The struggles of Yelich and Hiura - Let the numbers talk!

[MrTPlush]

At this point I’m still pretty convinced that Yelich wanted to cash while he was still getting away with cheating or drugs or hiding a degenerative back/knee/whatever injury

 

So Ryan Braun

[jonescm128]

At this point I’m still pretty convinced that Yelich wanted to cash while he was still getting away with cheating or drugs or hiding a degenerative back/knee/whatever injury

 

Same. I think about this often and I get angry every time. If that’s the case, he robbed us.

[SomewhereInTime]

At this point I’m still pretty convinced that Yelich wanted to cash while he was still getting away with cheating or drugs or hiding a degenerative back/knee/whatever injury

 

Yup, after those two seasons he was coming off of, it looked like he was heading toward Harper money. Never sign injured players to large contract extensions before they recover. Imagine how much sense it would make if david bakhtiari were in a contract year this year and the Packers signed him to a big money extension right now?

[dlk9s]

Yelich himself admitted he initiated talks with ownership about a contract extension and its not the first time Attanasio has decided to sign players long term on his own. He gave Braun the second extension, and signed both Lohse and Suppan on his own as well. The guy owns the team and can do what he wants but its extremely obvious that he was the driving force behind the Yelich signing.

 

So what is it? Did Attanasio sign Yelich on his own or was he the driving force behind the Yelich signing? I would be shocked if it was the former, owner or not. You really think he signed someone without consulting his GM? The latter makes sense and it's not like Stearns wasn't considering it.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Yelich himself admitted he initiated talks with ownership about a contract extension and its not the first time Attanasio has decided to sign players long term on his own. He gave Braun the second extension, and signed both Lohse and Suppan on his own as well. The guy owns the team and can do what he wants but its extremely obvious that he was the driving force behind the Yelich signing.

 

So what is it? Did Attanasio sign Yelich on his own or was he the driving force behind the Yelich signing? I would be shocked if it was the former, owner or not. You really think he signed someone without consulting his GM? The latter makes sense and it's not like Stearns wasn't considering it.

 

I would go one step further and say that no player moves of this magnitude are made without the full blessing of both the owner and the GM/Team President. To think otherwise is, frankly, a little on the crazy end of the spectrum.

[adambr2]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

[adambr2]

https://deadspin.com/so-is-christian-yelich-dead-1847858294

[MrTPlush]

There is no way Stearns didn't support that contract. Attanasio isn't like how he used to be by going off and basically signing guys if he feels he needs them. I really doubt present day Attanasio would have forced it had Stearns told him it was basically a really terrible idea. They signed Yelich after two insane years and Yelich was arguably a Top 3 player in baseball the last two years prior to the extension. Signing him for what they did wasn't an insane idea.

 

Heck most fans (not all) celebrated like it was christmas when it happened. Loads of people on here, that I find logical posters, went into detail why it wasn't a bad idea off the bat. If not for the Braun contract in the past I am guessing there would have been almost zero pushback on this extension happening. I was one of the ones that didn't really like it. I recall thinking it was pretty amazing, from the standpoint of Milwaukee extending that caliber of a player, but from a competitive baseball standpoint it was pretty horrendous.

 

I mean if Yelich would have had a career arc of Joey Votto I don't think anyone would have complained. It could have been an okay extension...or even good. Thus, it is a nightmare before ever starting.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

If he had been Ryan Braun it really wouldn't have been that bad and I've always and still think people really bemoaning Braun's like the worst thing in the world are a tad dramatic. It could have gone better or worse, but when you sign a 9-year deal, by year 6, 7, 8, there's been a good deal of inflation watering those years down.

 

I liked Yeli's deal even assuming his best baseball was behind him. But we have 2012 Nyjer Morgan right now so yeah, it's a disaster.

[jonescm128]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

 

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit...

[MrTPlush]

The Ryan Braun deal was for 5 years. The deal was signed prior to 2011, but that extension did not start till 2016. He averaged 1.74 WAR during the extension years, that is bad....I mean it just is. The reason the extension really ended up being "meh" is for two reasons:

 

1) Salary inflation. There was so much time between signing and starting the extension the rapid salary inflation we saw during that time helped out. This was largely due to the TV deals getting signed. It made Braun's salary looked less daunting compared to his peers, but in reality we were stuck in a crummy/outdated TV deal so all that salary inflation didn't really help us out personally. I am sure the Brewers knew salaries around baseball were about to take off and it played into giving him the deal.

