IT WAS AN early Saturday morning at Wrigley Field. Most of the Chicago Cubs' roster wouldn't arrive for their game against the Kansas City Royals for hours. But at 8:30 a.m., about six hours before first pitch, Cubs center fielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger and hitting coach Dustin Kelly took the field.
Bellinger had been unhappy with his approach at the plate in the previous game, a 4-3 defeat. He went 0-for-5 with a strikeout, uncharacteristically swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. And so he and Kelly went through an extended batting practice, working on reading pitches and keeping his hip from flying open.
The work paid off. Later that day, Bellinger had his 17th career multihomer game and surpassed the 20 home run mark in a season for the first time since 2019 -- the year he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Back then, Bellinger's career arc had him on track to be one of the great players of his era. A Rookie of the Year Award in 2017 was followed by the MVP in 2019 -- which came with a Gold Glove, as well. In between, he played in 162 games in 2018. Durable and productive, at one of the game's premier positions, the 6-foot-4 lefty swinger was also working his way toward a massive payday.
And then he dislocated his right shoulder celebrating a home run in the 2020 National League Championship Series while leaping into the air to meet teammate Enrique Hernandez for a forearm bash. And everything changed.
"I came back as soon as possible from it, not knowing anything," Bellinger told ESPN. "I never dealt with an injury. I never thought how surgery would really affect me. Didn't even know that it did until later on in that year (2021) when I did some one-hand drills. I was like, 'I had no idea where anything [with the shoulder] is right now.'"
"This is about barrel control," his agent, Scott Boras, said in a phone interview. "You have to have the strength to have the barrel control in your front arm. He couldn't keep his barrel on plane. He couldn't extend it. He just couldn't execute the normal, Cody Bellinger swing."
Some of the circumstances were out of his control. The pandemic got in the way of his recovery from the shoulder surgery in 2020.
"Then we had a lockout and I couldn't work with people that I wanted to work with," Bellinger said. "I never got to get back to who I was until this offseason."
As a result, his numbers plummeted; Bellinger compiled an OPS+ of just 44 in 2021 and 81 in 2022. He hit .165 in 95 games in 2021, limited by the shoulder and a foot injury. His .210 batting average in 2022 came with just 38 walks and 150 strikeouts. His days in Los Angeles were done. He wasn't offered a contract for the 2023 season.
"With an actual injury, it can be tough, because it can feel like you're putting all your energy into just going out to play," Cubs teammate Dansby Swanson said. "It can rob you of your joy of playing and being present, in the moment."
Swanson speaks from experience. In 2018, an injured wrist impacted him early and late that season, forcing him to miss the playoffs.
"Mentally, it's a grind," he said. "Without knowing it you may be protecting yourself a little bit. 'I'm trying to do this with my swing, but my body is not allowing me to do what I want to do.'"
It's the same experience Bellinger had -- but this past offseason was a difference-maker. He was healthy and more relaxed, working out with family, including dad Clay, a former big league player.
"I was hitting at my high school with him," the younger Bellinger said. "Just having fun on the baseball field, remembering again it's just a game. It's the same game I was playing since I was 7."
Bellinger, finally healthy, has found his stroke again in Chicago. He has been so good the surprising Cubs elected not to deal him at the trade deadline despite some high-profile suitors -- and instead he has become the face of an unlikely contender. And though his immediate focus is a wild-card spot, if not an NL Central title, Bellinger will become one of baseball's most sought-after free agents after the season.
NO ONE IN Bellinger's orbit was shocked when the Dodgers non-tendered him. Even with two down seasons, the arbitration system still meant a hefty salary for 2023, and there were lingering question marks about his game. Could a team contending for a World Series afford the gamble?
"The point I made to [Cubs president] Jed [Hoyer] and others is when a player has 1.000 OPS and .900 OPS seasons, and never below .800, and is ROY/MVP all in three years, then has a .550 and .650 OPS, it's obviously not skill," Boras said. "It's lack of shoulder strength due to surgery.
"Jed agreed. A healthy Cody is the five-tool MVP Cody."
The Cubs signed him to a one-year, $17.5 million contract in mid-December. They were in the middle of a retooling phase and could afford whatever Bellinger could give them. If he was good, and it helped them win, great. If he was good, but the team wasn't, they could try flipping him in July. If Bellinger couldn't return to form, Hoyer could fall back on an old baseball adage: There are no bad one-year deals. Bellinger would move on in 2024, making room for top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Instead, Bellinger has been great, alternating between center field and first base, playing elite defense while putting up big offensive numbers. His .924 OPS ranks fifth in the NL, as does his WRC+ of 145. He's not likely to win the NL MVP but he'll get plenty of down-ballot votes. And he has easily been the MVP of the Cubs, who went 11-15 for exactly a month without him in the lineup because of a knee injury. More telling, their team OPS dropped more than 100 points without him, from .763 to .651.
Bellinger's average exit velocity (87.2 mph) is actually the lowest of his career, and there's no one in MLB with a bigger difference between his expected (.266) and actual (.321) batting average. His .333 batting average on balls in play helps in that department, but he gets credit for making more contact than ever. His strikeout percentage has crashed, from a career-high 27.3% last season to a career-low 15.7% this year.
