Rozner: Cubs' contract decisions likely to focus forward

Christian Yelich is a heck of a baseball player.

In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a better player in the National League the last two years.

The Brewers' right fielder caught fire in 2018 and led Milwaukee past the Cubs in the final month of the season. No one could get him out as he stormed past Javy Baez and won the N.L. MVP.

Last year, in his age 27 season, he might have done it again if not for fouling a slider off his right leg on Sept. 10, breaking his kneecap and missing the rest of the season, ultimately finishing second to Cody Bellinger in the MVP voting.

Fortunately for the Brewers, Yelich was already signed through 2022 when he became a superstar - a contract inherited from the Marlins - for the paltry sums of $12.5 million this year, $14 million in 2021 and a club option for $15 million in 2022.

That's a huge bargain in today's game, much the way you might soon look at some of the contracts the White Sox have inked with their young players.

But now comes word that Yelich has signed an extension that will shred the 2022 option, start the new deal that season and carry him through the 2028 season - at $26 million a year - when he will be 36 years old, plus a mutual option for 2029.

And you really have to wonder about the wisdom of such a move for a small-market team - or really any team, for that matter.

It also brings to mind the names of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, who have two years of team control remaining on the North Side.

They have been terrific players for the Cubs, irreplaceable and unforgettable pieces of a World Series team, but Rizzo will be 32 when his contract ends and Bryant will be 30 by Opening Day of 2022.

The next part of this is unpleasant, but it's the way the game is moving - rapidly.

In 2019, the average age of MLB's Top 10 position players in Wins Above Replacement was 26.2, with precisely zero players over the age of 30. In 2018, the average age was the same, and only Lorenzo Cain (32) was older than 30.

Over the last 10 years, the average age of the Top 10 in position-player WAR was 26.5, with nine players past the age of 30 reaching into the Top 10.

Future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre did it three times at ages 35, 33 and 31, Robby Cano did it twice at 33 and 31, Joey Votto twice at 33 and 31, Jose Bautista once at 33 and Cain once.

In 2000, the average age of the Top 10 was 27.5 - a year older than the last 10 years - and in 1990 it was 28.4 - or two years older than today.

The game is getting younger, stars are getting here faster, promotions hardly wait, and by the time players hit the age of 30, teams are of the belief that the best years are in the past.

Of course, there will be exceptions to this rule. It's hard to imagine Mike Trout as anything less than Mike Trout, but as you peruse the lists of the last 10 years, you see that players begin to disappear from the Top 10 as they reach their 30s.

For various reasons, be they injury or otherwise, the last time Josh Donaldson (2016) was in the Top 10 WAR position players, he was 30 years old, Paul Goldschmidt (2015) was 27, Andrew McCutchen (2013) was 26, Miguel Cabrera (2013) was 30, Buster Posey (2012) was 25, Yadi Molina (2012) was 29, David Wright (2012) was 29, Ryan Braun (2012) was 28, Dustin Pedroia (2011) was 27, Matt Kemp (2011) was 26, Jacoby Ellsbury (2011) was 27, Albert Pujols (2010) was 30 and Troy Tulowitzki (2010) was 25.

WAR is not the be-all, end-all. Neither are these Top 10 lists. It's merely a sample, a glance at the men who find themselves near the top of the game.

This also does not mean careers are over at 30, or that players can't have great years and continue to produce at some level, but some of those players signed huge contracts during or past their prime, and some of those deals did not work out well for their clubs.

A player's prime was generally considered to extend to 32 or 33 years old back in the '80s and '90s, and then PEDs changed the landscape as the game saw ridiculous performances from players in their late 30s.

That is not occurring nearly as much now and teams have clearly looked at age performance and decided that searching for big years past the age of 30 is not a very good idea.

The Brewers will obviously hope that is not the case with Yelich, but unless the Cubs reward players for what they've already done, rather than what they expect in the future, some fan favorites probably won't be here, short of signing short-term deals for below market value.

Like it or not, the game is going that way. And youth is the order of the day.