Headlines

  • Braves Release Alex Verdugo
  • Clarke Schmidt Expected To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
  • Top 40 Trade Candidates For The 2025 Deadline
  • Rays Reinstate Ha-Seong Kim
  • Yankees Have Shown Interest In Ryan McMahon
  • Brandon Woodruff To Start For Brewers On Sunday
  • Previous
  • Next
Register
Login
  • Hoops Rumors
  • Pro Football Rumors
  • Pro Hockey Rumors

MLB Trade Rumors

Remove Ads
  • Home
  • Teams
    • AL East
      • Baltimore Orioles
      • Boston Red Sox
      • New York Yankees
      • Tampa Bay Rays
      • Toronto Blue Jays
    • AL Central
      • Chicago White Sox
      • Cleveland Guardians
      • Detroit Tigers
      • Kansas City Royals
      • Minnesota Twins
    • AL West
      • Houston Astros
      • Los Angeles Angels
      • Oakland Athletics
      • Seattle Mariners
      • Texas Rangers
    • NL East
      • Atlanta Braves
      • Miami Marlins
      • New York Mets
      • Philadelphia Phillies
      • Washington Nationals
    • NL Central
      • Chicago Cubs
      • Cincinnati Reds
      • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Pittsburgh Pirates
      • St. Louis Cardinals
    • NL West
      • Arizona Diamondbacks
      • Colorado Rockies
      • Los Angeles Dodgers
      • San Diego Padres
      • San Francisco Giants
  • About
    • MLB Trade Rumors
    • Tim Dierkes
    • Writing team
    • Advertise
    • Archives
  • Contact
  • Tools
    • 2025 Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Agency Database
  • NBA/NFL/NHL
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors
  • App
  • Chats
Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Marlins Agree To Extension With Christian Yelich

By Jeff Todd | March 22, 2015 at 10:09am CDT

The Marlins have announced a long-term extension with outfielder Christian Yelich that will reportedly guarantee him $49.57MM over seven seasons. Yelich, a client of Paragon Sports International, can be controlled for an eighth season (2022) through a club option.

MLB: Miami Marlins at Pittsburgh Pirates

The deal breaks down as follows: after earning $570K this year, Yelich will received $1MM in 2016, $3.5MM in 2017, $7MM in 2018, $9.75MM in 2019, $12.5MM in 2020, and $14MM in 2021. The club option is valued at $15MM and comes with a $1.25MM buyout.

Miami reportedly made a run at Yelich earlier in the offseason, along with several other younger players. At the time, the Marlins were said to be proposing a similar structure — but lesser guarantee — than the six-year, $31.5MM Starling Marte deal (which came with two option years at the end). Yelich has just over one year of service time to his credit, meaning he was on track to reach arbitration eligibility in 2017 and free agency in 2020. That puts him in a functionally identical situation to Marte; despite having slightly different skillsets, the two are rather comparable on the whole and have been similarly valuable to the same points in their career.

In spite of that rather recent comp, the 23-year-old Yelich comes in a substantial margin ahead of Marte in the final analysis. His new contract is the second-largest ever for a player in the one-to-two year service class, ranking ahead of Ryan Braun’s 2008 deal while falling shy of the $58MM pact agreed upon last year by Andrelton Simmons and the Braves. (Notably, Simmons also managed to avoid giving up an option.) As compared to Marte, Yelich not only can look forward to a larger total payday, due in part to a higher option value in the final year of control, but also picks up an additional guaranteed year.

It is not difficult to see why Yelich was deemed worthy of such a level of commitment. He followed a promising rookie effort, playing about a third of a big league season, with a stellar full-year campaign in 2014. Yelich maintains a combined .285/.365/.400 slash over his 933 total big league plate appearances. Batting near the top of the Marlins lineup last year, Yelich racked up 21 steals and nine home runs.

As impressive as Yelich is on the offensive side, he figures to deliver plenty of defensive value moving forward as well. He was awarded the National League’s Gold Glove for left field last year, and defensive metrics back that up: when playing in the corner, Yelich was worth 12.8 runs above average per UZR and racked up 13 Defensive Runs Saved.

Yelich’s net contribution last year was in the range of 3.5 to 4.5 wins above replacement. That obviously makes him quite a valuable contributor, especially when one considers that it came in his age-22 season and that he has a strong track record of hitting in the minors to back up the success.

Miami stands to achieve both control and cost certainty over two-thirds of its outfield, having already inked Giancarlo Stanton to a record-setting pact earlier in the offseason. That unit, which includes 24-year-old center fielder Marcell Ozuna, is one of the youngest outfields in the game but is shaping up to be one of its best.

