hitting .307 with 26 home runs, nearly dragging Chicago to the playoffs and inflating his own value in the process.
Agent Scott Boras consistently has said Bellinger’s rebirth was a sign he was healthy following the 2020 surgery.
But his rebound season also drew red flags because Bellinger’s second rise was not like his first.
His 87.9 mph average exit velocity marked the lowest of his career.
Bellinger batted .307, but judging by quality of contact, his expected batting average was .270.
The 37-point differential represented the 10th-highest in baseball, a sign to some that his top-end numbers may have been at least partially luck-based.
Or maybe Bellinger’s excellent stats were an indication he was a smart hitter who evolved with the game.
Fly balls were not becoming home runs as often as in 2018 and 2019, so there was less incentive to swing as hard as he could in hopes of getting under pitches.
Even at his best with Los Angeles, Bellinger struck out a lot.
But with the Cubs, he set a career-best in strikeout rate (15.6 percent, 20th-best in all of baseball) and reinvented himself by putting his bat on the ball, spraying it around the field and using his speed to find hits. His numbers with two strikes, in particular, were strikingly better.
A 28-year-old lefty hitter with pop, with improving contact rates, with the pedigree of Bellinger (including the literal pedigree, the son of former Yankees utility man Clay Bellinger), would be the ideal fit for a Yankees club that scored the sixth-fewest runs in the majors last season.
Bellinger could play a solid center field before Jasson Dominguez returns and could slide to first base in 2025, when Anthony Rizzo’s contract would be finished.
But a club that has been burned by lengthy contracts can ill-afford to miss on another megadeal, and there are entire seasons that show Bellinger’s bat is not a certainty.
A team already hamstrung by lengthy deals that have combusted (notably Giancarlo Stanton’s) would be in major trouble if somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million to Bellinger goes awry.
Regardless, the Yankees will need at least one more outfielder to replace Dominguez.
If not Bellinger, the best center fielders on the market are Kevin Kiermaier and Harrison Bader, who are great defenders with questionable bats and durability.
Who is Bellinger? The Yankees are just one bidder that needs to find out.
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