Milwaukee Brewers star Christian Yelich underwent back surgery during the 2024 season that disrupted what was an All-Star campaign for him. He is expected to return fully healthy by the time spring training rolls around in 2025, but with outfield teammates such as Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell, Jackson Chourio, and Blake Perkins there had been some speculation among fans that Yelich could switch positions and play first base or be the designated hitter.
During the Brewers end of the season press conference manager Pat Murphy put the breaks on any thoughts of Christian Yelich changing positions.
Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy does not anticipate Christian Yelich changing positions.
In theory moving Christian Yelich to designated hitter or first base makes a lot of sense. From a numbers perspective this would open up more consistent playing time for other outfielders while also simultaneously putting the best defenders in the grass. As of right now Pat Murphy does not see a logjam of outfielders, but rather a really good group of players. He does plan on using the designated hitter position in order to get them all in the lineup.
“He’s (Christian Yelich) a pretty good outfielder and he’s a great player. He’s still very capable out there. I don’t think we have a logjam out there. I think we have a really good outfield. Because the DH is in place, you have four spots for five people. That’s fair. That’s assuming everybody comes back and there’s no other moves.
“If you’re talking about first base, I don’t think that’s in the cards anytime soon.”
Pat Murphy
One Brewers outfielder will once again be a candidate to see infield playing time.
During spring training in 2024 outfielder Sal Frelick took a lot of reps at third base. Frelick practiced there regularly, appeared in cactus league games at third base, and even trained with Dustin Pedroia during the off-season. He ended up playing just four innings at third base, but Pat Murphy said that Frelick playing third base in 2025 is “on the table, for sure.”
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