Christian Yelich's contract could make Brewers' free agency more difficult

Yelich’s season ended abruptly in August, and it was a shame because he was matching his output from the 2018 and 2019 seasons when he became an All-Star and won his first MVP. 

The team thought it could put off subjecting him to surgery, but he was eventually shut down for the season by September while on the 60-day injured list.

The Brewers have a chance to do better this year, but they have to work around his contract, deemed by Bleacher Report as the eighth worst in the league.

"His production cratered during the shortened 2020 season, and he tallied just 4.3 WAR over the first three seasons of that shiny new contract, but he has returned to being an impact offensive player the last two years. The 32-year-old was an All-Star this past season for the first time since 2019, hitting .315/.406/.504 for a 151 OPS+ in 315 plate appearances before undergoing season-ending back surgery in August," Bleacher Report's Joel Reuter wrote.

"For a team like the Brewers on a tight budget, having Yelich account for more than 30 percent of their $70.8 million payroll in 2024 was simply too big of a piece of the pie. That will continue to be the case in the coming years."

Yelich is now in the fourth year of the nine-year, $215 million contract extension he signed in 2020.

He hasn’t been the same since his All-Star years, although he proved last season that he could still get it done, as he was named to the All-Star team before getting shut down.

Brewers' 2025 plans and Christian Yelich’s recovery timeline

Major changes are already happening in Milwaukee as the team traded All-Star pitcher Corbin Burnes. It also signed former New York Mets pitcher Vinny Nittoli in September.

Changes are happening, but what the Brewers are patient about is Yelich. The team is hopeful that the 32-year-old left fielder will recover and get back to his old play.

Yelich himself is also not worried about his performance once he gets back from the back surgery.

"I think everybody sees 'back surgery' and they think, 'Oh, that’s the end of your career,'" Yelich said back in August, via MLB.com's Adam McCalvy. "But in my mind, that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. I think that it’s going to help me tremendously. I think I’ll feel a lot better than I have in the last few years."