To say that the New York Yankees have been sluggish this offseason would be an understatement. They have sat and watched as big-name free agents such as former Mets slugger Pete Alonso, San Diego Padres ace righty Dylan Cease and, most recently, Japan League star right-hander Tatsuya Imai signed elsewhere.
Alonso and Cease signed with the Yankees’ American League East rivals, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays respectively, making New York’s inertia even more frustrating for fans and puzzling.
Bellinger Remains Unsigned by Yankees, or Anyone Else
But there are still several high-priority free agents remaining unsigned and, for the Yankees, the top priority has to be their own Cody Bellinger — the former National League MVP and Rookie of the Year who played the 2025 season in the Bronx, then opted out of the contract that would have paid him $25 million in 2026.
Why haven’t the Yankees managed to bring Bellinger back, with just six weeks to go before pitchers and catchers report for spring training? Reportedly, the team made a formal offer to the 30-year-old left-handed hitter sometime around New Year’s Day. But if those reports were accurate, whatever they offered was not enough.
Yankees Insider Makes Bold Bellinger Prediction
Other reports last week said that Bellinger was now in the market for a deal that would keep him in one place for up to seven years, a length of time that would make teams understandably reluctant to make a major financial commitment to a player into his late 30s.
But a new prediction from a Yankees insider, NorthJersey.com correspondent Pete Caldera, has Bellinger signing for what in today’s market would have to be seen as a more reasonable deal.
The only catch — he is not signing with the Yankees. At least not according to Caldera’s prediction, which also sees Bellinger taking his sweet time to make a decision and, when he does, choosing to go back to where his career began.
“Three weeks before camps open, Cody Bellinger shuns the New York teams and signs a five-year, $160 million contract with the world champion Dodgers,” Caldera predicted in his list of New Year’s predictions published Friday.
Dodgers Were Team That Drafted Bellinger
With Yankees pitchers and catchers set to report by Feb. 13, according to Caldera’s prediction, the Yankees will need to sweat it out until Jan. 23, only to see Bellinger turn his back on New York — including the Mets, who have also been rumored to have interest in signing the nine-year veteran — and return to the team that drafted him in the fourth round out of Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, in 2013.
Los Angeles is also where Bellinger put up his best seasons, including his NL MVP year of 2019 when he compiled a league-leading WAR of 8.9, an OPS of 1.035 and blasted 47 home runs — a total he has come nowhere close to replicating since.
In fact, Bellinger recorded the highest home run total of his career since that MVP season in the Bronx last year, when he took advantage of Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right field to hit 29.
But the $32 million average annual paycheck the NorthJersey.com writer predicts he will receive from the Dodgers just might be enough to lure Bellinger back to Chavez Ravine.
Yankees Predicted to Lose Cody Bellinger to Dodgers in $160 Million Deal