Marlins trade Christian Yelich to Brewers for 4 players

After reports earlier this week that the Brewers had put an offer together for Marlins’ outfielder Christian Yelich, Miami and Milwaukee have completed a trade involving Yelich and four players from the Brewers’ organization.

Yelich, whose agent recently went on record to make clear how unhappy he was was in Miami, asked to be traded shortly after it was clear the Marlins would be entering a full rebuild after the Dee Gordon and Giancarlo Stanton trades. He’s a fit for the Brewers, who have been looking for an upgrade in their outfield throughout this entire offseason.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal’s Tom Haudricourt, Yelich said of the trade “I‘m glad it’s over and excited for the new opportunity.” If you include a team option for 2022, Yelich is under team control for the next five seasons at the entirely reasonable price of $58.25 million.

The first report of the trade came courtesy of The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, with the Brewers confirming the trade shortly after. Outfielders Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison, as well as middle infielder Isan Diaz and RHP Jordan Yamamoto, are heading to Miami in the deal.

During his five seasons in Miami, Yelich hit .290/.369/.432 with a 120 OPS+ and 59 home runs in 643 games. He had a fielding percentage of .992 in that same span.

The Marlins shopped Yelich multiple times this offseason, including at the Winter Meetings and at the turn of the year, but apparently there weren’t any offers strong enough to make something happen until now. Earlier reports had the Marlins asking for at least “three or four genuine assets” from any team interested in Yelich.

On Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects List for 2018, Brinson was ranked 18th and Harrison was ranked 75th. If you go by Keith Law’s prospect rankings, both were slightly lower at 32nd and 85th, respectively.

That’s a solid return if nothing spectacular for Yelich, especially when you consider that they definitely didn’t get enough for Stanton and only did fairly well for Gordon (they did well with the Marcell Ozuna trade but one for three isn’t great when you’re allegedly rebuilding for the future). So at least things are looking up in one way for a team that is gutting itself of all talent to cut costs.

According to Rosenthal, this trade doesn’t mean that the Brewers are done upgrading their outfield talent, as they could still be in pursuit of Lorenzo Cain as well. The Brewers being the most active and aggressive team of the offseason isn’t really a path that seemed likely when this offseason first began, but it’s a real possibility now, and at this point, anything seems possible before the season starts.

The next person that needs a Miami prison break? J.T. Realmuto. Hope lives, J.T. But it might take some patience.