 

2) Our payroll wasn't high because we were rebuilding or coming out of that rebuild. This is largely luck and something the Brewers really could not predict. Had our payroll been more of a numbers crunch during the extension this extension would have been a lot more horrendous to deal with. I still think it was a bit unfortunate on the payroll to deal with though as the payroll did get crunched a bit in 2019/2020.

 

Extending Braun for his 32-36 seasons five years before it would even start was just flat out idiotic to do. I mean extending any player five years before the deal would even start is just a stupid idea. Consider the fact at the time Braun wasn't even an MVP at the time and the previous two years wasn't even top 10 in MVP voting that could have been even more dumb than it ended up being.

[MrTPlush]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

 

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit...

 

IF....IFFFF....Yelich is this bad forever and never really becomes a mid .800 OPS player again I don't think this is that insane of a take. I could see 9 years of depressing agony having to watch Yelich outweighing two good years.

 

I certainly wouldn't look back and think "I am so glad we made that trade still."

[adambr2]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

 

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit...

 

Pump the brakes on what? I stand by it. The Yelich trade in a vacuum was a steal. But the residual effects from the extension will easily outweigh the short term benefits that we enjoyed.

 

We'd be a contender with or without Christian Yelich now or next year or after that.

[Fear The Chorizo]

https://deadspin.com/so-is-christian-yelich-dead-1847858294

 

The data from that article just screams to me that he's lost the leverage in his swing that his frame naturally generates - not getting enough torque to generate bat speed so what he thinks is an on time swing winds up dragging just enough to produce weak or no contact. Some of that is not having a solid foundation (legs), and if you have back issues swing speed is going to also suffer.

 

Speculating, but the large dip in Yelich's 2020 swing rate could be attributed to prolonged recovery to that knee injury - although part of that could simply be teams were pitching around him knowing there wasn't anyone else on that offensive roster worth worrying about.

 

For 2021, the swing rate picked back up - but the contact got weaker - as the season wore on pitchers started attacking him and Yelich wasn't making them pay. I actually hope there was something related to a nagging injury/ailment with his knee or back that can at least try to be addressed in the offseason - otherwise if he actually felt really healthy and just didn't have good results at the plate, Yelich is a diminished player and he needs to completely rethink his approach at the plate to be anything more than replacement level during the huge money years of the extension he inked between his MVP-caliber years and the last two disappointing years.

 

I've said it in other threads detailing the end of this Brewer season - if they had the 2019 version of Yelich in the middle of this year's batting order the Brewers go much farther than losing in the NLDS.

[jonescm128]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

 

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit...

 

IF....IFFFF....Yelich is this bad forever and never really becomes a mid .800 OPS player again I don't think this is that insane of a take. I could see 9 years of depressing agony having to watch Yelich outweighing two good years.

 

I certainly wouldn't look back and think "I am so glad we made that trade still."

 

Well, sure but its a little premature for that. I still can't accept that this is just the hitter he is now. He had two amazing years, a year during a pandemic coming off a brutal injury, and this year. We know the back was an issue this year so I am hoping the offseason rest can get him right.

 

Yes, this year was absolutely brutal to watch. Looked like he had zero confidence and just looked bad up there but everyone has down years. Let's just hope it picks back up. I don't think anyone expects 2018/2019 Yelich but we should at least be hoping for 2016/2017 Marlins Yelich.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Whether he signed the contract extension under false pretenses or not, at this point I actually wish we had never traded for Yelich. It wasn't worth that one run to the NLCS in '18 to be stuck with this massive disaster for 10 years.

 

Shocking that it's gotten to this point. Christian Yelich was the guy we thought would bring a World Series back to Milwaukee and the irony is that he might be the reason we don't get to one.

 

Okay lets pump the brakes a bit...

 

IF....IFFFF....Yelich is this bad forever and never really becomes a mid .800 OPS player again I don't think this is that insane of a take. I could see 9 years of depressing agony having to watch Yelich outweighing two good years.

 

I certainly wouldn't look back and think "I am so glad we made that trade still."

