{"id":382784,"date":"2026-01-02T02:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382784\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:55:07","slug":"yankees-have-reportedly-made-offer-to-cody-bellinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382784\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Have Reportedly Made Offer To Cody Bellinger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees made a formal contract offer to\u00a0Cody Bellinger<\/a> this week, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a>. Specifics of the proposal aren\u2019t known.<\/p>\n

General manager Brian Cashman has made no secret of the team\u2019s desire to keep Bellinger. The former MVP\u2019s first year in the Bronx was excellent. He hit .272\/.334\/.480 with 29 home runs, his most in a season since 2019. Bellinger\u2019s bat played very well at Yankee Stadium, where he put up a .302\/.365\/.544 line with 18 longballs.<\/p>\n

New York acquired Bellinger from the Cubs last winter in what amounted to a salary dump. They parted with journeyman righty Cody Poteet<\/a> while assuming all but $5MM of the remaining two years and $52.5MM on Bellinger\u2019s contract. As he ended up opting out, the Yankees paid $27.5MM for that excellent year. It might require a five- or six-year commitment to bring him back as he enters his age-30 season.<\/p>\n

The Yankees have had a quiet first couple months of the offseason. Their only move of significance was issuing the qualifying offer to\u00a0Trent Grisham<\/a>. He surprisingly accepted and is back in center field on a one-year deal at $22.025MM. Bellinger was ineligible to receive the QO after getting one from the Cubs over the 2023-24 offseason.<\/p>\n

Grisham\u2019s salary accounts for the majority of the $29.025MM they\u2019ve spent in free agency<\/a> so far. The remaining $7MM has been divided among a trio of one-year deals to bring back\u00a0Paul Blackburn<\/a>,\u00a0Amed Rosario<\/a> and\u00a0Ryan Yarbrough<\/a>. Their only MLB acquisition from outside the organization has been Rule 5 pick\u00a0Cade Winquest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That certainly won\u2019t be the Yankees\u2019 entire offseason. They presumably expected Bellinger\u2019s free agency to carry well into the winter. The top two free agent hitters,\u00a0Kyle Tucker<\/a> and\u00a0Bo Bichette<\/a>, each make sense on paper if Bellinger heads elsewhere. Signing one of Tucker or Bellinger would allow them to rotate their outfielders through the designated hitter spot if\u00a0Giancarlo Stanton<\/a> spends any time on the injured list. Bellinger could spell Ben Rice<\/a> at first base and\/or take playing time in left field from\u00a0Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a>, who still has a pair of options remaining.<\/p>\n

An outfielder isn\u2019t an absolute necessity, but it\u2019s probably the cleanest path to adding an impact position player. Shortstop would be the primary alternative. Bichette is the only real solution there and faces questions about his defensive fit. He could be an option to handle shortstop for a season and move over to second base once Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> hits free agency a year from now. The Yankees have reportedly made Chisholm available in trade conversations, but that\u2019d swap out one of their better all-around position players in the process.<\/p>\n

The other option would be to make a rotation splash with\u00a0Gerrit Cole<\/a>,\u00a0Carlos Rod\u00f3n<\/a> and\u00a0Clarke Schmidt<\/a> opening the season on the injured list. Framber Valdez<\/a>,\u00a0Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> and\u00a0Zac Gallen<\/a> are the best remaining free agent starters now that NPB righty\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a> is off the board on a three-year deal<\/a>\u00a0with Houston. The Yankees were one of the teams linked to Imai when he was a free agent, but both Heyman<\/a> and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com<\/a> wrote after the signing that the Yanks were not seriously involved in the bidding.<\/p>\n

RosterResource<\/a> projects the Yankees for a $286MM luxury tax number. Owner Hal Steinbrenner has spoken generally about a desire to stay below the $300MM mark in the past, though Cashman suggested in November<\/a> that\u2019s not a firm limit this offseason. The Yankees had a $320MM luxury tax payroll at the end of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees made a formal contract offer to\u00a0Cody Bellinger this week, reports Jon Heyman of The New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[4711,363,99,149619],"class_list":{"0":"post-382784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-cody-bellinger","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tatsuya-imai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}