Cody Bellinger: ‘Want and hunger’ to be great is there for Yankees

The story is the same for every New York team at the start of spring: Expectations are high. For a New York team that is coming off a trip to the World Series, those expectations jump to another level.

For Cody Bellinger, the son of a two-time champion with the Yankees who came over this offseason in a trade, the expectations and hunger he’s seen at the start of spring training come as no surprise.

“The thing that I see is the want to be good, the desire to be good in each and every one of us,” Bellinger said Tuesday in Tampa. “We all want to be excellent and that goes a long way. We all want to perform to our best capability, and the want and the hunger is there to be great. And that speaks for itself.

“I’ll bet on the guys in the locker room that have great character and are great baseball players that we’re all gonna figure it out and it’s gonna be a fun year.”

Bellinger said he saw that in the guys who “came close last year” and the new faces, which include veteran first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, starter Max Fried and reliever Devin Williams: “We’re all excited and we’re all hungry… we’re all fighting for something.”

Count the new outfielder as somebody who is fighting to continue to get his career back on track and build on a pair of back-to-back decent years in Chicago, where he posted a .286 average and .815 OPS (125 OPS+) with 44 home runs in 260 games with the Cubs. It was a resurgence for the former NL Rookie of the Year after he struggled mightily during his final two seasons with the Dodgers, posting a .193 average and .611 OPS (66 OPS+) with 29 home runs in 239 games.

“I think building a really solid approach over these two years,” Bellinger said. “Lost my approach a little bit, lost mechanics a little bit, those are recipes for disaster in this game.”

During the two seasons with the Northsiders, the former NL MVP cut down his strikeout rate dramatically, going from 150 in his final 550 plate appearances in LA to 176 strikeouts over 1,125 times up in Chicago.

“Just building back my confidence. Understanding where my barrel’s at, where my body’s at,” he continued. “And just building off two pretty good seasons and still making the adjustments to be even better because I expect more out of myself.”

The 29-year-old added that the new information from the Yanks’ staff this spring hasn’t been too overwhelming with the organization “sprinkling” in some adjustments. “Hasn’t been too much, it’s been solid, and I think it’s actually gonna benefit me,” he said.

Of course, Bellinger could get an even bigger boost by occupying a spot in the lineup that Juan Soto benefited from during his lone season in The Bronx: batting ahead of reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge. But while Judge helps everyone around him get better, Bellinger is fine with any spot in Aaron Boone’s lineup.

“Wherever they think is the best possibility for the lineup to be the most fluid, or the most consistent,” he said. “Two, three or four, whatever. Doesn’t matter to me.”

And while Bellinger will take a spot in the outfield that Soto left vacant, he doesn’t see his presence – or that of Goldschmidt’s – as “replacing” the generational talent who signed with the Mets.

“For me and Paul, it’s maybe not necessarily replacing anybody, but coming in and performing to our best capability,” Bellinger said. “And we know what our best capability is and if we reach those levels then I think that it could be fun. Every single day… we strive for that. We strive to be excellent, we strive to be great.”

On the veteran first baseman, Bellinger called his fellow long-time National Leaguer a “pro’s pro.”

“That’s a guy that’s been consistent throughout his whole career – defensively, sneaky really, really good base runner, steals bases, the offense speaks for itself,” he said. “A guy that expects a lot out of himself and I expect really good things, I expect Paul to be Paul. He’s a tremendous player.”

Goldschmidt is another new Yank looking to bounce back after he had a rough season with St. Louis in which he posted a career-low .245 average with just 22 home runs and 65 RBI and a career-low .716 OPS (98 OPS+) in 154 games.

“Hopefully it doesn’t sound like an excuse, I think the truth was I just didn’t play well for over a year and a good part of last year,” he said Tuesday. “It was unfortunate, but it wasn’t because of a lack of effort, I was doing everything I could. Took a ton of swings and all that. But this game’s hard, the pitchers are good and you get off by a little bit and it can go downhill.”

The 37-year-old said he hopes this can be a “good thing” for his career and “getting to learn from that.”

“But there will be other things that pop up, there always is in this game, you never quote-unquote figure it out,” he said, adding that his goal is to stay consistent every day. “I know there’s gonna be ups and downs but the more consistent you are, you got a shot every day to help the team.”

The veteran saw a resurgence in the second half of 2024, as his average jumped to .271 from .230 and OPS to .799 from .665 from before the All-Star Break, and feels like he is in a good place at the start of spring training.

“I just didn’t play well,” Goldschmidt said. “There’s no excuses. I think all I want to do is continue to keep working and try to help us win every night. The effort was there, the performance was not and hopefully, it will be better this year.”