Courtesy of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club
It was overshadowed a bit by a Sunday Packers game and a two-homer game for Daniel Vogelbach, but it’s possible Sunday’s Brewers game might live on in history as the end of an era as Ryan Braun played his 892nd and perhaps final game at Miller Park.
Speculation about the pending conclusion of Braun’s contract and how both sides may handle it has been ongoing through much of this year. Back in January at Brewers On Deck Braun acknowledged that 2020 could be his last season attending the event as a player. Later, in July he told reporters that the abbreviated season and this year’s MLB rules changes made him more likely to consider coming back for another season.
It’s been a long few months since then, however, and on Sunday Braun was significantly more noncommittal about his future. Sunday’s Fox Sports Wisconsin broadcast was peppered with historic Braun highlights, featured an in-game interview with the Brewers’ all-time home run leader and a lot of candid interactions between Braun and his teammates and coaches, as he wore a microphone for the game. One of those moments featured Braun “passing the torch” to his self-proclaimed “little brother,” Christian Yelich.
“I’m really just trying to stay present,” Braun said when asked about his future on the FS Wisconsin broadcast during Sunday’s game. “That (the 2020 postseason push) has to be where my focus is for the time being. Obviously when the season is over I’ll take some time to reflect on where we’re at, talk to my family about it, see where I’m at physically, see what the world looks like, and just take a lot of things into account before I make that decision. I feel like physically certainly I’d be capable of playing longer, it’s just a matter of whether it’s something I want to do or not.”
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Contract is Up?
2020 is the final season of a five-year, $105 million contract extension Braun signed back in 2011, but both sides have a mutual option valued at $15 million for 2021. Braun’s bat has been a big part of the Brewers’ successes in September, when he’s reached base 19 times in 13 games and hit five home runs, but he still entered September batting under .200 and didn’t get his on-base percentage over .300 until the 50th game of the season on Friday night. It’s unclear what the Brewers’ (or any other MLB team’s) payroll situation will look like for 2021 after an unprecedented year in 2020, but it’s possible a large financial commitment to Braun might be difficult to fit into a tight budget.
There’s also the question of what Braun wants at this point in his life and career. The experience of being a Major League Baseball player was significantly different in 2020 than it has been in any other season for a variety of reasons, from cavernous empty ballparks to road trips confined to hotels and more. At this point it appears likely that some or all of those changes will carry on into 2021.
Braun has earned over $150 million during his time with the Brewers, including deferred salary the organization is scheduled to pay off in installments from 2022 through 2031. Clearly, he doesn’t need the money he’d make by playing another season in Milwaukee or anywhere else, so he’s in a position to leave on his terms if he’d rather spend next summer at home with his family than dealing with COVID protocols.
“Being a parent and being a husband and my family are my top priorities in life, and at some point as the kids get older I just don’t enjoy being away from them at all,” Braun told reporters following Sunday’s game. “One of the biggest challenges of this game is that we’re on the road a lot and we miss out on a lot of things. So that’s the biggest reason that I would consider being done, for sure.”
If this is it, Braun’s final month as a Brewer has already featured several memorable moments: On the recently concluded homestand alone he hit a walkoff sac fly, became one of just 96 players in MLB history to hit 350 home runs and capped it off with a two-hit game in the spotlight on Sunday. When the Brewers drafted Braun they had made just two postseason appearances in franchise history, and he has them in position to make their fifth of his career if they play well this week.
Beyond that, it’s hard to imagine Brewers baseball without Ryan Braun. On Sunday, however, everyone involved received another reminder that the day is coming, and it might happen soon.
To read more Brewers On Deck Circle columns by Kyle Lobner, click here.
