What happens to Cody Bellinger for next season and beyond will help set the direction of the Chicago Cubs for years to come.
That sounds like hyperbole, but it really isn’t.
Bellinger came off two awful seasons, largely ruined by injuries, to have an excellent, 4.4 bWAR season on the North Side of Chicago. It wasn’t quite what his 2019 MVP season for the Dodgers was, but it was basically equivalent to what he did his Rookie of the Year season in 2017 and a bit better than the followup in 2018. If not for the knee injury that cost Bellinger a month, he’d likely have had a 30-HR, 100-RBI season (he finished with 26 and 97) and possibly stolen 25 bases (as it was, he had a career-high 20).