Yelich before & after kneecap injury

[UpandIn]

2 hours ago, edfunderburk said:

So, what is your explanation for his immediate & extreme drop off in every measurable statistical category?

His back

[Jopal78]

33 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

It's massively different because it's part of one of the most important joints in an athlete's body. Fractures in a joint can cause arthritis that can become debilitating.

I would know. I stubbed my toe at a swimming pool (it was dark and I did not see a step and swung my foot right into it) and the joint has become arthritic and I've had surgery to remove bone spurs in the joint. I was a marathoner and now the idea of running around the block is daunting.

Right, and how many articles have there been that Yelich has chronic pain in the patella, loss of range of motion, arthritis….. none.  
 

Everyone is different, but  if his knee somehow wasn’t 100% with the player information given to the media in todays world it’d be a well known fact. 

[UpandIn]

2 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Right, and how many articles have there been that Yelich has chronic pain in the patella, loss of range of motion, arthritis….. none.  
 

Everyone is different, but  if his knee somehow wasn’t 100% with the player information given to the media in todays world it’d be a well known fact. 

Well that's exactly it. He's publicly talked about his back issues...his WHOLE career. 

Someone DID make a point that maybe that knee injury is still in his head...but I'm a bit skeptical of that.

Now treat the rest of this post like some idiot who's does not have an MD in front of his name is speaking/writing(because that's who is)...

I've now had 17 surgeries. Ankle, several knee, hip, elbow, wrist, foot, femur...all but 3 in my teens or 20s. Most of them due to sports, but a couple stupid things along the way.

Everyone is different, I get that. But bones heal and they heal stronger. If you break the bone in the joint...like the ball in your femur, that can cause most lasting issues, but he had a clean fracture, it wasn't in little pieces.
Now...I went through all that and I had ONE surgery that really cared the hell outta me. A pinched nerve in my neck. One that wasn't really causing pain or range of motion issues, but caused headaches. So I got that fixed and that was...ABSOLUTELY miserable. 

So take this for what it's worth, it's all anecdotal, but just having a VERY minor neck and then ONCE in my life a very minor pulled muscle in my back and I felt like such a wimp. You'd think I'd broken my back in some industrial accident. 

There's no MD in front of my name, I wasn't a professional athlete...but based on a pretty lengthy injury history and MOST of the time rehabbing them to come back, ACLs, broken ankles, wrists, those all heal and you come all the way back. Shoulder...that's never been the same and I couldn't imagine living with back pain. I'd much rather have gone under the knife for everything I have, than one degenerative disc issue, or anything with the back. 

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/christian-yelich-exits-with-knee-injury

He gets up, he walks it off. I just don't think that was that devastating injury. What it looks like to me is that he's not quite generating the same torque with his core and getting out in front and trusting his hands. But I've also gone back and forth looking at the 2019 swing vs the 2020, 2021 and 2022 swings and they've looked mostly similar, just not quite as much torque.

[NBBrewFan]

I think as fans (even the ones who've had some limited time in higher amateur baseball/sports) we don't appreciate that the exact combination of physical and mental capabilities that are required to perform at the elite level that someone like Yelich did in 2019. There really is less difference between a 5 WAR player and a 2 WAR player than any athlete that maxed out in college and those players. It's my opinion that a slight change in those capabilities can easily change performance from Yelich 2019 to Yelich/Marlins (circa age 21/22 when his ISO was bad like now). The issue isn't that those difference are known and easy to make, but that they involve multiple physical and neurological components that interact. I'm sure Christian doesn't even know what has been impacted because he'd do everything he can to reverse it.  These guys are either throwing a ball at high velocity with spin and movement to try and hit a small box or swinging at that ball coming at them and make solid contact with large torque with nanoseconds to make adjustments and swing.  Those activities take a lot of neuromuscular control and the ability to repeat an activity with multiple muscles within a very fine variance. I would think the Brewers have invested in software and video systems that can map movements of a pitcher or batter during pitching/swinging that allows them to identify even minor changes to delivery or swing so they can address the big issues, but they may not be able to identify those small changes.  There's also an issue of changes across aging.  The exact stance/swing he had in 2019 may not work 3 years later when his responses are slightly slower.  We know players lose abilities after they peak and age and for some it's a faster decline.  There's also the counter where a batter with more experience can adjust to pitchers/pitches.  Jace Pederson stunk as a hitter earlier in his career, but with opportunity and adjustments he's increased his abilities AGAINST the age decline.  Or did he just figure out his best mechanics for hitting given his body and neurlogical control of musculature? Or both.  I think the problem is that there isn't a SINGLE or major component to Yelich dropoff.  I believe it's several that coincide and "fixing" each isn't so simple as changing one and going back to pre-injury mechanics may not give the same return because the other changes need to be adjusted.  So you may have 1 corrected, but not see that correction and think it wasn't the issue so you may not even continue with that adjustment (since it didn't fix it) and move on to other adjustments. I get frustrated with him and so do others, but in essence if it was easy and they knew everything wouldn't we have teams full of Mike Trouts.

