Cubs trade Cody Bellinger to the Yankees

The Chicago Cubs have made a move to address their outfield logjam, trading Cody Bellinger to the New York Yankees on Tuesday. In return, the Cubs will receive Cody Poteet, a 30-year-old right-handed pitcher.

As soon as Bellinger opted into his 2025 contract, he became arguably the club’s top trade candidate.

He took a bit of a step back last season compared to his first year in Chicago. Though Bellinger played the same number of games in both seasons as he dealt with various injuries, he went from a 4.4 fWAR player (FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement) to a 2.2 fWAR player. His wRC+ dropped from 136 to 109.

Part of the decline was due to Bellinger’s attempts to play through some pain to shorten his time on the injured list for fractured ribs and a fractured left-middle finger. The conditions at Wrigley Field (the second-toughest ballpark on hitters, according to Statcast’s Park Factor metric) played a role, too.

But overall, the production just didn’t match the salary, and once Bellinger opted back in for 2025 — even before the Cubs brought Tucker on board — this was always a possibility.

Despite Cubs manager Craig Counsell saying during the Winter Meetings in Dallas last week that he’s “glad Cody’s back in the mix,” this became the route they took to clear things up. Although, it’s not as if Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer was going to make this kind of move just to clear some room.

“When it comes to the outfield, whether it’s prospects, whether it’s major league players, we have depth there,” Hoyer said during the Winter Meetings. “But we also have really good players there. I think every year I talk about this, but depth is really valuable, and we can move guys around to do different things. If a deal comes to us that makes sense to trade out of our surplus, we can do that, but only if it makes sense for us.”

In making this trade, it looks like Hoyer found a deal that makes sense for the Cubs. Bellinger is owed $27.5 million dollars in 2025 and holds a $25 million player option (with a $5 million buyout attached) for 2026. In order to get the deal done, the Cubs are reportedly paying $5 million of the money remaining on his contract ($2.5 million in both 2025 and 2026, per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers).

It’s not that the Cubs didn’t want Bellinger on their team next season.

He’s a good left-handed hitter with strong defensive versatility (he can play across the outfield and first base). He’s been a great addition to the clubhouse over the last two seasons, fitting in seamlessly with the rest of the personalities on the team. It would’ve been far from a bad scenario for the Cubs to have him on their roster in 2025.

That didn’t stop the trade-rumor mill from heating up over the last week, with Bellinger’s name involved plenty, and that obviously resulted in uncertainty over his future.

“I think it’s always nice that teams want you,” Bellinger’s agent, Scott Boras, said during the Winter Meetings. “Cody and I’ve been talking a lot about it. Whenever a player is in this situation, there’s always an expectancy. We also know that where Cody’s at in his career, what his contract is, I think he’s going to be going to a very competitive team, if it happens, and if he stays in Chicago, that’ll be a place he’s very welcome.”

The Cubs already had a glut of outfield options with Bellinger, Seiya Suzuki, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Ian Happ, plus Owen Caissie, Kevin Alcántara and Alexander Canario (no options remaining) on the 40-man roster as depth. Add in Friday’s trade with the Houston Astros for Kyle Tucker, and that left an outfield conundrum for Hoyer to address.

Just after noon Tuesday, Hoyer met with Chicago media members via Zoom (an hour before Tucker was officially introduced) and again fielded questions about the Cubs’ outfield.

Though he was clearly playing things close to the vest when asked about potentially moving an outfielder, he didn’t shy away from the fact that the construction of the roster could present some challenges, in terms of how to balance things out around the field.

“Obviously, we’ll have discussions around them,” Hoyer said. “I think that, obviously, they’re all really good players, and there may be some overlap in playing challenges there — or maybe we can make it work. I think we’ll continue to have discussions about that. If something makes sense for next year, we would talk about it. But I’m not going to sit here and talk about any individual player’s likelihood of being traded. I don’t think that’s fair to them, and it’s not really that smart in terms of an organizational standpoint.”

There’s always a need for depth, especially good depth, and Bellinger’s versatility could’ve allowed the Cubs to move pieces around. The Tucker trade left a spot open at third base, and Hoyer was asked if Michael Busch could be an option.

He shot that down, though, saying, “We really see Michael as a Gold Glove first baseman, and that’s our focus.” He was also asked about top prospect Matt Shaw, and he said the Cubs plan to give him “a long look at third.” That seemed to answer the question of if they would move players around and perhaps put Bellinger at first base.

It’s no surprise, then, that just a few hours later, Hoyer found a way to clear up the outfield logjam by sending Bellinger to the Bronx, providing the Cubs some flexibility, both financially and with roster construction.

In Poteet, the Cubs get a 30-year-old righty with 24 appearances in the big leagues, coming over three seasons (two with the Miami Marlins, one with the Yankees). He pitched in five games (four starts) for New York in 2024, recording a 2.22 ERA and 1.07 WHIP across 24 1/3 innings. He’s entering his last year of pre-arbitration and has two minor league options remaining.

With Bellinger’s contract off the books, FanGraphs’ RosterResource projects the Cubs to be just under $50 million below the first luxury-tax threshold. With all that financial space and some other spots on the roster to address, expect Hoyer and the Cubs to continue being active over the last two months of the offseason.

“It’s still early in the offseason, and certainly, there’s a lot of players out there,” Hoyer said. “Our team is not complete, so we’ll continue to make a lot of moves. We’re not done. We have to continue to round out the team to get better for next year.”

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