Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich was one of the best stories in all of baseball before a back injury ended his season. As fans remember all too well, Yelich was the 2018 NL MVP in his first season with the Brewers after hitting .326/.402/.598 with 36 home runs and 110 RBI to go with 22 stolen bases on a Milwaukee team that got all the way to Game Seven of the NLCS.
He was arguably even better in 2019, hitting .329/.429.671 with 44 home runs and 97 RBI to go with 30 stolen bases. Unfortunately, a foul ball shattered his knee cap and ended his season at 130 games. He came in second in NL MVP voting, and started a long stretch in which he was a shadow of his former self.
Milwaukee Brewers All-Star Outfielder Christian Yelich Returned to Form in 2024
2020 was a weird year. With the world shut down due to COVID-19, Major League Baseball shortened its season to 60 games. Milwaukee made the postseason as a wild card team, but had a 29-31 record. Yelich was back, but he was not himself, hitting .205/.356/.430 with 12 home runs and 22 RBI.
Fans blamed the strangeness of the season and the state of the world in general, but it was a long time before Yelich returned to being the high-average hitter that Brewers fans had grown accustomed to.
From 2020-2022, Yelich hit .243/.358/.388 and averaged 12 home runs and 43 RBI a year. Amidst his poor hitting output, he still managed to have an on-base percentage .350 or better in each season, giving fans hope that, someday, he would figure it out again.
In 2023, Yelich looked even more like the hitter that Milwaukee had first acquired from the Miami Marlins. He hit .278/.370/.447 with 19 home runs and 76 RBI to go with 28 stolen bases.
And then, in 2024, the savvy hitter finally broke free once again. Before landing on the injured list for the rest of the season, Yelich hit .315/.406/.504 with 11 home runs, 42 RBI, and 21 stolen bases in just 73 games. He made the NL All-Star team for the first time since 2019, and was even voted as a starter.
It is a real shame that his back would not cooperate with him. He tried to rehab without surgery, but it just was not possible to continue playing in the level of pain that he was in.
MLB Writer Suggests the Milwaukee Brewers Trade Christian Yelich to the New York Yankees
One of the biggest testaments to how good Yelich was in 2024, and how good many believe he will continue to be, is that he is now being included in trade proposals written by national baseball writers.
One such trade proposal was written by Peter Appel of Just Baseball, who admitted even when he wrote it that chances are less than 1% of the Brewers trading the former MVP.
“There is maybe a 1% chance of this happening, but this is my article and my fantasy world so just let me roll with it for a second,” Appel wrote.
“Yelich signed a 7-year, $188.5M extension with Milwaukee in 2020, so he will become an unrestricted free agent once he’s 38 years old in 2029. The Brewers will likely keep him because he’s fantastic, but the Brewers are always looking to move off big contracts.
“He’s also likely to play DH now that Jackson Chourio, Garrett Mitchell, and Sal Frelick all look like building blocks. For the right price, I could see them being willing to part with Yelich after only playing 73 games last year, a season-ended by back surgery.
“It’s difficult to say what the Brewers would want for him, but the Yankees have the system to make a move like this. Yelich is a fantastic bat when healthy, and in those 73 games he played last year, he stole 21 bases.
“The Yankees really need an influx of speed, among other elite qualities Yelich brings to the Brewers. He’s not Juan Soto, but at his best, it’s hard to find other left-handed hitters that can rival him.”
As one can tell, Appel was exploring different options for the New York Yankees should they not be able to sign Juan Soto this offseason. Indeed, Yelich would be fine option for them, especially with that short porch in right field.
And, as Appel points out, the Brewers have a nice young core of outfielders that are superior defenders. 2025 may be the season Milwaukee sees Yelich DH more than play in the outfield.
But one mistake that Appel makes when he said the Brewers are always looking to get out of huge contracts. The fact of the matter is that they rarely have huge contracts to begin with. Instead, they usually look to trade players that will demand huge contracts once they hit free agency.
Yelich signing the largest contract in franchise history was no accident. They want him around for the long haul. Instead of saying this trade has less than a 1% chance of happening, it would have been more accurate to say it has a less than 0% of happening.
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