[Harold Hutchison]

On 8/7/2022 at 9:25 AM, Jopal78 said:

I hate these types of posts. Fans grumble because they signed (at the time) an MVP caliber hitter to an extension. There’s likely another equally vocal group of fans who would grumble had they not signed Yelich to an extension and his ‘18-‘19 level of play continued on for another club.  In a sense, damned  if they do, damned if they don’t. 
 

As for Yelich, he would  not be alone amongst his brothers in the MLBPA having a couple terrific seasons and never reaching those heights again, especially as he ages into his 30s.
 

He’s still a good player and isn’t far off from his production level with the Marlins when he was in his early 20s. Which is what the Brewers traded for in the first place. 
 

 

The thing is... the power was still there in 2020. It's a good bet the pandemic probably messed with Yelich's average and skills and skewed things, but the power was there then - the ISO was .225 in 2020 - compare that to .272 in 2018. 

What happened in 2021? Not sure. In 2022, the Crew moved him to take advantage of his OBP skills and speed. The SB total looks very good - and might be close to 2019.

Can the power return? I wouldn't rule it out. Braun rebounded from his 2013-2014 injury/suspension saga to have some Braun-lite years. I'd bet the player labs could do a lot to help Yelich rebound in the offseason.

[UpandIn]

12 hours ago, NBBrewFan said:

I get frustrated with him and so do others, but in essence if it was easy and they knew everything wouldn't we have teams full of Mike Trouts.

I don't think anyone is inferring it's "easy," I think we're trying to pinpoint what exactly caused the change in his production. Or at least such a drastic change.

 

6 hours ago, clancyphile said:

The thing is... the power was still there in 2020. It's a good bet the pandemic probably messed with Yelich's average and skills and skewed things, but the power was there then - the ISO was .225 in 2020 - compare that to .272 in 2018. 

What happened in 2021? Not sure. In 2022, the Crew moved him to take advantage of his OBP skills and speed. The SB total looks very good - and might be close to 2019.

Can the power return? I wouldn't rule it out. Braun rebounded from his 2013-2014 injury/suspension saga to have some Braun-lite years. I'd bet the player labs could do a lot to help Yelich rebound in the offseason.

Exactly. 2020 appears to have been mostly just poor luck. Again, BABIP was down 120 points from 2018 to 2020(and ~100 points below his career average). 

So the results may not have been there, but he was still hitting the ball, hitting it hard and hitting it into the air.

What exactly happened in 2021? I don't know...but I hope you're right and he can regain some power. 

[NBBrewFan]

10 hours ago, UpandIn said:

Exactly. 2020 appears to have been mostly just poor luck. Again, BABIP was down 120 points from 2018 to 2020(and ~100 points below his career average). 

So the results may not have been there, but he was still hitting the ball, hitting it hard and hitting it into the air.

What exactly happened in 2021? I don't know...but I hope you're right and he can regain some power. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that both Yelich and Hiura, our best hitters in 2019, had huge drops in BABIP (-27%, -32%) and ISO (-34%, -26%), with HUGE increases in K% (52%, 13%) in 2020. And it's not bad luck. Hiura's K% baseline was much higher than Yelich's, but Yelich still went from 20% K% in 2019 to 30% K% in 2020.  If you look at both of them they are eerily similar in their drops from 2019 to 2020.  There's been a lot of theories discussed including injury (Yelich) to pitchers adjusting (Hiura) to bad luck, but maybe the hiring of Andy Haines was far worse than any of us ever thought. 

[UpandIn]

18 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

I don't think it's a coincidence that both Yelich and Hiura, our best hitters in 2019, had huge drops in BABIP (-27%, -32%) and ISO (-34%, -26%), with HUGE increases in K% (52%, 13%) in 2020. And it's not bad luck. Hiura's K% baseline was much higher than Yelich's, but Yelich still went from 20% K% in 2019 to 30% K% in 2020.  If you look at both of them they are eerily similar in their drops from 2019 to 2020.  There's been a lot of theories discussed including injury (Yelich) to pitchers adjusting (Hiura) to bad luck, but maybe the hiring of Andy Haines was far worse than any of us ever thought. 

