Dodgers: What Can We Hope For with Cody Bellinger After Shoulder Surgery?
After surgery in the offseason to correct a nagging shoulder injury, Dodgers slugger Cody Bellinger still hasn’t appeared in a spring training game. Dave Roberts and even Cody himself say everything is on track for a healthy opening day, but will there be lingering issues from the repaired joint?
We discuss Bellinger’s status and whether his operation being less invasive than other similar surgeries on star sluggers in the past will help him return to form in 2021. Notably, former Dodger Adrian Gonzalez is one example of a player losing their power stroke after labrum surgery.
Moreover, with Cody and his many different swing changes last year, the wonder is if this will help him lock back in mechanically or get further out of sync from his MVP season in 2019.
What Can We Hope For with Cody Bellinger After Shoulder Surgery?
Again, Bellinger and company say he’ll be ready to go when the bell rings on opening day. However, if he can’t answer the call — or it’s just smarter to give him a few more at-bats at LA’s spring complex in Arizona after the season opens — DJ Peters could be in a position to fill in for the centerfielder.
The 25-year-old Peters is in the midst of a fine spring training showing. While his batting average will never be anything to write home about, DJ has posted a modest .267 clip (4-15) over 10 games while adding 2 home runs and 5 walks (1.117 OPS). Additionally, he’s made a few exceptional plays in center this Cactus League season.
Related: Dave Roberts Hopeful for DJ Peters Debut in 2021
DJ Peters is not 2019 NL MVP Cody Bellinger. But, with the grind of a full 162 games season looming, there really isn’t a need to rush Bellinger if he isn’t ready.
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Join your Blue Heaven hosts, Clint Pasillas and Brook Smith, as they talk about this week in Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball. We share the opinions of our 800,000+ fans from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook to gain insight on what the fans are thinking and do our best to represent all perspectives in the Dodgers Community. Look out for special interviews with other bloggers, celebrities, players, and more, along with giveaways for the best fans on earth!
I would like to Bellinger swinging smoothly for good contact rather than trying to shatter the air and vaporize he ball with a dead pull swing for the fence. As his confidence in his shoulder increases, he could uptempo a swing that is already working.
I hope Belly is ready soon to play in a spring game and push himself to get ready, otherwise he will be trying over the course of the season and he will look bad taking hacks like he was doing last year.
I also hope that Friedman start thinking about a Corey Seager extension SOON…we don’t want Seager to become a free agent.
we are going to need both of these guys all season long and for years to come!!
Cody has to use the entire field at the plate. I have seen him a few times in his career beat the shift easily poking the ball to LF. More of that in the new dead-ball era, while his shoulder gets stronger and he’ll be on base a lot!
Dodgers should just sit Cody Bellinger for the entire season. He had surgery on November 17th, team originally announced a 10 week rehab, today is March 15th, that’s 16 weeks he’s still not ready. Fans shouldn’t get their hopes up of Cody coming back anytime soon. This is a serious injury, he popped it three times before injuring it again in the NLCS. When Chris Webber had the same injury after 8 games in 1996, he was out for the entire season. It would be wise to let Cody heal the shoulder this year, have him available for post-season if he’s ready,
In the meantime give DJ Peters a chance to show what he can do, if this big fellow can knock in 30 Home Runs this year, it will be all worth it to keep Cody out for the year.