Sometimes, you get tipped off a little bit early. In regards to the Milwaukee Brewers and their extension talks with Christian Yelich, we knew they were working on a multi-year extension weeks ago with the superstar outfielder.
On Tuesday afternoon, official reports broke from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic MLB.
Updated story on Yelich extension with #Brewers: https://t.co/wCK3eSMkt8
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) March 3, 2020
From behind the paywall article of The Athletic and Kenny:
The Brewers are close to agreement with Yelich on a new nine-year contract in the $215 million range, major-league sources told The Athletic on Tuesday. The deal is expected to be announced Friday at the team’s spring-training facility in Maryvale, Az.
Yelich, 28, currently is owed $12.5 million this season and $14 million next season with a $15 million club option. His new deal will eliminate the club option, and add seven years, bringing the total value to the $215 million range, sources said.
Some of the money will be deferred, and the average annual value for those seven years would be in the $27 million range, still below-market value for a player of Yelich’s caliber. Angels center fielder Mike Trout currently is baseball’s highest-paid position player at $35.541 million per season. Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon is next at $35 million.
As I said, sometimes you just get lucky.
Good thing I had it a month ago sOuRcEs, again Ken & co not the only people told things https://t.co/GZUdiyMzEV pic.twitter.com/hMbzxB3uoV
— Clint (@DiamondHoggers) March 3, 2020
Hat tip to ‘The Army’ as I like to call them who tipped us off early on this.
On a grander scale, it’s a nice deal for the Brewers. This is the largest extension in team history, and it’s well deserved. Yelich deserves a permanent home in Milwaukee, where he’s nearly won back-to-back MVP awards and become one of the best all-around offensive players in the game of baseball.
The goal is to have someone with some Brewers-based talk on the show sometime in the near future. While they may not have the best roster from 1 to 26 in the big leagues, they will have Yelich until 2028 at least. And that’s good for the sport.