Bo Bichette has left the Blue Jays for the Mets, and Kyle Tucker has landed on the Dodgers, leaving the Yankees as one of the remaining teams chasing a top-of-the-market bat.
Unlike their crosstown rivals, the Bronx Bombers have been focused on one guy and didn’t seem to have much of an expensive pivot in mind on the position player side of things.
They want Cody Bellinger back, he wants seven years, and they’re trying to bridge that gap in negotiations to finally pull down the left-handed hitting outfielder.
A new league landscape has formed in the span of 24 hours, but with that comes new threats and potential emotion-fueled pivots; which is why the Yankees are now desperately in need of Cody Bellinger.
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The American League Opened Up and the Yankees Need Cody Bellinger to Punch Through
When looking at FanGraphs’ positional projections, left field narrowly trails third base as the team’s worst-projected group (not counting DH).
Cody Bellinger would address one of the team’s biggest weaknesses which is their outfield depth and their offense against lefties, knocking out two birds with one stone.
If the team was able to add a fourth outfielder from the right-handed side and trade Jasson Dominguez, they could bench Trent Grisham against LHP and have a RHB who can get reps if Giancarlo Stanton gets hurt.
There’s a lot of utility that Bellinger provides as the backup first baseman as well, giving the Yankees an ability to catch Ben Rice if needed or just serve as insurance if an injury occurs.
A growing notion among Yankees’ fans is that running back the offense with last year’s pieces plus Cody Bellinger makes this team incapable of getting past the NLDS, but it places an abundance of weight on a seven-game sample size.
The Blue Jays, who were expected to add Kyle Tucker or Bo Bichette, have struck out on both and don’t have the outfield hole needed to steal Cody Bellinger.
Boston lost Alex Bregman, and while they’ve added a ton of arms, they project to win 86.8 games, just 0.3 more than the Yankees who do not have their top free-agent target back.
No team in the American League projects to have more than 0.3 wins than the Yankees in 2026 according to FanGraphs, which is why they need to just execute what they hoped to do at the offseason’s start.
Much like the last two offseasons, they’ve benefitted greatly from their rivals striking out on free agent pursuits, but last year they left a hole on their roster open when they didn’t acquire a third baseman, which cost them the division.
The Yankees cannot afford to be caught in a sudden pivot in a market that does not have many options to do that with, what they instead need is for things to just fall into place as expected.
Suddenly the offense would run back all six of the hitters they had last year who produced a wRC+ at or above 120, a mark no team in baseball exceeded.
Steamer believes those six hitters will produce a wRC+ of 110 or greater, a mark only the Dodgers and Mets match at the moment with their stunning additions.
None of those teams are in the American League, and if the Yankees pull of a Freddy Peralta trade, only LA would lay claim to having a roster that is superior.
If this five-year $155 million deal is signed it would be a win for Bellinger in these negotiations, but for the Yankees it would be a win for their ability to build a legitimate contender for 2026.
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