Another day, another series of tweets detailing how the Yankees are prepared to walk away from the negotiating table in the case of Cody Bellinger. The club seems to be standing on the five-year, $150-ish million offer they’ve had for the onetime MVP since the beginning of free agency, and Bellinger’s camp still appears confident they can get seven guaranteed years. By all accounts both the Blue Jays and Mets are also negotiating with Cody’s crew, and the Yankees are willing to let their division or crosstown rival have him if the price goes above the number they’re at.
The pivot being reported on is primarily one to the trade market, with the club very much interested in Brewers starter Freddy Peralta, even after bringing in Ryan Weathers last week (Austin Hays is another lesser outfield consideration). The truth is the Yankees need quite a bit of help by my estimation, especially as the Jays, Red Sox and even Orioles are on paper better than they were last year. New York has to count on a number of things falling into place — that Gerrit Cole can be effective in his age-35 season coming off Tommy John surgery, that Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s career year in 2025 was closer to his true baseline talent, that Austin Wells can be more like his 2024 self than last year’s version, that Aaron Judge can continue to have arguably the greatest peak by a right-handed hitter ever.
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Adding Peralta, but perhaps especially Bellinger, helps to offset some of those possible pitfalls. The Yankee lineup without him begins to look pretty thin — certainly thinner than the rotation. You start to count on steps forward from Anthony Volpe and Jasson Domínguez, or Trent Grisham repeating himself, or Spencer Jones to actually become a representative MLB player, and all four of those possibilities seems equally as unlikely as the rest. While I don’t think Cody Bellinger is his MVP form anymore, I would reasonably expect him to be better than all four of those guys in 2026.
Here’s where things get tricky, though. Five years is probably the limit that I would also go with Belli, and would probably expect that fifth year to be fairly underwater. Six or seven years stretch that from one season where you’re writing off performance to an Aaron Hicks-esque hair pulling. However, all roster and personnel decisions the Yankees make should be seen through the lens of winning with Aaron Judge. We don’t know how much longer we’ll have a guy with a 200 wRC+ and 10-WAR production, a player who at present is the second-best hitter and seventh-most-valuable overall in the history of the game’s most storied franchise.
“The playoffs are a crapshoot” is passed around here like a cigarette, but the organization clearly believes in it. Build a team good enough that you get into the postseason, load up on relief pitching, and see what happens. In a watered down playoff system, in an American League that doesn’t look nearly as competitive as its Senior Circuit counterpart, the Yankees as currently constructed are probably a playoff team barring some kind of catastrophe. A playoff team with a pretty tough postseason rotation to face, at that.
But here’s the thing the org hasn’t really embraced in almost a decade of so-called “Baby Bombers” baseball — the playoffs involve a great deal of randomness, but you can hedge against it. The Dodgers were one good secondary lead away from losing the World Series — that’s randomness — but they have also taken great care and expense to always head into the playoffs with the best possible roster, and the last two years it’s worked well.
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There are going to be things that are outside of your control, but there’s a great deal of things that you do control. The next two free agent classes are awful shallow, with the best names available seemingly being Nico Hoerner and Randy Arozarena in the 2027 class. There’s no “wait a year for xyz player” coming down the pipe, and with a looming potential labor crisis next year, that’s another potential lost year in the Aaron Judge era. He’s already arguably the greatest Yankee to not have a ring, and not bringing back Cody Bellinger or at least replacing him with a player likely to offer the same complimentary production makes that drought all the more likely.
