Dodgers: Infielders August Grade Report

Cody Bellinger

The time at first base was split between Cody Bellinger and Adrian Gonzalez. Bellinger started about half the month of August until Gonzalez was activated from the Disabled List on August 18th. For the sake of consistency, I’ll talk about Bellinger in this section and get to Gonzalez’s grade when we group the bench players.

Bellinger had a solid month before getting injured the very next day Adrian Gonzalez was activated. Bellinger’s injury was really a freak-injury as he was chasing down a fly ball in right field. The Dodgers elected to put Bellinger on the DL to avoid further aggravation and make sure he’s completely 100%.

Before the DL stint, Bellinger had a slash line of .292/.370/.615 to go along with 6 homers and 3 stolen bases. As he has proven to be all season long, Bellinger contributed 25 runs in just 18 games for the boys in blue, scoring 15 times and driving in 10 in 73 plate appearances.

In Bellinger’s 18 games during August he was squaring up the ball hitting 90% of the balls he hit being ranked as “medium” to “hard” contact, according to Fangraphs. At this stage in the season, Bellinger has already established himself as the primary power source of this Dodger lineup, and many fans would be quick to point out that it was when he wasn’t in the lineup that this current Dodger funk began. He’s slowly emerging into one of baseball’s best pure power hitters and the month of August was no different posting a 157 wRC+ with a, 323 Isolated Slugging mark.

The injury not only slowed Dodger Bellinger’s chase for the rookie home run record but the Dodgers season as well. The Dodgers record when he is absent from the Dodger lineup make a compelling MVP argument for Cody.