Dodgers expected to non-tender Cody Bellinger, making him a free agent

After much internal debate and external speculation, the Cody Bellinger restoration project apparently will not continue in Los Angeles.

The Dodgers did not tender a contract offer to the arbitration-eligible center fielder before Friday’s 5 p.m. PT deadline. Also not tendered contracts were infielders Edwin Rios and Luke Williams (recently claimed on waivers from the Miami Marlins). They did tender contracts to the rest of their arbitration-eligible players – pitchers Julio Urias, Walker Buehler, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, Evan Phillips, Caleb Ferguson and Yency Almonte, catcher Will Smith and outfielder Trayce Thompson.

The 27-year-old Bellinger (who is in the final year of arbitration eligibility) was clearly the most difficult decision in that group.

“Obviously it’s been a unique path for Cody as he’s battled through injuries and worked diligently over the past few years to return to his All-Star-caliber performance,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Friday night. “However, it hasn’t played out as we all would have hoped or expected and therefore we had to make a difficult decision of non-tendering.

“Last offseason, I was very confident (Bellinger would turn it around) and it didn’t prove out in ’22. I remain confident. I don’t know how to answer it any more directly than that. … We still really believe in the talent of Cody and feel like he is as committed as ever to figure it out. That coupled with the talent that we have in our weight room, on our coaching staff, we feel like we, collectively with him, could figure it out. But again, I felt that way coming into ’22.”

Bellinger becomes a free agent now. He could re-sign with the Dodgers for a salary lower than the $18 million he was projected to receive in arbitration and Friedman acknowledged that possibility saying Friday’s decision was not necessarily “a closing of the chapter of Cody and the Dodgers.” But the Dodgers will have to compete with a number of teams expected to be interested in signing the former MVP – a group that could include the Chicago Cubs, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins and others.

Friedman also acknowledged that the Dodgers pursued a potential trade that would have brought them some return for Bellinger before making him a free agent but “obviously, the non-tender meant that we didn’t line up on anything.”

The National League Rookie of the Year in 2017 and the NL MVP in 2019, Bellinger has regressed significantly for three seasons since those achievements. While remaining an elite defender in center field, Bellinger has hit just .203 with a .648 OPS (and 74 OPS-plus) over the past three seasons. The early success, however, drove his salary up to $17 million.

The Dodgers had hoped that a healthy season following shoulder surgery in November 2020 and a leg fracture in April 2021 would allow Bellinger to reverse his decline. But he hit .210 with a .654 OPS and 150 strikeouts and was not in the starting lineup for half of the Dodgers’ four-game visit to the postseason this year.

Friday’s decision is an acknowledgment from the Dodgers that even their deep financial resources can no longer absorb paying a .200-hitting outfielder $18 million (or more). By non-tendering Bellinger, not picking up the club option of Justin Turner and (so far) not re-signing any of their free agents, the Dodgers have shed more than $100 million from their 2022 payroll.

Some of that money will go to re-signing Clayton Kershaw and, possibly, Turner. But Friedman would not dismiss the idea that the Dodgers might not spend all of that money on replacements and could instead use it as an opportunity to re-set their payroll under the Competitive Balance Tax (which they exceeded each of the past two years) by giving playing time to prospects like Miguel Vargas, James Outman, Michael Busch and others.

“I think payroll considerations factor into every decision that every team makes,” he said. “If you look back over the last seven, eight years, it’s probably factored in less for us than it has for the other 29 teams. But it’s still a factor and there’s still things that we always have to balance and juggle and try to put ourselves in position to have the best team possible when we get to Glendale.

“Obviously we’ve been at extremely high levels the last two years and we’ll see when we get to Opening Day where we’re at. … I don’t think we ever really have clarity on what that’s going to look like on November 18.”

Friedman mentioned Chris Taylor, Thompson and Outman as internal options to replace Bellinger as the primary center fielder and would not say Friday’s move puts them in the market to acquire an outfielder.

The Dodgers could be interested in signing Kevin Kiermaier – like the regressed version of Bellinger, an elite defender with limited offensive ability. Kiermaier became a free agent when the Tampa Bay Rays declined a $13 million option in his contract. He was drafted by the Rays during Friedman’s time there.

And the Dodgers will, of course, be linked with Aaron Judge, also targeted by the New York Yankees, New York Mets and San Francisco Giants.

“I think every offseason, you have choices to make in terms of consolidating resources into one player or spreading it around,” Friedman said. “Some offseasons, we go in having very few needs. Some, we have more. Right now we’ve got a number of spots to address.

“Some of them we can do internally. But it’s just balancing that.”

Rios hit 12 home runs in his first 123 big-league at-bats with the Dodgers in 2019 and 2020. But he struggled with injuries, missed most of 2021 following shoulder surgery and spent much of 2022 in Triple-A recovering from a significant hamstring injury.

Friedman said the decision to non-tender Rios was a matter of “fit” with the Dodgers having multiple left-handed hitters on their 40-man roster.

In other moves, the Dodgers claimed right-hander Jake Reed on waivers from the Boston Red Sox. This is the third time around with the Dodgers for Reed, who signed as a free agent with the Dodgers in June 2021 and has been waived six times by five teams since then. In two previous stints with the Dodgers, Reed had a 2.70 ERA over 11 appearances and recorded his only career save.