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Scott Boras reportedly offered a direct assessment of Cody Bellinger’s contract demands.
The New York Yankees have taken some strong steps to re-sign their wayward free agent outfielder Cody Bellinger, but they still won’t go all the way. According to longtime MLB insider Jon Heyman of the New York Post, while Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman are not willing to go beyond a five-year deal for the 30-year-old Bellinger, they “are signaling a willingness to do not just one opt-out, but two opt-outs.”
Not only that, but according to Heyman’s reporting, the Yankees are also willing to include a sizable signing bonus in the deal, which currently stands at $155 million over five seasons.
Report Reveals Honest Take on Boras Demands
But as the Yankees attempt to cajole Bellinger and his agent Scott Boras into accepting a five-year offer, the Toronto Blue Jays now have a golden opportunity to swoop in and steal Bellinger away. And they now know exactly what it will take, if new reporting by Bill Madden of the Post‘s competing paper, the New York Daily News, proves accurate.
According to Madden, Boras has an unvarnished message for the Blue Jays — or any other team looking to add the former National League Rookie of the Year and MVP to its 2026 roster.
It Will Just Take ‘One Dumb Owner’
After the Blue Jays missed out on signing free agent Kyle Tucker, who ended up inking with the Los Angeles Dodgers on a $60 million per year deal, what Boras is now looking for, according to Madden, is simply an owner willing to exceed the Yankees’ offer, even if it means that owner is “dumb.”
“The Yankees insist the Tucker signing has no bearing on their negotiations with Scott Boras on Bellinger. No doubt Boras will attempt to use the $60 million AAV as the new baseline, but the Yankees long ago determined five years at $31 million to $32 million per year was a more-than-fair value offer for the 30-year-old Bellinger, who is a nice player but in no way a superstar,” Madden wrote in his Daily News report Saturday.
“Boras is still hoping to find One Dumb Owner to top that in both years and AAV, but if one does, the Yankees are prepared to move on,” Madden concluded.
Steinbrenner, Madden reported, is “determined to act responsibly” in the pursuit of Bellinger, and will let the lifetime .817 OPS hitter go if another team betters his offer.
Blue Jays Need One More Bat
After the Blue Jays failed to land either Tucker or their own now-former shortstop Bo Bichette, who took a three-year, $126 million deal from the New York Mets that includes an opt-out after each year, the defending American League champions remain in need of another formidable bat for the middle of their lineup.
“The Jays arguably are still a bat away from where they need to be, but the options are dwindling fast,” wrote Will Leitch of MLB.com in an analysis published Friday. “Cody Bellinger is still out there, but if the Jays can’t pry him away from the Yankees, Toronto might suddenly have some concerns with its lineup.”
The Blue Jays have been baseball’s most prolific spenders this offseason, already committing $337 million in free agent contracts. But while they have made their roster better than the one that came two outs short of beating the Dodgers in last year’s World Series, Leitch wrote, “they’re not quite what Jays fans were dreaming they might be.”
Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin
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