But I wonder if the “decade-long deal,” or 12 years in this case (and also what MLBTR predicted for Shohei Ohtani) was just a peculiar thing done last year and won’t be repeated. There is some merit to this sort of thing. The “decade-long deals” MLBTR refers to from last year were crafted mainly to reduce the AAV by extending these contracts to years beyond which the player would be productive, paying him more in the early years, less in the later years. A 12-year deal would tie him to the Cubs through age 40. A $22MM AAV over 12 years would narrowly beat Nimmo’s annual salaries while pushing past $250MM total.īellinger is 28. An 11-year or 12-year pact could be on the table. Bogaerts, Machado, Turner and Rafael Devers all signed decade-long deals last winter as teams sought to diminish the AAV. We’re betting on Bellinger’s youth winning out. Bogaerts was paid through 40 off a very similar platform showing to Bellinger’s 2023, albeit with more career consistency. He’d never reached Bellinger’s MVP heights, although he’d also never experienced anything like his downturn. They say 12 years and $264 million and here’s their reasoning:īrandon Nimmo reset the center field market with a $20.25MM annual value over eight seasons from the Mets at age 30. What I do want to look at is the MLB Trade Rumors estimate for what Bellinger might get in free agency.

So I’m not going to belabor all that again you can just read the earlier article for details.

I already wrote a long article here in October about Cody Bellinger and why I’d like to see the Cubs bring him back via the free-agent route.

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