Just a week before Cody Bellinger and the Cubs reportedly came to an agreement on a 3-year, $80M deal, David Kaplan of a morning sports show on ESPN1000 in Chicago gave us this tweet; “Marc Malanti’s wife Jeanne of Lou Malnati’s was just texting with Cody’s mother in Mexico. They’re friends. They offered free pizza for life to sweeten the deal. […] BTW, his mom loves Lou Malnati’s”. Now do I really think that an offer of free pizza for life was what made this deal happen? No, absolutely not.
Good friend and one of my first interviewees for DJAWN.COM, former MLB agent Joshua Kusnick, put it simply for me a few days ago when I asked him his opinion on the big free agents being unsigned this late into the offseason. “They’ll all get signed” was what he told me, and I had figured that, so I asked him why things were taking so long, and he told me “Teams are playing games with money”. It makes sense, especially after what could be considered a “fluke” of a season for Bellinger. And the Cubs didn’t necessarily need Cody Bellinger, they have a rising prospect in Pete Crow-Armstrong who can cover Center Field, then Mike Tauchman or Michael Busch for First Base.
The Cubs simply wanted Cody Bellinger, but not at his asking price. Instead of $25-30M a year for 5 or more years, Cody had to settle. Cody will get an AAV of $26.6M for 3 years, in a deal that is front loaded, paying him $30M in 2024 and 2025 (if he doesn’t opt-out after the first year) and $20M to wrap up the contract in 2026 (if he doesn’t opt-out after 2025). And what’s nice for everyone is that nobody has to lose a draft pick! The Cubs were the team to give Cody his Qualifying Offer after the 2023 World Series, and they ended up re-signing him anyway. I don’t think that the $15M Player Option from the original deal signed in the 2022 offseason was ever going to cut it for Cody Bellinger if he bounced back like he did, and he basically quintupled that number in guaranteed money, plus he got himself and his mom free pizza at Lou’s for life!