 

I'm always going to look at the decisions to trade for Yelich at the time and to give him an extension in early 2020 separately. The trade will go down as one of the biggest pieces of highway robbery ever, because it included 5 seasons of team control of Yelich at friendly costs based on his performance as a Marlin. Then he goes video game mode and is MVP-caliber in 2018-2019 - the Brewers aren't a playoff team without him those two seasons.

 

The decision to lock him into a huge contract extension despite still having 3 years left on his last deal (2022 team option included) before he proved that he was all the way back as a player following that knee injury could now wind up being one of the all-time albatross moves - looked great at the time of the signing because all indications were that he was fully healed and raring to go, plus based on his 2 MVP-caliber seasons he left alot of money on the table. Since then, it's been a disaster and we are only now reaching the spot where the annual payroll commitment to him is going to lead to hard decisions made on other young players working through arbitration/free agency. To think that if they just waited a bit to get serious about an extension, there's a good chance we'd be talking about whether or not the Brewers should exercise Yelich's 2022 option from his last deal for around $15M or just buy him out for a couple million and let him walk.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I'd take a player worthy of being in the batting order at this point. He isn't.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The optimist in me wants to believe that Yelich will get things fixed in the offseason and once again be a productive part of the Brewers lineup. The pessimist in me, though, sees what he's done the last two years, and that it is a big enough sample to let the thought creep in that he may simply be an approximately replacement level outfielder at this point in his career.

 

I don't want to believe the pessimistic part, though, because this franchise simply cannot afford for that to happen. The team is stuck with Yelich long-term, so probably the best thing we can hope for as fans of this team is that he figures things out, regains his confidence, and starts hitting again. What is somewhat troubling, though, is the amount of fans, it seems, that almost seem giddy or at least "told you so"-ish concerning Yelich's demise. It's almost like there are people that aren't content unless they are miserable. Like they want something more to complain about and to hold over the front office's head.

 

Even the most well-run teams make errors in personnel. It happens. And Yelich may eventually be an enormous one if he doesn't figure things out. But that story hasn't been written to completion yet, and at this point, we all should probably be pulling for a happy ending. Because the alternative is terrible.

[adambr2]

The optimist in me wants to believe that Yelich will get things fixed in the offseason and once again be a productive part of the Brewers lineup. The pessimist in me, though, sees what he's done the last two years, and that it is a big enough sample to let the thought creep in that he may simply be an approximately replacement level outfielder at this point in his career.

 

I don't want to believe the pessimistic part, though, because this franchise simply cannot afford for that to happen. The team is stuck with Yelich long-term, so probably the best thing we can hope for as fans of this team is that he figures things out, regains his confidence, and starts hitting again. What is somewhat troubling, though, is the amount of fans, it seems, that almost seem giddy or at least "told you so"-ish concerning Yelich's demise. It's almost like there are people that aren't content unless they are miserable. Like they want something more to complain about and to hold over the front office's head.

 

Even the most well-run teams make errors in personnel. It happens. And Yelich may eventually be an enormous one if he doesn't figure things out. But that story hasn't been written to completion yet, and at this point, we all should probably be pulling for a happy ending. Because the alternative is terrible.

 

I haven't seen any indications that anyone is in any way pleased with this new development from Yelich. It sucks.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The optimist in me wants to believe that Yelich will get things fixed in the offseason and once again be a productive part of the Brewers lineup. The pessimist in me, though, sees what he's done the last two years, and that it is a big enough sample to let the thought creep in that he may simply be an approximately replacement level outfielder at this point in his career.

 

I don't want to believe the pessimistic part, though, because this franchise simply cannot afford for that to happen. The team is stuck with Yelich long-term, so probably the best thing we can hope for as fans of this team is that he figures things out, regains his confidence, and starts hitting again. What is somewhat troubling, though, is the amount of fans, it seems, that almost seem giddy or at least "told you so"-ish concerning Yelich's demise. It's almost like there are people that aren't content unless they are miserable. Like they want something more to complain about and to hold over the front office's head.

 

Even the most well-run teams make errors in personnel. It happens. And Yelich may eventually be an enormous one if he doesn't figure things out. But that story hasn't been written to completion yet, and at this point, we all should probably be pulling for a happy ending. Because the alternative is terrible.

 

I haven't seen any indications that anyone is in any way pleased with this new development from Yelich. It sucks.

