Welcome to your late week, late night coffee shop where we have all the beverages you can imagine and maybe a few you can’t. If kombucha is your jam, we can hook you up. If you’re looking for a fancy mixed drink in a fancy glass, we can probably do that to. Whatever your drink of choice may be, make sure you bus your tables so we don’t leave a mess for Josh and crew on Monday.

It’s been a busy week in Cubslandia. Less than a week ago the Cubs traded for elite Astros outfielder, Kyle Tucker. It created quite the log jam of outfielders on the roster for the Cubs as I detailed in my “behind the numbers” piece for that trade earlier this week. Then, two days ago, the Cubs made a move we were all expecting when they traded Cody Bellinger to the New York Yankees.

The Cubs sent Cody Bellinger and $5 million to the New York Yankees in exchange for 30-year old veteran middle reliever and occasional starter Cody Poteet. Fun fact, according to the one and only Sarah Langs, it is the first time in MLB history that a Cody has been traded for another Cody (click through for BlueSky on Apple):

More on both Codies (Codys?) after some tunes…

I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood the love affair that many people have with New York City, but Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind conveys the message about as well as any of the (many, many, oh my God there are so many) songs about New York:

It was first released in May 1976. Since then, it’s been covered by…well, just about anyone who would ever want to cover the song. A quick perusal of some search results revealed covers by Barbara Streisand, Mel Tormé, Keiko Lee, and more, including this gem of a collaboration between Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band:

Long Island meeting New Jersey on the neutral ground of New York City, indeed. I know that Madison Square Garden has seen its share of legends, but this certainly qualifies as legendary.

There are songs and then there are musicians. Billy Joel is the latter, riffing on the former. His piano riffs and showmanship are unmatched. You can hear it in the small details between the two live recordings above. It’s genius and beautiful.

Here’s hoping Cody Bellinger embraces his New York State of mind now that he’s changing his pinstripes from blue to black.

Normally when the Cubs trade a player the caliber of Bellinger, I do a standalone piece on all of the stats behind the trade — the amount of the contract, who the player is (or could be), the years of time remaining on the team and their impact with the club compared to the return.

Honestly, this isn’t that type of trade. Cody Bellinger was solid for the Cubs in 2023 when he hit .307/.356/.525 with wRC+ of 136. The campaign was good for 4.4 fWAR, his best season since his MVP campaign in 2019.

But there were a lot of question marks about that campaign, because while the 15.6 percent strikeout rate was a massive improvement and a legit change of approach from Bellinger’s time with the Dodgers, the hard hit rate and barrel metrics hadn’t returned to Bellinger of old. In fact, when I looked at after he resigned with the Cubs heading into the 2024 season the most optimistic case I could make was perhaps a change of approach combined with the new shift rules made for a sustainable new type of .300 hitting Bellinger.

Those improvements regressed a bit in 2024. Bellinger still put up a solid .266/.325/.426, but this time with 18 home runs rather than 26. Honestly, the 2023 rebound looks a bit BABIP-aided in retrospect. Although, after digging into some park effect numbers for a fantasy piece earlier this week, I wonder if Wrigley Field itself didn’t play into the 2024 regression as well.

Cody Bellinger at a 99 wRC+ at Wrigley Field, one percent worse than league average at run creation, and a 117 wRC+ away from the Friendly Confines. Wrigley Field was pretty brutal for all of the Cubs lefties, last season, and Cody was not immune to that trend, despite answering the fans call for a long ball with a long ball more than once:

At the end of the day, Bellinger was a fine player who was being paid elite player money. When the Cubs were able to add an elite bat in Kyle Tucker, they decided to see how much of that money they could get rid of while clearly a roster spot.

It turns out the answer is almost all of it, minus $5 million split over the remaining two years of Bellinger’s deal (assuming he doesn’t opt out in 2025). It’s a classic salary dump, even though there technically is a player returning to the Cubs in Cody Poteet.

One more note on Bellinger: his roster spot is at least as important as the money given the amount of corner outfield talent the Cubs have knocking on the door of MLB. The Cubs are already facing a bit of a crunch with Alexander Canario being out of options. There’s a real dilemma looming for a team that has talented minor leaguers who need a shot at MLB and consistent playing time when no outfield spot is available for them to get regular playing time.

Honestly, no shade to the newest Cody on the Cubs, but the Sarah Lang’s note about this being the first Cody for Cody trade in MLB history might be the most interesting thing about the player returning to Chicago. He missed all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery and only threw 24 ¹⁄₃ innings for the Yankees in 2024. He had a 2.22 ERA off a 4.02 FIP and a 4.33 xFIP, both of which indicate that ERA was a bit of luck.

He has a deep arsenal with five pitches he uses at least 10 percent of the time. Including a 93 MPH fourseam he throws 28 percent of the time, a 93 MPH sinker he throws 25 percent of the time, an 87 MPH changeup he throws 20 percent of the time, a sweeper he throws 17 percent of the time and a curveball he throws 10 percent of the time. The thing is, for all of those pitches, Poteet isn’t getting very much swing and miss. He struck out just 16.7% of the batters he faced as a Yankee while walking 8.3% of them — not exactly a ratio to write home about.

However, if you’re interested in silver linings, Greg Zumach took a look at why this middle reliever might be compelling to the Cubs staff, and I highly recommend you read the whole thing, but this jumped out:

This brings us to an interesting video today from new Cubs Special Assistant, Pitching, Tyler Zombro from Tread Athletics. Tread is one of the foremost private baseball training facilities and they have worked with numerous major league pitchers.

“A 3/4 Supinator is honestly, a gold mine…The reason these guys being supinators in the three quarter slot is so beneficial is because they can have that three way fastball.” (cut-induced fastball, hard cutter, and sinker/runner).” Zombro goes on to explain the three quarter supinators have tons of opportunity to add pitches to their respective arsenals.

That’s quite a preamble, so let’s get to Cody Poteet. As you can imagine from the lead-in, Poteet appears to be a 3/4 supinator. His arm angle of 39 degrees is in the 3/4 bucket and the respective spin efficiency he has on the fastball suggests supination.

To my eye Poteet is a perfectly suitable middle reliever who may even wind up starting a game or two for the Cubs. It’s great news if the pitching staff identified a low-cost middle relief option they may be able to coax some upside out of over the course of the season, but even if that doesn’t happen, Jed Hoyer and Company have achieved what they set out to do: move as much of Bellinger’s money off the books as possible.

Which begs the question here at the late night coffee shop: What should the Cubs do with that money? There are options, lots of them. That money could go to an extension for the newest Cub, adding players to strengthen the roster, like a starting pitcher, a closer or a more experienced third base option. It could also just be pocketed by the team.

However, regardless of where the money goes, it’s very clear the most important numbers in the Cody Bellinger trade were dollars and the number of outfielders on the 26 and 40-man rosters.