Cubs Trade Cody Bellinger, $5M to Yankees for Righty Cody Poteet

After a little haggling over money, the Cubs and Yankees have agreed to a deal that will send Cody Bellinger to the Bronx. The Cubs will offset some of Bellinger’s remaining guarantee and will receive righty reliever Cody Poteet as compensation. That is a lighter return than previous reports of No. 5 prospect Will Warren, as the 30-year-old Poteet has pitched just 83 innings across parts of three seasons in Miami and New York. He’s worked primarily as a starter but has 11 relief appearances out of 24 total games.

My assumption appears to have been correct, as Jack Curry of YES Network reported that the Cubs are only sending $5 million to the Yankees. Jesse Rogers further clarified that the Cubs are picking up $2.5 million in each of the next two years. The Yankees get an upgrade at first base over Anthony Rizzo and Bellinger gets a ballpark that is more conducive to his talents.

This clears things up for the Cubs, who are now certain to keep Seiya Suzuki unless something really wild happens. It would seem Nico Hoerner is nearly as secure, especially with Michael Busch now being entrenched as a Gold Glove-caliber first baseman. Jed Hoyer could go out and add and third baseman to push Matt Shaw and protect against any rookie volatility, but I’m not sure Alex Bregman is willing to play for backup prices.

Hoyer now has a little more money in his war chest and will turn his attention to adding pitching, whether that’s the oft-reported pursuit of Jesús Luzardo or a big reliever deal for Kirby Yates. Maybe both since the Cubs need more high-upside depth across the staff as a whole.

A lot of folks are going to see the return of an organizational depth righty and think the Cubs got hoodwinked, but they’ve been feverishly trying to move Bellinger from the moment he opted back in. An organization that apparently needed to trim payroll after being “burned” by Bellinger and Drew Smyly can now safely stay under the luxury tax penalty while using the surplus to improve in other areas. They also get more room on the roster for top prospects to make meaningful contributions rather than languishing at Triple-A.

Though this move makes the Cubs worse on paper, it does clarify the roster situation and gives them $25 million more to allocate elsewhere. Now it’s a matter of whether and how Hoyer does that to continue building a better team for less money than the one that managed only 83 wins.