{"id":541546,"date":"2026-01-28T01:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/541546\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T01:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:36:16","slug":"why-cody-bellinger-contract-will-cost-yankees-much-more-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/541546\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Cody Bellinger contract will cost Yankees much more than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cody Bellinger will cost the Yankees more toward the luxury tax payroll in 2026 than Aaron Judge \u2014 a lot more.<\/p>\n

There are intricate rules in the collective bargaining agreement that have a near poison pill type impact for the Yankees when it comes to Bellinger.<\/p>\n

For example, whether Bellinger re-signed or not, the Yankees were going to be charged $3.8 million toward the 2026 payroll in a \u201ctrue up\u201d from his now completed contract. And due to the front-loaded shape plus opt-outs in his recently signed five-year, $162.5 million deal,<\/a> a \u201cvalley charge\u201d provision means that his 2026 salary will be $44.75 million toward the luxury tax payroll. Thus, Bellinger will count as $48.55 million in total for the 2026 season for luxury tax purposes. Judge \u2014 the highest paid Yankee ever in total dollars and annual value \u2014 costs $40 million each year for luxury tax purposes.<\/p>\n

The Bellinger contract projects the Yankees payroll for luxury tax payroll beyond $330 million for the 2026 season, which would be a record for the franchise. Hal Steinbrenner has consistently said he wants to bring the payroll under $300 million<\/a>, but even with a trade of, say, Jazz Chisholm Jr. ($10.2 million), they would not get close to that level. The Yankees luxury tax payroll in 2025 was a franchise record of approximately $320 million, which cost an additional $61.8 million in tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cody Bellinger will cost the Yankees more toward the luxury tax payroll in 2026 than Aaron Judge \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,1365,4,1690,62,2548,2547,185,38606,428,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-541546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cody-bellinger","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkyankees","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-sports-contracts","17":"tag-sports-plus","18":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115970165035104538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}