As his second straight offseason as a free agent got underway, there were questions about Cody Bellinger’s ability to repeat his bounce-back 2023 season.
Despite being named the National League Comeback Player of the Year and finishing 10th in NL MVP voting, plenty of people voiced concerns over some of Bellinger’s underlying metrics, particularly in terms of his quality of contact. If you check his player page on Baseball Savant, you can see why: His overall average exit velocity (22nd percentile), barrel rate (27th percentile) and hard-hit rate (10th percentile) didn’t look too great.
He did go out and put up a slugging percentage (.525) and an isolated power (.218) that were both his highest since his 2019 MVP season and third-highest of his career. But questions about the underlying numbers remained.
Of course, interested teams do a lot more information gathering than just checking out a player’s percentiles. But considering the longer-term contract he hoped for didn’t happen, it probably played a factor in him ultimately signing a three-year deal to return to the Cubs instead.
Still, those concerns were coming from the outside. Bellinger instead made it clear his faith in himself to play at the level he did last season never wavered.
“I definitely obviously hear it and kind of brush it off,” Bellinger said of the outside noise at his re-introductory press conference Wednesday inside the Cubs’ spring training complex in Mesa, Ariz. “I think that there’s a lot of different variables that go into it, and not to look at one certain stat to dictate a whole season.”
So, how do you explain some of those numbers?
One thing Bellinger’s agent, Scott Boras, discussed was his two-strike approach, where he turned to “a more contact approach, rather than taking a customary powerful swing as he would early in the counts.” That echoed what Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly told CHGO last summer about how Bellinger approached two-strike counts.
“I talk about it all the time: Guys have different clubs in their bags, and the best hitters have multiple clubs,” Kelly said. “He has the driver, which we’ve seen hitting balls off the scoreboard, but then he also has that seven or eight-iron where he can shoot a ball to left-center and get it over the shortstop’s head and in front of the left fielder. He can scoot a ball through the six-hole, he can beat out a ball up the middle. He just has a lot of clubs in his bag, and it’s hard to get out.
“That’s him being perfectly OK toning down his swing, knowing that he has the ability to get on base and he can steal second because the speed is back. So, he has all of that stuff in his repertoire, and he’s using all of it right now.”
Across the 2023 season, Bellinger’s two-strike numbers did reflect that. In terms of the quality of contact, his average exit velocity (86.2 mph), hard-hit rate (25.3 percent) and barrel rate (2.7 percent) were all below league average (87.9 mph, 36.1 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively) in those situations (per Statcast).
But take into account what Boras and Kelly said. Bellinger was adjusting to the situation, swinging to put the ball in play and get on base — and considering his .313 on-base percentage in two-strike counts was well above the .249 league average, it looks like the right choice.
It helps explain why the overall contact quality would be lower, because sacrificing some of that to make sure he put the ball in play would of course bring the numbers down.
Boras also discussed what Bellinger did when the at-bat was more in his favor.
“When we talk about soft contact, they don’t talk about the counts,” Boras said. “When he has 0-0, 1-0, 2-0 and 3-1 counts, check what his contact strength is.”
When Bellinger was either at 0-0 or ahead in the count, those numbers did spike back up. His average exit velocity, his hard-hit hit rate and barrel rate rose to 90 mph, 35.3 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively (per Statcast).
Those numbers don’t necessarily jump off the page — the last two were still below league average in those situations, though closer to the mean than in two-strike counts — which might also be part of why some had questions about the contact quality in the first place. But along with the two-strike stats, they provide some necessary context to help alleviate some of the concerns about the overall numbers.
Regardless, Bellinger hasn’t let the outside noise affect him. His confidence that he can perform like he did in 2023 remains high.
“I definitely trust myself as a baseball player to go out every single day and put my best product on the field,” Bellinger said. “I trust that the positive results are gonna come. I believe in myself.”
As long as he can do that, the Cubs will take it — metrics be damned.
