‘Craving baseball,’ Bellinger motivated to have another big year with Cubs

The long and short of it is this: Cody Bellinger is going to be playing for the Cubs again this year.

When he became a free agent at the end of the 2023 season following a stellar debut with the Cubs, there is little doubt Bellinger was looking to secure a new contract in the seven-year, $200 million range.

“Ultimately, that's the goal,” Bellinger told reporters Wednesday at the Cubs' training camp in Mesa, Arizona. “For me, I talked to (Scott Boras, his agent) continuously to see what was going on. And at the end of the day, super excited how it all worked out.

“I was craving baseball. I was fiending for it.”

Returning to the Cubs, Bellinger wound up getting a deal much smaller in scope: $80 million over three years.

But the 28-year-old center fielder/first baseman could sooner or later be chasing a longer contract. He can opt out on his new deal after this season or after the 2025 season.

For now, Bellinger's in camp and presently focused on helping the Cubs make it to the playoffs after they ran out of gas down the stretch and missed out in 2023.

“We were so close last year to becoming a playoff team,” Bellinger said. “That was a pretty important piece for me, to get back here. I want to help bring this team to the playoffs.”

In 2023, Bellinger hit .307/.356/.525 in 130 games and led the Cubs in home runs (26) and RBI (97).

He proved he was much more like the player who won National League MVP honors with the Dodgers in 2019 than the one who followed up with three straight subpar seasons with Los Angeles that were marred by injuries.

If Bellinger can have a second straight productive year for the Cubs, he's much more likely to opt out and get his monster contract.

With Cubs president Tom Ricketts sitting out of the negotiations, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told reporters talks with Boras gained steam last week and the contract was agreed on early Sunday morning.

Hoyer also said discussions about Bellinger began last July.

“With any negotiation, I think there's sometimes a misperception that we just fire offers back and forth to each other,” Hoyer said. “There's a lot of talking about what each side wanted and over the last five to seven days before we got a deal done, we targeted a deal that made sense for both sides.”

Obviously, Hoyer is happy to have Bellinger back, even if it might be for only one more season.

During Cubs Convention in mid-January, Dansby Swanson, Kyle Hendricks and Nico Hoerner were among the players openly lobbying for Bellinger's return.

“It didn’t surprise me that there was so much desire to bring him back,” Hoyer said. “But I think they wanted to bring back the player, and they wanted to bring back the person, and that’s wonderful.”

Bellinger has plenty of time to get ready for the Cubs' season opener, a March 28 game at Texas.

New manager Craig Counsell is not going to rush him, and Bellinger is not expected to play in a Cactus League game until sometime next week.

Like Hoyer, Counsell was thrilled to see Bellinger back in uniform and on the field Wednesday.

He was also impressed with the way Bellinger bounced back last season.

“The impressive thing is he has reached such heights in the game, he reached the top of the mountain,” Counsell said. “For those guys we say, ‘Just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it,’ like never leave the top of the mountain. It’s super hard. He never gave that up.

“Everybody knew that was coming, and he’s a young man still and has a ton of baseball left. I don’t think anyone ever questioned whether he would stop going for it and stop the fight. It was coming, and the Cubs got the benefit of it.”