If you wonder why the Milwaukee Brewers have been "economizing" so much in the market during this offseason, this is the likely answer. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the team and their superstar Christian Yelich came close reaching a record contract extension.

Yelich still has two years left with his current contract and the Brewers are offering to add another seven years to that. The new deal will be worth, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network and Jeff Passan of ESPN, 215 million U.S. dollars.

Considering that Yelich is already 28 years old, the new contract will keep him in Milwaukee for all of his best years, if not his whole career, once he signs on it.

The previous biggest contract in Brewers history was the one given to Ryan Braun worth 105 million U.S. dollars.

Yelich was traded to the Brewers by the Miami Marlins in January, 2018. He was named the National League MVP that year and delivered even better performance in the next season with a 1.110 OPS, 44 home runs and 30 steals in 130 games.

The Brewers replaced veterans Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas with younger Omar Narvaez, Eric Sogard and Jedd Gyorko Moreover, the team let go of Eric Thames, Zach Davies and Chase Anderson. The only worth-noticing improvement they made was signing Avisail Garcia for a two-year, 20-million-U.S.-dollar deal.

Now it turned out that the team did all of this to keep Yelich.

"Christian, in his first two years here, he's done incredible things. He took a trade that was probably to a place he wasn't sure about at the outset of it and made the best of it and found a place that he really likes to play," said Craig Counsell, manager the Brewers.

Rosenthal said an official announcement is expected on Friday.