2. Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers, $15.422 million value; $9.75 million salary
The 32 games Yelich missed, almost all of them at season’s end, probably didn’t cost him a second consecutive Most Valuable Player Award since Bellinger already had slightly superior numbers at the time of Yelich’s injury.
It did, however, have a large amount to do with the $5 million bottom-line gap in their actual on-field values.
Yelich did win the batting title at .329, and with a .329/.429/.671 slash line he also won the SABRmetric triple crown. Those missed games showed up in his counting stats, although 44 home runs hardly seems like an abbreviated season.
His 7.1 WAR was good by all measures except two. It was a half point below his 7.6 WAR of 2018, and it trailed Bellinger by close to two. In terms of dollar contribution, it translated to $13.299 million.
Playing time was obviously a casualty of the injury. He did log 1,093 innings, the position’s 16th best and earning another $1.359 million. The seven assists Yelich registered equaled the position’s ninth best total and amounted to a final $763,000.
Yelich is under contract to the Brewers for three more seasons at amounts ranging from $12.5 million to $15 million. Given the consistency of his performance to date, the Brewers are probably happier with that than Yelich’s agent is.