Yankees might've gotten best Cody Bellinger news yet (but it's still not reassuring)

It makes a ton of sense for a Cody Bellinger-New York Yankees deal to happen in January, but Brian Cashman and the rest of New York's front office haven't exactly instilled confidence in fans this offseason.

Cashman's public and clear insistence that the Yankees are 100 percent in on re-signing Bellinger has been offset by the front office's lack of initiative with everything else - including, of course, the fact that Belli still remains unsigned with the offseason nearly two months complete.

Perhaps there are leverage benefits to waiting when it comes to a new Bellinger contract. From Belli's perspective (and more importantly, that of his agent, Scott Boras), this means waiting to see what kind of money Kyle Tucker ends up bagging first.

And from the Yankees' perspective, it means waiting until the dust of initial negotiations settles to reveal what Bellinger's most accurate valuation is; that is, if Cashman is confident that someone else won't swoop in and steal Bellinger.

Cashman does appear to possess this surety, if you believe a Christmas day report from The New York Post's Jon Heyman.

Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees aren't worried about losing the Cody Bellinger sweepstakes

Bellinger's list of suitors notably includes the New York Mets, which you would think might strike some fear into the Yankees' front office, given Steve Cohen's spending power. But according to Heyman, the Yankees "seem pretty confident that, unlike superstar Juan Soto, (Bellinger) won’t skip to Queens."

While those words would be delightful for Yankees fans if true, there's no evidence to support that they are, and Cashman's offseason performance thus far certainly doesn't help matters, as aforementioned.

Yankees fans' trust of this front office is so shattered that all of the "signs" pointing to a Bellinger return don't feel nearly strong enough. This includes Belli's obvious fit on the Yankees, his discernible pleasure with playing in the Bronx and, more recently, Aaron Judge's reported advocacy for a new Bellinger deal.

In virtually any Yankees era from the past, news of the team's superstar publicly endorsing the re-signing of a player would have signaled that the deal is probably already done. After all, what barriers existed to signing any given player, other than clubhouse friction?

Nowadays, the dominant aura surrounding this franchise is diminishing daily, and there's no such thing as surety within the mind of a Yankees fan, even if Cashman still grips to a small dose of it in the privacy of his office.

In years past, even when the Yankees weren't stockpiling World Series trophies, there was always hope that the front office was one offseason away from launching the next dynasty. There's no trace of that hope remaining, which is why no one can actually trust Heyman's Bellinger news. It's not as if the Yankees are a Bellinger away from a dynasty, but it would be nice to see that they can make at least one big signing this winter.