Paying market rate is fine when you have to do it for an asset. Paying market rate unnecessarily is wasteful and foolish. Yes, teams do extend players early but most teams do NOT extend a player 3-5 years out from their prospective free agency when said player will be in their 30s when the extension years hit. It's one thing to look to buy out arbitration and potential free agency years of a young 0 to 3 year player like they did with Freddy Peralta. However, extending players like Braun and Yelich on their last extensions is something different entirely and is rarely done with good reason. When a player is numerous years away from free agency, the biggest thing standing in the way between the player and free agency is the uncertainty of time. That uncertainty is why many players like Peralta preferred to take guaranteed money now and avoid the potential consequences of the uncertainty. When you extend a player years away from free agency, you assume the entire risk for that period of uncertainty. There is no way of knowing how the market value for that player between the time when they sign the new contract and when it actually begins. In Braun's case, that lapse was FIVE full seasons. In Yelich's case, it was three. Look what happened in those 5 years with Braun -- injuries, two PED scandals, one 65 game suspension, and a whole lot of regression. The 3 years with Yelich have been riddled with even more regression. What would Yelich's market value look like right now? Note, the Brewers would STILL have an option on him for this year. Even after all that has happened, Yelich would STILL not be a free agent yet. Any way you slice it, the Brewers backed themselves into a corner unnecessarily with the Braun extension. Again, Ryan Braun was not a free agent for another 5 years when he signed his extension. Rather than learning from the experience, the Brewers instead quite literally doubled down on it with Christian Yelich. And now they're paying the price, both by the amount of sunk cost that is going into Yelich and the continuous forcing of Yelich into high leverage spots in the order that he is no longer qualified for.