There’s No Replacing Yelich

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Kirsten Schmitt

Christian Yelich, who will receive the biggest scheduled raise, going from a $7 million commitment to $9.75 million next year.

One of the hallmarks of the David Stearns era with the Brewers has been roster flexibility and frequent shuffling of talent to keep fresh arms in the bullpen and favorable matchups on the bench. That makes it all the more surprising that they just spent most of a week playing a man short.

When Christian Yelich left the April 11 contest against the Cubs with a back injury, the Brewers were hopeful that he would only need a day or two to recover. Yelich, however, hasn’t seen the field since. Compounding the issue, the front office’s decision to try to avoid putting Yelich on the DL meant they had an unplayable player on their roster for five days.

There’s no replacing Yelich in the Brewers’ lineup, of course, but that roster spot could have been used in a variety of ways. Adding a third catcher, for example, would have allowed the Brewers to use Manny Pina or Omar Narvaez off the bench and still have an emergency option behind the plate. The Brewers also have multiple relievers that are somewhat limited to start the season, so they could have added a bullpen option to manage that workload. They eventually did this with Eric Yardley when Yelich went on the injured list on Saturday.

Longtime Brewers fans will remember that they’ve seen this before: This was a recurring storyline for much of Ryan Braun’s Brewers career as his back, core muscles and ailing thumb sidelined him for often uncertain amounts of time. With both Braun and now Yelich the Brewers often decided to attempt to wait out seemingly minor ailments.

Absences Stretch On

In both cases the goal was to minimize the amount of time a star player was sidelined, with the hope that they would be able to return in a few days. As the absences stretched on, however, the Brewers’ loss of their star player was also compounded by playing with a short bench while he was out. Often with Braun and in this case with Yelich, the player ended up having to go on the disabled list/injured list anyway.

In Yelich’s case, a recent rule change further penalizes the Brewers for waiting to make this decision. Teams used to be able to put players on the injured list retroactive to their last appearance in a game, but when the injured list was shortened from 15 to ten days the maximum retroactive assignment was also reduced to three days. By the time the Brewers finally decided Yelich needed more time off, he had already been inactive for five days. He’s now ineligible to play again until, at the earliest, the second game of this weekend’s Cubs series.

Injury management has been a surprisingly important task for the Brewers in the first few weeks of the season, as Yelich’s absence coincides with Kolten Wong’s oblique strain and Lorenzo Cain’s quad strain. Fans have been getting daily updates on all three players’ recoveries, but it’s impossible to predict how long these injuries will linger until they’re back in the lineup. And, of course, it’s critically important that these players not reinjure themselves trying to come back too quickly. At the same time, knowing if they’ll need to replace these players for days, weeks or months is important for the team’s planning and roster management purposes.

It wasn’t Braun’s fault and isn’t Yelich’s fault that nagging injuries required them to receive a bit of extra rest to stay at their best. While the Brewers are well served by getting their stars time to recover, however, waiting for them to be ready to play again shouldn’t require them to play shorthanded.