All said, today’s signing puts another exclamation point on a busy offseason for the Fish. The team brought in several new names around the diamond, headlined by second baseman Dee Gordon, starter Mat Latos, and first baseman Michael Morse, and has now locked up two franchise-type players to sizable commitments. Given prior reports that the team was pursuing deals not only with that pair but also Ozuna, injured young ace Jose Fernandez, and shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, it is plausible to think that president of baseball operations Michael Hill and GM Dan Jennings may not yet be done. Righties Steve Cishek and Henderson Alvarez, each of whom have two years of arbitration control remaining beyond 2015, also appear to be reasonable targets should Miami choose to engage them in multi-year talks.

MLB Network’s Mike Lowell gave the first word that a deal was coming to fruition. MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro reported that the pact was for seven years, while Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reported that the deal included an option and that the value was approximately $50MM. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com and Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports honed in on the final number, with Passan reporting the option year details. (All links to Twitter.) Frisaro tweeted the annual breakdown.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Share 11 Retweet 183 Send via email3

Miami Marlins Newsstand Transactions Christian Yelich

Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Minoso, Montero, Wieters
Main
Marlins Out Of Hector Olivera Bidding
View Comments (0)
Post a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please login to leave a reply.

Log in Register

    Top Stories

    Braves Release Alex Verdugo

    Clarke Schmidt Expected To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

    Top 40 Trade Candidates For The 2025 Deadline

    Rays Reinstate Ha-Seong Kim

    Yankees Have Shown Interest In Ryan McMahon

    Brandon Woodruff To Start For Brewers On Sunday

    Royals Interested In Bryan Reynolds

    Rangers Option Josh Jung

    Kevin Pillar Announces Retirement

    Braves Place Spencer Schwellenbach On IL With Elbow Fracture

    Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin

    Yordan Alvarez Shut Down Due To Setback With Hand Injury

    Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib

    Tucker Barnhart To Retire

    Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline

    Reds Release Jeimer Candelario

    Dave Parker Passes Away

    Griffin Canning Diagnosed With Ruptured Achilles

    Pirates Reportedly Have Very Few Untouchable Players At Trade Deadline

    Griffin Canning Believed To Have Suffered Achilles Injury

    Recent

    Bobby Jenks Passes Away

    Rangers To Sign Rowdy Tellez To Minor League Deal

    Yankees Likely To Promote Cam Schlittler

    Astros Sign Hector Neris

    Dodgers Not Planning To Add Third Base Help Before Deadline

    Braves Release Alex Verdugo

    Clarke Schmidt Expected To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

    Blue Jays Place Yimi Garcia On 15-Day Injured List

    Mets Sign Zach Pop, Designate Tyler Zuber

    Mets Interested In Mitch Keller

    MLBTR Newsletter - Hot stove highlights in your inbox, five days a week

    Latest Rumors & News

    Latest Rumors & News

    • Sandy Alcantara Rumors
    • Luis Robert Rumors
    • Alex Bregman Rumors

     

    Trade Rumors App for iOS and Android App Store Google Play

    MLBTR Features

    MLBTR Features

    • Remove Ads, Support Our Writers
    • Front Office Originals
    • Front Office Fantasy Baseball
    • MLBTR Podcast
    • Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Extension Tracker
    • Agency Database
    • MLBTR On Twitter
    • MLBTR On Facebook
    • Team Facebook Pages
    • How To Set Up Notifications For Breaking News
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors

    Rumors By Team

    • Angels Rumors
    • Astros Rumors
    • Athletics Rumors
    • Blue Jays Rumors
    • Braves Rumors
    • Brewers Rumors
    • Cardinals Rumors
    • Cubs Rumors
    • Diamondbacks Rumors
    • Dodgers Rumors
    • Giants Rumors
    • Guardians Rumors
    • Mariners Rumors
    • Marlins Rumors
    • Mets Rumors
    • Nationals Rumors
    • Orioles Rumors
    • Padres Rumors
    • Phillies Rumors
    • Pirates Rumors
    • Rangers Rumors
    • Rays Rumors
    • Red Sox Rumors
    • Reds Rumors
    • Rockies Rumors
    • Royals Rumors
    • Tigers Rumors
    • Twins Rumors
    • White Sox Rumors
    • Yankees Rumors

    Navigation

    • Sitemap
    • Archives
    • RSS/Twitter Feeds By Team

    MLBTR INFO

    • Advertise
    • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Privacy Policy

    Connect

    • Contact Us
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS Feed

    MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

    Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

    hide arrows scroll to top

    Register

    Desktop Version | Switch To Mobile Version