"Being able to control the bat and hit more pitches," Bellinger explained about what being healthy means. "It doesn't have to be in one spot of the zone anymore. Able to consistently put my swing on the ball, and that creates results."
His comeback began in January in those batting sessions with his father, then continued with Cubs hitting coaches with whom he had familiarity -- former Dodgers coaches Kelly and Johnny Washington.
"It worked out that I lived super close to the spring complex [in Mesa, Arizona]," Bellinger said. "And I knew those guys. The transition was easy."
Kelly was asked for some technical reasons for Bellinger finding his groove again, now that he's healthy:
"A lot of it is setup," Kelly explained. "He's grounded in with his back leg a little bit more. He has a little more flex in his back hip. There's a slight bend in his back knee. And he's kind of set his hands slightly higher than they had been. We got him back up by his ear. It's allowed him to set his line. When he's lined up in the box and kind of gets that release point from the pitcher, he's got a really good posture and line that he sticks to. I think that's the feeling he's been searching for."
Getting his shoulder right and then his mechanics was half the battle. Baseball might be the only sport for which even stars need constant reassurance. Building up their hitters is also half the job for hitting coaches.
"The game will beat you up," Kelly said. "We're constantly reminding them you're really good. There aren't a lot of guys in this league that do what you do.
"[The pitcher's] name doesn't say Bellinger on the back of his jersey. Confidence is a big deal. We try to pump him up every so often."
AS BELLINGER FOUND success in the first half, the Cubs were still figuring out the course of their season. Would they be contending at the trade deadline -- or offloading? Chicago's front office executed resets in each of the past two seasons, taking criticism for trading away 2016 World Series stars Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Those deals look brilliant in hindsight.
For Bellinger's part, he understood what he was getting into when he signed: "I knew that getting traded was a possibility. You can't think that far ahead."
As the trade deadline shook out, with few hitters on the market, it became more clear the Cubs would not only save salary by moving Bellinger, but also likely get a haul in return.
"He was a popular guy," Hoyer said. "Clearly, he was going to be the best bat available. A lot of teams checked in on him."
None were ready to be more aggressive than the New York Yankees, according to sources familiar with the situation. But as the days to the deadline ticked down, the Cubs kept on winning.
Scoring eight unanswered runs against the White Sox on July 26 after falling behind 7-2 secured one victory, then, two days later, a two-out, ninth-inning, over-the-wall catch by Mike Tauchman in St. Louis clinched another one. What was going to be a tough deadline strategy decision for Hoyer turned into an easy one: Serious offers for Bellinger, Marcus Stroman and others were never discussed.
"By the time we got to that point, it became obvious," Hoyer said. "Teams were calling, saying, 'You're not selling. You guys are good, you guys are going to buy.' People stopped taking us seriously as a seller."
One scout following Bellinger joked, "He wasted my expense account, following this guy around."
At this point, Hoyer was having daily conversations with ownership involving one simple question: Can the team compete for the playoffs if it adds instead of subtracts at the trade deadline?
"Over the course of those last two weeks of July, the answer kept coming back yes," Cubs owner Tom Ricketts told ESPN. "We always have the ability to improve in the middle of the season. The players get to decide for us. If we play well enough to add, we do it. If we don't, then we have to think about the future.
"This is Jed's call. In the end, he's responsible for the performance on the field, both the current season and future seasons, so it's a tough spot to put him in, but that's his responsibility. We talk every day, but thankfully the team played its way into being really comfortable [in the standings]."
But Ricketts wasn't the only one Hoyer was hearing from. Swanson, on the IL because of a heel injury, inserted himself into the process, too.
"Dansby on the IL was a dangerous thing," Hoyer said recently on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. "He was almost a front office member at that point because he was bored.
"He kept on saying, 'We're trying to build something and you can't just snap your fingers and say now we're winning.' He wanted to keep pushing. 'We may make it, we may not, but we'll continue to have a winning culture.' That was his point.
"He's a better shortstop than a front office member, but he was really helpful in the process."
On trade deadline day, Bellinger had three hits. He would add 16 more over the next 10 games helping the Cubs move further into wild-card contention. The NL Central title is also in reach. His 1.018 OPS in August is seventh in the NL. Barring a terrible September, Bellinger will enter free agency as the best player on the market this side of Shohei Ohtani. A package worth upward of $150 million to $200 million -- or more -- isn't out of the question.
Bellinger is waving off questions about his future.
"There's still so much to do," he said. "We're in the playoff hunt. It gives us purpose every day we come to the park."
But when pushed about staying in Chicago -- perhaps at first base as Crow-Armstrong matures to the big leagues -- Bellinger added:
"Wrigley Field is an amazing place to play baseball. It's cool coming here on the road, but it's something different playing for the home team. It really is one of the best places to play."
He noted that his former team seemed to visit Chicago early in the season, mostly in April and May, in recent years.
"I never saw the ivy," Bellinger said with a smile. "It's cool."