Cody Bellinger once stood on top of the baseball world. As he turned 24, he was following up two strong years with his most dominant yet. His 2019 MVP campaign had some wondering whether the dynamic outfielder was just scratching the surface and entering the debate of best player in the game.

But his downfall was nearly as swift. A shortened 2020 in which his numbers were down wasn’t as much of a red flag as the shoulder injury he suffered during the Dodgers’ World Series run that postseason. As he slowly regained strength in that shoulder, a fractured left fibula would sideline him for much of the next April and May.

But getting healthy didn’t solve everything. In 2021, only two players with at least 300 plate appearances had a worse wRC+ than Bellinger’s 47 (100 is league average). Even after nearly doubling that mark in 2022, Bellinger couldn’t stay out of the bottom 10 in wRC+ (83) for qualified hitters. It was those struggles that led to the Dodgers’ non-tendering Bellinger in November and the Cubs’ scooping him up earlier this month on a one-year, $17.5 million deal.

“You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it,” Bellinger said via video call Tuesday. “There were definitely injuries involved. Your body wasn’t moving like it used to. I could go on and on, but looking forward, where I’m at right now, I’m feeling really good, confident and strong.”

It wasn’t long ago that Bellinger’s acquisition would have been a Cubs fan’s dream. But now he comes to Chicago looking to resurrect his career and finds a soft landing spot where he’ll get playing time to try to find his stroke and hit free agency again next winter looking to cash in.

Bellinger has a history with assistant hitting coach Johnny Washington, who coached in the Dodgers system after he retired in 2009 through the 2015 season. The two stayed in contact even after Washington moved on to the San Diego Padres organization. Washington was eventually elevated to the major-league staff from 2017 to 2019 and would see Bellinger’s Dodgers numerous times a year.

That familiarity helped bring Bellinger to Chicago, and he seems excited to work with Washington and lead hitting coach Dustin Kelly, who also had a brief connection with Bellinger when Kelly was a hitting coach in the Dodgers farm system.