By extending Christian Yelich, the Brewers also extended their window
Emergency Rich People Conversation alert! Nine years. $215 million. One MVP staying in Milwaukee.
Ever since the second half of the 2018 season, when Christian Yelich began his bonanza as the best hitter in baseball not named Michael Nelson Trout, people have discussed what the superstar’s future in Milwaukee is.
These talks ranged from whispers of fans worried the Brewers would not be able to (or simply choose not to) extend him after his contract ends in 2022, sports talk radio speculation, Yelich himself making it clear that he loves Milwaukee and wants to play here for a long time, owner Mark Attanassio saying he would like to extend Yelich at this year’s Brewers On Deck and so on.
Now, it looks like the talks will be about whether the 2018 National League Most Valuable Player will retire as a Brewer.
Yelich and the Brewers reportedly are close to an extension for nine years and $215 million that would keep the 28-year-old outfielder in Milwaukee through 2028.
The news was first reported Tuesday by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, and Joel Sherman reported that the new extension would tear up Yelich’s 2022 option and give him seven more years at “roughly $188.5 million.”
For the next two seasons, Yelich’s team-friendly deal that he signed while still with the Marlins would stay intact, paying him $12.5 million in 2020 and then $14 million the following year. (I hope I got the credit citations right, I don’t need Baseball Writer Twitter to @ me).
All along, we heard about how Yelich wanted to be in Milwaukee. The question was did he want to be in Milwaukee at a rate at which the Brewers would be willing to pay him over multiple years?
The answer turned out to be yes, and both parties’ interests were represented in the reported deal.
There has been some talk about how Yelich took a very discounted deal.
Sure, if Yelich had been on the free agent market this past off-season, there is no question that he would have received far more than the $215 million he will get over nine years under the new extension.
But the reality is that he wasn’t a free agent this year and wouldn’t have been until 2022, when he would be entering his age-31 season. And a guy that played for pennies compared to his actual, MVP worth for the last five-or-so years likely wouldn’t voluntarily sign a deal where he feels shortchanged.
Under the extension, Yelich is slated to make $162.9 million starting in 2023, which would have been the first year of his deal after free agency, through 2028. Yelich also will get what amounts to around a $12 million raise in 2022 from his $15 million club option that almost certainly would have been utilized.
Could he have gotten more than than six years, $163 million as an age-31 free agent? Of course. Just ask Stephen Strasburg. But was he guaranteed that type of deal three seasons down the road? Not at all.
So, while the Brewers were able to lock up one of the best players in the game while still in his prime for a below-market rate ($27 million average annual value is 16th in MLB), Yelich also did well to secure his future and do so in a place he likes to play.
Now, slight and short tangent. There’s some irony in this all. In the off-season before the 2019 season, there were reports that the Brewers did not have much money to spend. They then went out and inked Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas to significant, albeit one-year, deals. This year, the organization came straight out and said they suffered an operating loss in 2019. They then committed nearly $200 million to Yelich down the road.
But I’m not going to delve much further. We’ve had all off-season to talk about how much money the Brewers did or did not spend.
The fact of the matter is that by extending Yelich, the Brewers also extended their competitive window (or, as RPC co-author Jake Schultz put it, they, at the very least, extended their window of making a concerted effort to compete).
Just two years from now, the Brewers will have only four guaranteed contracts on the books: Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Josh Lindblom and Fred Peralta (and a couple of deferred salaries). Of those four, only the former two’s contracts (~$44 million guaranteed) are significant amounts of money.
They will still have team control on guys like Brandon Woodruff, Omar Narvaez, Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, Keston Hiura, Adrian Houser, Luis Urias, Orlando Arcia and Brent Suter in 2022. Those arbitration contracts (or extensions given out between now and then) will likely take up a chunk of change, but that should still be a competitive core of players in their primes.
There should still be financial flexibility should allow the Brewers to fill in the rest of the roster around their needs.
Of course, the Brewers remaining competitive in the window of the new Yelich extension leans heavily on, well, Yelich himself.
The extension can keep Yelich in Milwaukee through his age-36 season (assuming the reported mutual option for 2029 isn’t exercised, as is usual with such things). Yelich will not be his current self by then--the wRC+ aging curve from 30 to 35 is sharp, not to mention fielding decline. But what the Brewers did is essentially buy out the remainder of his prime (at well below what his open-market rate would have been, much less). Even if Yelich isn’t providing full value in the final couple of seasons of the deal (which, to a degree, I’m sure the Brewers are even anticipating), the hope is that by maintaining his talents from 2023 through around 2026, the team’s window is extended by keeping an elite hitter in the lineup.
There are also parts of Yelich’s game which could ease the severity of that aging decline, as well. Plate discipline tends to be a relatively sticky trait and Yelich has a career 11.1 BB% while just coming off a career-best 13.8 percent in that category. He doesn’t strike out a ton, just over a 20 percent clip for his career, and swinging strike percentage is one of the more stable aging curves.
There’s also a lot of cushion to work with when it comes to Yelich; his last two seasons are both among the top three in franchise history in terms of wRC+. Even if he declines from his current status as a seven-win player, it’s not too hard to envision a mid-30s Yelich still providing anywhere from three-to-five wins.
The truth of the matter, though, is this: who knows precisely how the entire contract will play? Christian Yelich, who is good at baseball, is going to be a Brewer for a long time. In the immediate aftermath of the news, that’s good news for Milwaukee.
And, after Tuesday, it’s even easier to envision his number 22 eventually being retired by the Brewers.
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