Christian Yelich says he benefited from fortunate timing in his contract negotiations.

The Milwaukee Brewers held a press conference on March 8 to announce Yelich's new nine-year, $215 million contract. Spring training was halted less than a week later due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yelich's deal was finalized before the loss of revenue from Major League Baseball's shortened season and labor unrest created at least some uncertainty about the game's financial future.

"At the end of the day, this is where I wanted to be," he said. "I said it a lot at the time when we had a press conference, which feels like it was years ago.

"But it's one of those things where one of the reasons I did it was because I've really loved and enjoyed playing here, and the other is you never know what's going to happen in the future. I'd be lying if I told you I knew a pandemic was going to hit, but it's kind of just how it played out."