Christian Yelich may have taken subtle dig at Brewers ownership, but he's 100% right

While the Milwaukee Brewers struggled to do much of anything this offseason other than the trade that sent Devin Williams to the Yankees for Nestor Cortes and Caleb Durbin, the Dodgers have seemingly gone wild. Just this offseason alone, LA has signed Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Teoscar Hernandez, Tanner Scott, Hyeseong Kim, and Michael Conforto among others.

To accomplish this, the Dodgers have relied heavily upon significant contract deferrals that have been very...controversial to say the least. While many think that LA is just playing the game and any team is welcome to do the same, others think that the current rules around deferred money and the CBT (luxury tax) only increases the gap between big market teams flush with cash and those who don't have a seemingly endless money pit.

Count Christian Yelich in the first camp, at least publicly. Yelich recently made a podcast appearance where he said not only that he has no issues with how the Dodgers are conducting their business the last couple offseasons, but he also made some comments that could be interpreted as a bit of a slight against how the Brewers go about things.

Christian Yelich's comments supporting the Dodgers going for it should be wake-up call for Brewers and the rest of MLB

On the surface, Yelich's comments could be seen as a shot across the Brewers' bow. He was given a prime opportunity to trash the Dodgers attempting to buy another World Series title, but instead he was effusive in his praise of what LA is doing and saying, "It’s cool that their front office and ownership supports their team." Given Milwaukee's relative lack of activity, it is hard not to see those comments as anything but pointed.

However, the reality is probably much less harsh than that, at least in the Brewers' direction. Yelich loves playing for the Brewers and has become such a huge part of the team and community. When Bob Uecker recently passed away, it was Yelich's comments that most Brewers fans were waiting to hear given how close he was to Uecker and the Brewers fanbase. This just isn't a situation where he was taking an opportunity to throw a ham-fisted insult as Yelich just isn't that kind of guy.

What is more likely is that Yelich represents the thoughts of a lot of players that more teams need to be actively trying to make improvements to their roster by actually investing in them and that does include the Brewers. It isn't good for the sport that there are just a handful of teams willing to sign free agents and who only bank on developing young talent and hoping things fall together quickly enough before that talent gets "too expensive". Fans will support good teams in almost every circumstance and more organizations should aspire to that as opposed to just skating by by being mediocre at best.

There are no easy answers as to how to make that actually happen, unfortunately. Perhaps when the next CBA is negotiated, there needs to be provisions that reduce the incentives with regards to the luxury tax and deferrals, harsher luxury tax penalties, and an actual spending floor so teams HAVE to spend on their roster. That might be a good start. The financial picture with TV revenue uncertain will be a hurdle to overcome to be sure, but clearly something needs to change and Yelich knows it as well as anyone.

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