Ok...I have a few issues with this. The first would be, how does their strikeout rate impact their BABIP? And if that IS the cause, then why is Hiura's K rate higher this year AND his BABIP rate higher?

And if you're going to put it on Haines, then I really don't get it. He was there for Hiura's monster rookie year and Yelich's big 2nd season. And Haines is gone now. So I'm not sure I'm buying that one. There may just be an ideology in the organization where they simply don't preach shortening up with 2 strikes and sacrificing power(Wong has indicated as much). But that's just a 2 strike count and it seems like the issues go a bit deeper than that.

[NBBrewFan]

4 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

Ok...I have a few issues with this. The first would be, how does their strikeout rate impact their BABIP? And if that IS the cause, then why is Hiura's K rate higher this year AND his BABIP rate higher?

And if you're going to put it on Haines, then I really don't get it. He was there for Hiura's monster rookie year and Yelich's big 2nd season. And Haines is gone now. So I'm not sure I'm buying that one. There may just be an ideology in the organization where they simply don't preach shortening up with 2 strikes and sacrificing power(Wong has indicated as much). But that's just a 2 strike count and it seems like the issues go a bit deeper than that.

Increasing strikeouts as a percent of total outs mean your denominator in the BABIP calculation gets smaller so BABIP goes up.  I don't think a strikeout would just be another out if it wasn't a strikeout.  It's another outcome that's based on your hitting overall so if you don't strike out you are likely to make another out or have a hit or walk or hit a HR, etc. So they are linked.  Kestin is an enigma because even with a high K% he still is having a productive year (singles, doubles, triples) and of course the HR, but they don't count either since they aren't in play. 

A hitting coach rarely comes in and makes instant changes when they start.  Likely he was spending much of 2019 learning the hitters and working on those having the worst results.  It's true that it's likely more than just Haines and is more an organization ideology, but it's always 'fun' blaming the hitting coach.

[brewerfan82]

45 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

Increasing strikeouts as a percent of total outs mean your denominator in the BABIP calculation gets smaller so BABIP goes up.

This is a flawed statement. That's only true if strikeouts only replace other outs. You could argue there is still a correlation between higher BABIP and higher K% if both are being caused by factors like the batter swinging harder and/or being more selective on pitches, but it wouldn't be because you're solely decreasing the denominator in the BABIP calculation.

[NBBrewFan]

1 hour ago, brewerfan82 said:

This is a flawed statement. That's only true if strikeouts only replace other outs. You could argue there is still a correlation between higher BABIP and higher K% if both are being caused by factors like the batter swinging harder and/or being more selective on pitches, but it wouldn't be because you're solely decreasing the denominator in the BABIP calculation.

I agree, I was only addressing one way, not every way that K can influence BABIP or how they might track based on swing/mechanics.  

I don't really believe that a majority of what we saw from Hiura and Yelich from 2019 to 2020 is do to external factors (i.e. a huge change across every opponent in how they pitch to both). I think for some reason there was a decision to change them in some way to get better outcomes or that they both thought 10 is great, let me crank this up to 11 and see what happens.  I'm old school with players in that you don't fix what AIN'T broken.  Go with what you are successful and adjust when you aren't going as good.  I think there's way to much of the Mike Pettine school of thinking (and he wasn't the first, he's just a familiar example) where you coach to a scheme (launch angle) instead of coaching to the talent you have. [Rant] My god, when you know that a run team is the biggest hole in your scheme you should be able to come up with an adjustment to your blessed scheme to reduce the bleeding!!!!! [/rant] These guys have gone through years of development before they are even drafted working on what is the best approach for them. For some there are clearly issues that can be addressed, but I think there's less fine tuning as complete recreating going on. It's crazy that they are compared to a fictitious better hitter/pitcher and then coerced, forced, induced to change so that they fit that other mold. Launch angle, launch angle blah. A good coach should be working on getting each player to their best optimizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, not put them into a system where they won't thrive and then replacing every player to fit the mold (wasting tons of investment with what you already had), And I'm somewhat incensed by this because to me it's a big part of the reason that baseball is so friggin boring in 2022.

[nate82]

This is the problem with Yelich other than one spot of the bottom of the strike zone Yelich has a negative launch angle which means he is just beating those pitches into the ground.  Lower-mid is a huge red flag.  He shouldn't be launching those pitches but is instead just beating them into the ground.  

But his 2022 looks a lot like his 2017 though the upper and middle part of the zone were better.  His 2018 wasn't all that much better in the bottom of the zone but only one was at a negative launch angle.  

