PHOTO CREDIT: KIRSTEN SCHMITT/BREWERS
If the Brewers have done one thing this winter, it’s this: They’ve ensured the present era will be well-represented in franchise history. They kicked off the year by signing Craig Counsell to a three-year contract extension that all but assures he’ll be the Brewers’ all-time leader in virtually every managerial category. Then, on Friday, they made an even larger historic splash, signing Christian Yelich to a long-term extension that could stretch his Brewers tenure out to a dozen seasons.
Yelich has already carved his name into the annals of Brewers history over his first two seasons. He’s been a National League Most Valuable Player (and a runner-up), won two batting titles and led the league in on-base plus slugging in each of the last two years. Staying in Milwaukee through at least 2028 will give him the opportunity to make significantly more history. Here are some of his possible opportunities to sit atop Brewers franchise leaderboards:
Home Runs
The Brewers’ franchise record for home runs in a career is a relatively new one: Ryan Braun hit his 252nd homer to pass Robin Yount on the all-time list in August of 2015. Braun has tacked on a few more since then and currently stands at 344, but his pace has slowed a bit in recent seasons: Yelich has hit 80 homers over the last two seasons while Braun has hit 42. Braun will likely add a few more homers to that total this season, but both at Brewers On Deck in January and over the weekend following his spring training debut, he’s strongly suggested that this could be his last season.
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Braun has hit between 17 and 22 home runs in each of the last three seasons. If he follows that trend and hits 20 again in 2020 that would leave him with 364, 284 ahead of Yelich’s current position. That would mean Yelich would need to average about 32 per season for the next nine years to take Braun’s place atop the leaderboard. That’s quite the pace, but four MLB players have done it over a nine year stretch from 2011 to present: Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnacion, Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout.
Runs Batted in
As is the case with most of the “counting stats” on Brewers leaderboards, Robin Yount has reached an unassailable position here: Despite batting most often early in the lineup, he still accumulated 1,406 RBI, and Yelich (who has 207) would need to average over 133 per season over the next nine years to reach that plateau. Edwin Encarnacion has averaged just under 101 per season for the last nine years to lead all major leaguers.
Ryan Braun is second on that list with 1,128, however, and Cecil Cooper is third with 944. Yelich has an outside shot to pass Braun before his new contract expires (he’d need 102 per season) and a much better chance to pass Cooper (82 per season).
Batting Average
Among Brewers that have accumulated at least 1,500 plate appearances, the all-time leader in batting average is Jeff Cirillo with .307, for now. Barring an extended absence Yelich will pass 1,500 plate appearances sometime in 2020, and his current batting average as a Brewer is .327, a full 20 points ahead of Cirillo.
Yelich is one of just 10 active major leaguers with at least 4,000 career plate appearances and a batting average at or above .300 (his career mark is .301). He’ll stay ahead of Cirillo on the Brewers’ all-time list if he bats roughly .303 across the next nine seasons. That’s no small feat, but it would still be a significant step down from his work over the last two years.
Nine years is a long time for Yelich to make history, and he’s already made some: He’s one of just two Brewers ever to homer in an All-Star Game, for example. His new contract all but assures that he’ll be all over franchise leaderboards by the time he’s through.