 

You may be right. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the absolutism and pessimism of some of these thoughts as giddiness, and that may be incorrect. Sometimes it's tough to get a person's true feelings on a message board, though.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Ron Robinson's Beard

[ThisIsMyCrew]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27490845/how-brewers-star-christian-yelich-turned-mvp-body-issue-2019

 

Excuse the naked pictures in the article.

 

But it’s interesting going back to 2019 interview. That Barry Bonds was a huge reason for his success and change. Maybe he needs to give him a call this off-season.

 

That, and get rid of Andy As the hitting coach.

[MrTPlush]

The first order of business is him accepting he can't be Christian Yelich of his Miami days. Step two is accepting he can't be Christian Yelich of his early Brewers days. He isn't a 40+ homerun hitter, those days are just gone and over. If the bat speed isn't there because of injuries or whatever he has to change to way he hits and approaches ABs.

 

Ryan Braun got hit with injuries, notably the thumb thing. He spoke openly about how it really messed him up because he didn't have the bat speed and had to start swinging earlier. In 2014 he had a .777 OPS, two years later he had a OPS over .900. Braun made changes and did so over his entire career to to find the most success out of his rapidly declining abilities. Players do it all the time and really any player wanting to play into their mid 30s has to do it.

 

Christian Yelich is either going to adapt and adjust or he is going to be one of the biggest disaster/overpaid players in baseball and one of the most hated players in Brewers history. He cannot do anything with breaking balls, why? He rolls over pitches daily, why? I have no doubt Yelich has the potential to be a mid .850 OPS player. I think he even has to potential to see .900 in a season again. But he isn't going to do that hitting 44 homers and he isn't going to do it hitting .330.

 

You don't go from hitting to the tune of a 1.100 OPS and then two years later have the potential to hit .725. I don't care the injury or if you were shooting up on HGH daily. You don't lose .400 worth of talent/potential like that. His results right now are .725, but the talent and potential is not that low. It is up to him on how to figure out how to be a respectable player again.

[Underachiever]

The first order of business is him accepting he can't be Christian Yelich of his Miami days. Step two is accepting he can't be Christian Yelich of his early Brewers days. He isn't a 40+ homerun hitter, those days are just gone and over. If the bat speed isn't there because of injuries or whatever he has to change to way he hits and approaches ABs.

 

Ryan Braun got hit with injuries, notably the thumb thing. He spoke openly about how it really messed him up because he didn't have the bat speed and had to start swinging earlier. In 2014 he had a .777 OPS, two years later he had a OPS over .900. Braun made changes and did so over his entire career to to find the most success out of his rapidly declining abilities. Players do it all the time and really any player wanting to play into their mid 30s has to do it.

 

Christian Yelich is either going to adapt and adjust or he is going to be one of the biggest disaster/overpaid players in baseball and one of the most hated players in Brewers history. He cannot do anything with breaking balls, why? He rolls over pitches daily, why? I have no doubt Yelich has the potential to be a mid .850 OPS player. I think he even has to potential to see .900 in a season again. But he isn't going to do that hitting 44 homers and he isn't going to do it hitting .330.

 

You don't go from hitting to the tune of a 1.100 OPS and then two years later have the potential to hit .725. I don't care the injury or if you were shooting up on HGH daily. You don't lose .400 worth of talent/potential like that. His results right now are .725, but the talent and potential is not that low. It is up to him on how to figure out how to be a respectable player again.

Not sure he could do anything with fastballs, either. There was that 98 mph pitch from Morton that they showed in slo-mo. It appeared the ball was almost in the catcher's glove before he started the swing. The whole team was a tick behind on fastballs in the series. So many middle-plate fastballs that were just fouled off to the opposite side.

 

But hey, nobody has complained about Hiura in a few days. Silver lining!

[Jopal78]

The Ryan Braun deal was for 5 years. The deal was signed prior to 2011, but that extension did not start till 2016. He averaged 1.74 WAR during the extension years, that is bad....I mean it just is. The reason the extension really ended up being "meh" is for two reasons:

 

1) Salary inflation. There was so much time between signing and starting the extension the rapid salary inflation we saw during that time helped out. This was largely due to the TV deals getting signed. It made Braun's salary looked less daunting compared to his peers, but in reality we were stuck in a crummy/outdated TV deal so all that salary inflation didn't really help us out personally. I am sure the Brewers knew salaries around baseball were about to take off and it played into giving him the deal.