Actually all of his other part of the zone are about the same as his 2018 MVP it is just that the bottom of the zone has regressed back to his 2017 season.  I am thinking the juiced balls in 2018 and 2019 helped Yelich more so than his power just disappearing.  The ball changing in 2020-22 has had more of an impact on Yelich than his injury or swing.  

 

[MrTPlush]

On 8/7/2022 at 8:25 AM, Jopal78 said:

He is still a good player and isn’t far off from his production level with the Marlins when he was in his early 20s. Which is what the Brewers traded for in the first place. 
 

 

I mean generously speaking he is okay, but he is not really anywhere close to his Marlin days. Closer to his Marlins days than his first year in Milwaukee, I suppose. They traded for a guy that had an OPS+ of 118/135/120 in the years prior to the trade. Considering his age and moving to a better ballpark it was pretty reasonable he would improve simply based on that. Now he is a 'meh' defender and has to work hard just to get his OPS+ over 100. 

Finding a .730 OPS hitter for Miller Park at the LF position would be pretty darn easy every single winter for a low cost. Could find someone to hit just as well and play way better defense on constant 1-year deals. We probably have a guy in the minors that could do the same from Day 1. 

Sure...he still provides value with the bat to some degree...but it isn't like we would have any kind of difficulty finding that overnight. Hope he kind rekindle some power and at least give us some year of an above average hitter.

[Simba2020]

I do think the ball is an underrated reason for his decline in homeruns. There were rumors that the switch in baseballs came after the All-Star break in 2018. Yelich really wasn't anything that special in the first half of the year but he went through the roof in the second half and carried it over into 2019. I personally throw out all homer stats that came from 2019. Kind of like the 1987 season. It's hard for me to look at either of those years as being real.

[rickh150]

Hiura and Frelick should be playing regularly in this lineup. Yelich and whatever is CF should have days off.

[nate82]

1 hour ago, Simba2020 said:

I do think the ball is an underrated reason for his decline in homeruns. There were rumors that the switch in baseballs came after the All-Star break in 2018. Yelich really wasn't anything that special in the first half of the year but he went through the roof in the second half and carried it over into 2019. I personally throw out all homer stats that came from 2019. Kind of like the 1987 season. It's hard for me to look at either of those years as being real.

The ball didn't change in 2018 or 2019.  There were some changes to the 2020 ball and in 2021 is when MLB really started to change the ball.  Though due to production issues balls from 2020 were also used in 2021 so there was a mixture of baseballs in the 2021 season.  

Now in the 2022 season there is only the 2021 ball.  This ball is creating more drag than previous baseballs in the past.  While exit velocities are up so is the drag on the ball which is causing it not to fly as far.  MLB did not test for drag in the new baseball they only tested for how bouncy the ball was.  

I am not sure if this has been updated yet but see below on the drag for the baseball's in 2022.  The higher drag means the ball will not travel as far.  The change in the drag of the baseball has definitely had an impact on Yelich far more than anything else.  When he hits the ball it is just not going as far as it was in 2018 or 2019 and that is due to the new baseball.  If the 2018-2019 baseball's were brought back I believe you would see Yelich's home runs increase back to what he was doing in 2018-2019.  The only bad part of Yelich is what I pointed out in my previous post where his launch angle down in the zone especially bottom-center is nothing but ground balls.  Yelich's 2018-2019 season he only had one negative area in the strike zone and in 2022 it is nearly matching his 2016 season.  

[Simba2020]

When half the teams broke their franchise records for homers in 2019, you cannot tell me that the ball was the same as the 2015, 2016, 2017 or any other year that came before it.

[Robocaller]

So we should be hoping he develops a debilitating injury that leads to him retiring? 
 

[nate82]

27 minutes ago, Simba2020 said:

When half the teams broke their franchise records for homers in 2019, you cannot tell me that the ball was the same as the 2015, 2016, 2017 or any other year that came before it.

There is no evidence of the ball changing in 2019.  So it looks like 2019 was just an anomaly but one that MLB wanted to reverse.  Though the 2019 ball did have less drag which would explain for the increase in home runs.  There just isn't any evidence of the ball being altered or different in 2019 compared to the 2018 or earlier balls.  

If MLB is to be believed and without any evidence stating otherwise the ball wasn't changed in 2019 but was changed in 2021.  MLB has stated the ball wasn't changed in 2020 but there is some evidence that it was changed in 2020.  There were actually different balls in 2020 just like there were two different balls in the 2021 season.

Also the teams that installed new humidors in 2022 are seeing a lower rate of home runs compared to teams that already had a humidor installed.  Something is odd with this season but that would only bring us into a conspiracy theory territory as it is impossible to tell if something changed with the humidors.

