Cody Bellinger Trades in Dodger Dogs For Chicago Dogs

Yesterday, the Cubs signed 2019 National League MVP Cody Bellinger to a one-year, $17.5 million contract. On the one hand, who would have ever guessed that the former star would have to settle for a one-year deal in his age 27 season?! On the other hand, he still managed to receive a $17.5 million contract, despite posting an ugly .266 wOBA over the past two seasons. Clearly, teams aren’t ready to give up on him, but are hesitant enough that a multi-year deal wasn’t in the cards. So with the move to Chicago, will a fresh start turn around his career? Let’s consult the park factors to see if the park could help spark a rebound or if he’s on his own.

Unlike some of the previous park factor comparisons, this wasn’t a clean sweep and actually represents an interesting mix. Finally, I don’t have the option of ending this post and declaring the park switch is clearly a positive or negative. So let’s dive into each of the factors.

We start with the non-home run hit type factors. Here, it’s a cake walk for Wrigley. Most importantly, it slightly inflated left-handed singles, while Dodger suppressed singles. That directly impacts BABIP, which is something Bellinger has struggled massively with over the last three seasons. It’s actually been a tale of two careers in that respect. In his first three seasons, he posted a BABIP between .299 and .313. In his latest three seasons, he has posted a BABIP as low as .196, and a high of just .255. Looking at his career home/away splits, it looks like he may have been affected by the BABIP suppressing ways of Dodger Stadium. His home BABIP sits at just .268, versus an away BABIP of .286. That’s quite the gap, especially when you consider players tend to perform better at home.

The doubles factors are close enough to not merit discussion. However, check out the triples factors gap! That’s massive. Sure enough, Bellinger has clearly been affected by his home park here too. He has hit just five triples at home, versus 14 in away parks. I don’t even need to perfectly compare apples to apples by ensuring the same number of balls in play, like triples per balls in play. It’s such a big difference, it’s clear the park is playing a large role. Of course, triples happen so infrequently, that even moving to a much better environment is only going to net him an extra triple or two, which won’t make much of a difference over an entire season.

Now let’s move to what we care most about — home run factors. I think many of us think of Wrigley Field as a home run haven, but that’s not the case. Sure, when the wind is blowing out, then it becomes hitterific, but that obviously doesn’t happen often. So Wrigley actually suppresses left-handed homers, compared to Dodger, which inflated them. Bellinger seemed to benefit a bit from his home park, where he has posted an 18.6% HR/FB rate, versus a 16.9% mark away. That’s not a huge difference, and some could certainly be a result of the “play better at home” idea. But still, his HR/FB rate projection should definitely take a bit of a hit with the park switch.

The bigger question, though, is whether his power returns, regardless of what park he calls home. After alternating between mid-20% and mid-to-high teen HR/FB rates during his first four seasons, he has posted marks around 10% the last two years. Obviously, a better home run park would have been preferred, but the first priority is getting the old Bellinger back.

We next hop on over to strikeout and walk factors. The strikeout factors are close enough that the park isn’t going to make much of an obvious difference. Bellinger has shown a home/road split though, striking out 2.5 percentage points more often in away parks. While Wrigley is perfectly neutral for walks, Dodger actually reduced them. Surprisingly, Bellinger didn’t seem to be affected, as he posted a higher mark at home than away. Like the rest of his performance, his strikeout and walk rates have been trending in the wrong direction. His strikeout rate hit a career worst this season, while his walk rate plummeted for a third straight year to below the league average.

Next up is batted ball type factors. The ground ball and fly ball factors are similar enough to be ignored. The line drive and pop-up factors, though, are quite a ways apart. The inflated line drive and suppressed pop-up factors at Wrigley are a major positive for BABIP. But once again, we find that Bellinger hasn’t actually followed the factors throughout his career. He has posted a higher LD% and lower IFFB% at home, opposite of what the factors would suggest. After posting a career worst LD% and another IFFB% above 14%, he could use all the help he could get to get those rates closer to his career average.

Finally, we end up the summary factor, the five-year runs scored Basic factor. Though it feels like Wrigley is more hitter friendly given everything I’ve typed, the parks have played pretty similarly, with both slightly stifling offense. That’s because Wrigley has been a slight positive for BABIP/batting average, versus Dodger which suppresses hits on balls in play, but Wrigley’s BABIP-inflationary effects are offset by its home-run suppression, and the reverse is true for Dodger. So essentially, the shape of Bellinger’s projection should change, but his overall performance should not.

Therefore, his projection should see a bump up in BABIP and walk rate, but a drop in HR/FB rate. As alluded to earlier, the park switch is going to have much less of an impact than his ability to rebound to his early career levels. Are you going to roll the dice, depending on his cost?