Miami Marlins: Christian Yelich likely to remain a Marlin

The Miami Marlins rebuild is in full-effect. They have already parted with several of their stars. Christian Yelich likely wants out, but he’s going nowhere.

The Miami Marlins are going through the painstaking task of rebuilding their baseball team. “Depth”, they call it. So far, Miami has traded away All-Star second baseman Dee Gordon, and All-Star outfielders Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton. The latter is the reigning MVP.

Their MLB top 30 is already looking very different. While all three players have brought back prospect hauls that are respectable in their own right, they all pale in comparison to what Christian Yelich would bring.

But that doesn’t mean the Marlins are keen to move him. In fact, those of you who own a Christian Yelich jersey will probably have to wait until the end of 2022 until it becomes “vintage”.

There is little doubt how much Yelich would bring back. It would be huge. It would make even the return for Marcell Ozuna look like peanuts. The reason is two-fold, but very simple and obvious. Money, and talent.

Yelich doesn’t make much of one, and has an abundance of the other. You decide which is which.

As it stands, Christian Yelich is locked into a contract that has 5 years, $58.25 million left. At it’s absolute peak, he’ll make $15 million, and the team has a buyout option worth $1.25 million before that year. It’s criminally team-friendly.

If he wants to be upset with anyone over the predicament he finds himself in, it should be his agent.

Any team that would work out a trade for Christian Yelich would have an All-Star caliber outfielder at a bargain price. Not only are they buying the player, they’re buying the security of having excess funds to improve their team elsewhere for a long time.

The price to snag him is high.

The ‘finish what you started’ argument

There is growing sentiment amongst those that follow Miami Marlins baseball that the team is only half-heartedly rebuilding if they keep Christian Yelich.

But what the Miami Marlins intend to do is build around him. He, along with catcher J.T. Realmuto, figure to be the centerpieces in a rebuilding project. Realmuto has years of team control ahead of him before Miami needs to commit any money his way.

Universally, the prospects that the Miami Marlins have acquired all figure to be ready by 2019. The plan appears to be to compete for a playoff spot in the year 2020, led mainly by the steadying hand of veteran Christian Yelich.

Next: Miami Marlins return several top prospects for Marcell Ozuna

The Miami Marlins say they intend to speak to Christian Yelich about the rebuilding process. They want him to stay, and how much his opinion is taken into consideration remains to be seen. It might not matter if he wants out, and the team may be paying him lip service.

We’ll know with more certainty in the coming days, but for the time being, Christian Yelich figures to remain a Marlin.