Still it seams like the 2021 baseballs are here to stay for now which it looks like it has a huge impact on Yelich hitting for power.  Other than his bottom of the zone launch angle issues Yelich's power looks to be killed with the new baseball.  

[UpandIn]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:32 PM, NBBrewFan said:

I don't really believe that a majority of what we saw from Hiura and Yelich from 2019 to 2020 is do to external factors (i.e. a huge change across every opponent in how they pitch to both). I think for some reason there was a decision to change them in some way to get better outcomes or that they both thought 10 is great, let me crank this up to 11 and see what happens.  I'm old school with players in that you don't fix what AIN'T broken. 

Yelich and Hirua both came back with virtually identical approaches. Yelich in particular. I went back from '18 and '19 swings and lined them up with '20/'21 swings and I couldn't find any difference. I actually only did this because it looked to me like he was pulling off the ball a bit...but that just wasn't the case. He'd pulled off ever so slightly in his 2 MVP years...and did the same thing the following two years. 

I'm of the school of thought that you should be continually trying to get better...but I don't see it in how they approach the game(a difference that is, one way or the other). 

 

On 8/9/2022 at 1:32 PM, NBBrewFan said:

I think there's way to much of the Mike Pettine school of thinking (and he wasn't the first, he's just a familiar example) where you coach to a scheme (launch angle) instead of coaching to the talent you have.

Well...that "coaching," or those tweaks took Yelich from a nice young player to the best hitter in baseball over a 2 year period. I don't really see that here. Yelich launch angle is killing him. He needs to find a way to lift the ball. 

With Hiura, he was a rookie. I think two things happened. He hit 38 HRs and the league started pitching him differently. 

 

On 8/9/2022 at 1:32 PM, NBBrewFan said:

[Rant] My god, when you know that a run team is the biggest hole in your scheme you should be able to come up with an adjustment to your blessed scheme to reduce the bleeding!!!!! [/rant]

Well, it's a different sport and I'm not a Pettine fan, but that wasn't really a scheme issue. That was a talent issue. One that's been rectified the last 3 drafts and FA classes....

On 8/9/2022 at 1:32 PM, NBBrewFan said:

These guys have gone through years of development before they are even drafted working on what is the best approach for them. For some there are clearly issues that can be addressed, but I think there's less fine tuning as complete recreating going on. It's crazy that they are compared to a fictitious better hitter/pitcher and then coerced, forced, induced to change so that they fit that other mold. Launch angle, launch angle blah. A good coach should be working on getting each player to their best optimizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, not put them into a system where they won't thrive and then replacing every player to fit the mold (wasting tons of investment with what you already had), And I'm somewhat incensed by this because to me it's a big part of the reason that baseball is so friggin boring in 2022.

You...you kinda lost me here. They've gone through years of development with HS teams and the Brewers are generally pretty good at leaving players alone...other than encouraging them to lean into their strengths. We've seen pitcher after pitcher come through Milwaukee, decide to scrap a pitch, rely more heavily on another and then take off. Beyond that, just starting from the draft(which is a long way from the Yelich discussion) they tend to let a player fail before they start to tinker with their swing.

 

But to be honest...I don't really have a clue what you're talking about with the "

 

And...wasn't it the Brewers analytics that was credited with getting the most out of Yelich in '18 and '19? He got more aggressive and was ambushing pitches early in the count, looking for balls he could lift? At least that's how Yelich and company told it at the time. 

 

But to be honest...I don't really understand what you're talking about with the "they are compared to a fictitious better hitter/pitcher and then coerced, forced, induced to change so that they fit that other mold. Launch angle, launch angle blah."

What "system" do you suppose the Brewers are just throwing in all their draft picks or...anyone in and who are these fictitious players they're using as models?

Didn't they JUST draft a player with a highly unorthodox swing in Brown Jr and say that as it works for him, they'll leave him alone? Weimer? Mitchell was another one who gets a lot of GBs and they haven't tried to change his swing significantly. Seems like they'll let a player develop and if he has some hiccups or struggle, THAT'S when they come in...being as their Major League Coaches, and they'll work with them to get back on track. 

I'm just kinda...confused. Yelich and Hiura's struggle can be attributed to them taking their success and trying to build off it...and then coaches meddling too much, and then trying to turn everyone into the same player. 

 

I'm not exactly sure what you're suggesting, but it sounds a whole lot like when a player develops, it's because of the years prior to the big leagues or to coaching where they developed their swings...and then when they are coached, it's because they're all coached to be the same player. None of it really jives with what we're seeing.