The Most Underrated Player in Baseball.
Photo: @smithbaiad on Twitter
Cody Bellinger.
What a roller-coaster of a career he has had to this point. He debuted in 2017, and his career has been crazy ever since that Rookie of the Year season. Then 2019 happened.
Photo: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
He started the year absolutely red-hot, with one of the best Aprils' in MLB history. He slashed .431/.508/.890 which ended up in a 1.397 OPS. He also had 14 homers with 37 RBI in 31 games to go along with 6 doubles and 5 stolen bases. In 132 at bats, he reached base 69 times, and he walked more than he struck-out with 19 walks and 15 strikeouts.
Everybody knew Bellinger had the talent to achieve something of superstar caliber, but nobody expected anything like this. He proceeded to cool-down a little like any sane person would expect, but not to the degree that everybody thought. He ended up finishing the season slashing .305/.406/.629 for a 161 wRC+, to go along with 21 DRS and also a solid 1.4 BsR. He was in my opinion the best player in baseball this season (Yes, even better than Mike Trout). He ended up winning the 2019 NL MVP, Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger, and was selected to the All-MLB First Team as a Right Fielder. He had 21 DRS, which showed not only his defensive versatility, but his ridiculous physical tools to be elite defensively wherever you put him at.
Photo: MLB Instagram
2020 was definitely an odd year for Bellinger. There was a weird sense that there was less pressure put on him to produce with the addition of Mookie Betts, but it looked as if he had felt all of the pressure in the world. He slashed a mere .239/.333/.455 (113 wRC+) with 12 HR. That’s a positive, though. In a 162 game season, that would’ve been 32 homers and 27 doubles. Along with similar walk and K rates to his 2019 MVP campaign, 2020 was not a bad season for Bellinger as some people thought.
2021 was where the nightmares started for Bellinger. His .165/.240/.302 (48 wRC+) and a mere 10 homers and 9 doubles were not ideal for the superstar in the regular season. Not an excuse, but definitely a need for consideration, was that he sustained multiple major injuries (for the first time in his career) during the season. Not to mention he went through major shoulder surgery in the off-season. He did not have spring training, which ultimately contributed to his very slow start. He also fractured his fibula in early April, which then caused him to miss 2 months of the season. He came back just to train his hamstring which caused him to miss 10 games. Finally, when he thought he was finally getting healthy again, he collided with the second baseman turned center fielder Gavin Lux, which resulted in him cracking a rib. This resulted in his third and final IL stint of the season.
Photo: Jon Soohoo
What he did when he finally got back in his groove is what I think we should look at in my opinion. He finally got in a good stretch right before the postseason and carried that momentum with him into the postseason. In the 2021 Postseason, he slashed .353/.436./.471 for a .906 OPS. With Max Muncy going down with a torn UCL, Bellinger stepped up at first and provided big time, and not only with the stats, but with the moments as well.
He drew a walk in the Wild-Card game that brought up Chris Taylor who ended up hitting a walk-off home run. In the NLDS against the Giants, he played well during the whole series, including hitting the clinching go-ahead single in the top of the 9th in Game 5 when the game was tied 1-1. He crushed a ball through the shift, which scored Justin Turner to send the Dodgers to the NLCS against the Atlanta Braves.
Photo: Associated Press
In that NLCS, he slashed .412/.500/.588 for a 1.088 OPS. His first moment in that series was when he came up to bat in Game 3, with the Dodgers being 2-0 in the series, and score being 5-2 with runners on first and third. A long season of woes and injuries and poor play from Bellinger could all be forgotten, as it was during the giants series. Bellinger was thrown a 96 mph fastball at his head from Luke Jackson, but despite the circumstances, hit the ball into the right-center concourse. 404 ft. It was unbelievable, and has given me hope for Bellinger.
Photo: Jon Soohoo
There have been many players who have had the same shoulder surgery, and also didn’t recover in the season like Bellinger didn’t. Cody Bellinger is going to bounce back, and in a big way in my opinion. He will be a top 10 player at the end of next year, and will finish Top 5 in MVP voting.
