About a month ago, I wrote about Cody Bellinger’s vastly improved walk rate. At the time, his season wRC+ stood at a robust 141, fueled by a career-high 15.2-percent walk rate. Since then, Bellinger’s numbers have slipped, but only slightly. His walk rate is a still stellar 13.5 percent, which would still be his highest since his MVP-winning 2019, and his .272/.366/.467 slash line comes out to a 133 wRC+. That’s squarely within middle-of-the-order territory.
What’s even more reassuring is that Bellinger has managed to maintain his strong walk rate without sacrificing his quality of contact or his strikeout-avoiding skills. His xwOBA is at .371, seven points above his wOBA and over 40 points up from last year. His strikeout rate is a measly 12.2 percent, an elite mark in this day and age — it places him 12th among 156 qualified MLB hitters this year, ahead of noted contact stalwarts such as Juan Soto or José Ramírez. Bellinger’s walk rate appears to be more than a weird one-year blip (see: Ward, Taylor); it genuinely feels like he’s fixed the weakest part of his profile while retaining his strengths.
In my earlier post, I mentioned that Bellinger’s increased walk rate had improved my outlook on his performance going forward. Well, it’s not just me; the projection systems also have a rosier view of Bellinger’s future performance given his strong showing so far this year. Here’s a comparison of his preseason projected wRC+ marks to his updated rest-of-season projections as of the time of writing.
Projection System2026 preseasonwRC+2026 preseasonAVG/OBP/SLG2026 updated rest-of-seasonwRC+2026 updated rest-of-seasonAVG/OBP/SLGFanGraphs Depth Charts118.267/.329/.458121.266/.338/.458ZiPS118.264/.328/.457120.262/.336/.455Steamer118.271/.329/.459122.270/.341/.460
Bellinger’s wRC+ projections have all seen an uptick due to his strong performance over the first two-and-a-half months of the season, and if you look at his triple-slash forecasts, you’ll find that most of that comes from his improved OBP projections. Yes, it still has just been a little under 44 percent of the season, but all three systems have seen enough over that span to re-evaluate his on-base abilities.
Even looking beyond this year, Bellinger’s increased walk rate provides him with a higher baseline as he enters the initial years of his decline phase. The low-OBP, mediocre-contact quality version of Bellinger was still a solid player, but he was heavily reliant on his contact skills to prop up his batting line – that’s a position you don’t want to find yourself in as a batter on the wrong side of 30. With his robust 2026 walk rate, though, Bellinger can afford to absorb some erosion of his contact skills and still maintain his offensive output. That makes his five-year, $162.5 million deal seem less like an overpay and more like a good deal, even if it ends up being underwater towards the back end.
Here, it’s important to note that the Yankees might not even be on the hook for the tail end of Bellinger’s contract. As readers pointed out in response to my earlier piece, if Bellinger keeps his current performance up, he will likely choose to opt out after next year and re-enter the free agent market as a 31-year-old; and if not next year, then in 2028, as a 32-year-old. That would free up a lot of money for the Yankees to spend on other needs; or, if the outfield turns out to be a pressing need, they could consider bringing him back. Either way, it’s a much better position to be in for the Yankees than to be beholden to Bellinger’s full contract with no chance of him going anywhere.
As fans, it’s easy to play the role of armchair batting coach and ascribe easy fixes to players’ flaws. Dude strikes out too much? Choke up and stop swinging for the fences! Guy can’t take walks? Stop swinging at junk!
Usually, it’s not that simple. Baseball is hard, and so is changing your profile as a player. However, in Cody Bellinger’s case, it was that simple, apparently. All he needed to do was take his walks, and so he did. And his team, and its fans, are so much happier because of it.
