Cody to the Cubs! The first of the Boras Four finds a home but what's up with the others?

For the second consecutive offseason, Cody Bellinger and the Cubs have agreed on a deal to have the 28-year-old former rookie of the year, MVP, and World Series champion take his talents to Wrigley Field.  Jeff Passan was first with the news reporting that the two were in agreement on a three-year, 80m dollar deal with an opt-out after each of the first two seasons. As the best hitter left on the market finally signs with a team, it leaves us with two big questions:

How did we get here? 

How could this affect the deals for the rest of the Boras four (Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman)?  

Let's go over it all in this edition of the Dugout Dispatch!

How'd we get here?

At the beginning of the offseason, Cody Bellinger was considered the second-best hitter on the open market (only behind Ohtani) and was considered a top 5 free agent who could command a contract north of $200m (we had him listed at #3, getting a $210 contract). Instead of that massive contract, Cody eventually signed what's a 1 year, 30-million-dollar deal, with two insurance years in case he performs poorly or gets injured.

Despite a solid slash line last season (.307/.356/.525 for a 133 OPS+ and 4.4 rWAR), his advanced metrics implied that Cody potentially benefited from lots of luck.  Cody had a high BABIP, low exit velo, low barrel %, and very low Hard-Hit % per Baseball Savant.  The first stat, (batting average on balls in play) means that when Cody made contact, it typically landed for a hit.  The last three stats say that Cody did not typically hit the ball very hard when he did make contact, which combined with his high BABIP stat means that he was very lucky with the placement of his contact.

Due to this, teams were probably hesitant to commit a lot of money in a long-term deal to a player who before 2023, frankly wasn't even a starting-caliber player after injuring his shoulder in 2019.  Combining those three very poor seasons with what appears to be a flukey 2023 season, it's very easy to understand why owners and teams did not want to make the financial commitment both Boras and Cody were seeking. 

Heading into 2024, Cody finds himself in a similar situation to last season: proving he's still the elite talent that won MVP in his third season and that 2023 wasn't a fluke.  If he does that, maybe he'll get that massive contract he was seeking next season.

What does this mean for the remaining top Free Agents?

With Cody signing, the first of the Boras four have found their team for the 2024 season.  Boras players haven't shied away from waiting into March to sign a contract if it meant getting them the terms they wanted, but as each day passes by it seems less and less likely that Chapman, Snell, and Montgomery will get the money they desired, and Cody's signing can be a sign of the type of contract these players will look to sign.

Of the four, Matt Chapman has been the most consistent but has the lowest ceiling by far.  Snell, Monty, and Belli on the other hand have all shown very high ceilings, but come with lots of question marks.  We went over Cody's above, but Snell has had two extremely good seasons (in which he won the Cy Young in each), but has been unremarkable otherwise.  Montgomery was a solid middle-of-the-rotation type of pitcher, but last year showed that he could lead a rotation. 

Of the remaining three, I think Montgomery will sign a contract similar to Cody Bellinger -- a shorter, high AAV contract with opt-outs to allow him to prove that last year wasn't a fluke and he can be a frontline starter for years to come.  

Snell and Chapman are a little more complicated.

Snell's value will likely never be higher.  He's coming off the best season of his career where he joined an extremely exclusive group of players to win the Cy Young in both leagues.  However, he's on the wrong side of 30, led the leagues in walks leading to a FIP higher than his league-leading ERA, and has been quite unremarkable outside of his Cy Young years.  Due to this I think it's unlikely for him to settle for a shorter-term deal, and will look to secure a 6-year contract for the most money he possibly can get.

Chapman, on the other hand, will always provide elite defense and some slugging, but will never be reliable enough to be a true middle-of-the-order bat.  Given his high floor/low ceiling, I can see him cashing in on a long-term deal with plenty of incentives to boost the salary -- i.e. MVP votes, silver sluggers, ABs, etc.