Photo by Kirsten Schmitt
Christian Yelich
The Brewers gave their fans plenty to be thankful for during the 2025 season, but the news coming from American Family Field on Thanksgiving week didn’t quite match the spirit of the fall holiday.
As part of their offseason notes feature (later reposted as a standalone story at MLB Trade Rumors), the staff at The Athletic reported that the Brewers are “fretting over their payroll” following Brandon Woodruff’s decision to accept a one-year, $22.025 million contract offer for 2026. With Woodruff back in the fold Cot’s Contracts now projects the Brewers’ 2026 payroll at over $110 million, which would be up slightly from last season’s $108 million but down significantly from $132 million in 2022.
Naturally, the first question was how this news relates to the Brewers’ biggest offseason storyline: Will they trade Freddy Peralta? Peralta is a year away from becoming a free agent, putting him in a similar situation to what Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams were in when the Brewers traded them in each of the last two offseasons. Those trades brought the Brewers Caleb Durbin, Joey Ortiz and DL Hall, who have all since contributed to Brewers division championship teams.
Salary Relief?
In terms of salary relief, however, trading Peralta wouldn’t accomplish a lot for the 2026 Brewers. He’s only due to make $8 million in the final club option year on his contract, significantly below market value for a pitcher of his caliber. Trading Peralta by himself might net the Brewers young talent but won’t make a significant dent in their payroll number or gain them all that much financial flexibility.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
If the Brewers intend to keep their payroll in its current limited range then one of the biggest problems they face is that a large percentage of their 2026 budget is tied up in two contracts. Brandon Woodruff, of course, just signed his. The other belongs to Christian Yelich, who is still owed roughly $77 million over the next three seasons with a club option for 2029.
Yelich has followed an unusual career trajectory, with a couple of career years in 2018-19 setting extremely high expectations for the future that he has since struggled to meet. Over the last three years he’s quietly been a pretty productive player, however. His 8.8 Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement over that time almost perfectly match Phillies outfielder/DH Kyle Schwarber and Cardinals catcher/first baseman Willson Contreras. Yelich, however, also turns 34 this week. As we noted last offseason, it’s become increasingly difficult for position players to remain effective into their late ‘30s in recent years. There’s also the fact that Yelich is now nearly exclusively a designated hitter, which both limits his value and the Brewers’ flexibility. It’s not unusual for long MLB contracts to have a stretch at the end where the money owed outweighs the production expected, and that’s likely where the Brewers are with Yelich.
Trade ‘em Both?
If the Brewers make it a priority to gain payroll flexibility this winter then one option to do so might be trading Peralta and Yelich, which would almost certainly require them to accept less talent in return but would free up $85 million in committed salary over the next three seasons. This would be a tough transaction to sell to Brewers fans, as giving up two popular long-term Brewers with the primary goal of saving money would certainly not be seen as a move a team makes when they’re trying to win. Unless a large portion of the financial savings was quickly reinvested fans would likely be quick to note that the Brewers were already spending less on payroll as a percentage of estimated revenue than most of their peers and further trimmed expenses from that point.
If the Brewers intend to continue to contend with their limited budget, however, then the remainder of Yelich’s contract is something they’re either going to have to work around or find a way to get out from under. It wouldn’t be popular, but a Freddy Peralta trade might be their best opportunity to do the latter.