 

2) Our payroll wasn't high because we were rebuilding or coming out of that rebuild. This is largely luck and something the Brewers really could not predict. Had our payroll been more of a numbers crunch during the extension this extension would have been a lot more horrendous to deal with. I still think it was a bit unfortunate on the payroll to deal with though as the payroll did get crunched a bit in 2019/2020.

 

Extending Braun for his 32-36 seasons five years before it would even start was just flat out idiotic to do. I mean extending any player five years before the deal would even start is just a stupid idea. Consider the fact at the time Braun wasn't even an MVP at the time and the previous two years wasn't even top 10 in MVP voting that could have been even more dumb than it ended up being.

 

Unless you truly believe a team should never pay market rates for players I don't understand the gripe with Ryan Braun. Sure, he had a lot of nagging injuries that kept him out of the lineup, but when he was healthy he produced.

 

According to baseball reference Braun had a career WAR of 47.1 in 14 seasons and earned 144 million dollars in his career

 

Matt Holiday had a career WAR of 44.5 in 15 seasons and earned 159 million dollars.

Justin Upton has a career WAR of 32.7 in 15 seasons and has earned 173 million dollars

Andrew McCutcheon has a career WAR 46 in 13 seasons and has earned 114 million dollars.

Magglio Ordonez had a career WAR of 38.8 in 15 seasons and earned 133 million dollars (in an era with somewhat lower player salaries).

 

Unless the argument is: the team would have hypothetically been better with a hypothetical collection of players playing for the amount of money the Brewers spent on Braun, I don't understand the complaint. The Brewers paid market rate for an above average slugger and while he was injured more than anyone would have liked, he produced on par with other star quality outfielders of his era.

 

Its similar with Yelich, there's an inherent risk in signing veteran players to long-term market rate contracts. Star quality veteran players simply don't sign cut-rate contracts or short term deals. Philosophically, if someone believes a team should just have a revolving cast year to year and not play with any veteran players that's fine, but otherwise complaining that the Brewers paid market rate for a player seems like an exercise in shouting at the clouds.

[MrTPlush]

Unless you truly believe a team should never pay market rates for players I don't understand the gripe with Ryan Braun. Sure, he had a lot of nagging injuries that kept him out of the lineup, but when he was healthy he produced.

 

According to baseball reference Braun had a career WAR of 47.1 in 14 seasons and earned 144 million dollars in his career

 

Matt Holiday had a career WAR of 44.5 in 15 seasons and earned 159 million dollars.

Justin Upton has a career WAR of 32.7 in 15 seasons and has earned 173 million dollars

Andrew McCutcheon has a career WAR 46 in 13 seasons and has earned 114 million dollars.

Magglio Ordonez had a career WAR of 38.8 in 15 seasons and earned 133 million dollars (in an era with somewhat lower player salaries).

 

Unless the argument is: the team would have hypothetically been better with a hypothetical collection of players playing for the amount of money the Brewers spent on Braun, I don't understand the complaint. The Brewers paid market rate for an above average slugger and while he was injured more than anyone would have liked, he produced on par with other star quality outfielders of his era.

 

Its similar with Yelich, there's an inherent risk in signing veteran players to long-term market rate contracts. Star quality veteran players simply don't sign cut-rate contracts or short term deals. Philosophically, if someone believes a team should just have a revolving cast year to year and not play with any veteran players that's fine, but otherwise complaining that the Brewers paid market rate for a player seems like an exercise in shouting at the clouds.

 

I don't care what his career WAR is, almost all of it was prior to the extension. We paid Braun over $100mil over five years for him to average 1.7 WAR, that is what matters. What he did prior to that extension just doesn't mean anything. We could have paid Braun like $40mil over 9 years for 35ish WAR. Now THAT would have been amazing. They didn't do that though. They gave him $100mil+ half a decade before he would hit FA as a 32 year old.

 

Of the five seasons of that extension Ryan Braun failed to have a WAR over 1.0 three of the years (via Bref). Another year was only 1.7 WAR. That is terrible, any random OFer off the street can give you 1.7 WAR a year. Tyrone Taylor had like 1.5 WAR this year. Keon Broxton did that twice for us.

 

I am glad Ryan Braun wasn't Vernon Wells...or apparently Christian Yelich, but it really just wasn't a wise decision and really didn't end up that great.