New Arrival: Cody Bellinger, of/1b, Los Angeles Dodgers

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I was able to snag these two Cody Bellinger cards at a very good price. Bonus it was the same seller, so I even saved on shipping. The Topps Update card is kind of hot right now, so getting it at a good price it pretty thrilling.

I grabbed them since I don’t have any Bellinger autographs in my collection and he was going to be on the island for a hitting clinic. Based on my recent experience with this particular clinic I did not think he was going to be easy to get, and I was not really thrilled with the idea of wasting a weekend trying to get a single autograph–and probably not get it. So I got ahead of it by getting these, that was I could ignore the event.

It was a good idea. I heard he did not sign.

Bellinger is a great player and one of the big reasons why the Dodgers are a perennial World Series contenders.

• Bellinger made it to the big league in 2017 and hit .267/.352/.581 with 39 HR. Good for a 143 OPS+. He was selected to his first All-Star team and was the 2017 NL ROY.
• He slumped–if you can call it that–in 2018, hitting .260/.343/.470 with 25 HR. With a 120 OPS+ he was still better than most players.
• But in 2019 wrecked National League pitching. He hit .305/.406/.629 with 47 HR, good for an OPS+ of 169. He was selected to his second All-Star team, won his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger, and was the National League MVP.

For a guy who has been in the league for three seasons, he has a heck of a resume.