Article: It Might Be Time To Shelve Christian Yelich For Awhile

[Jason Wang]

After a steaming-hot July that saw him post a 1.015 OPS, Christian Yelich cooled off immensely in August, regressing to a .676 OPS. With his downward trend continuing, there are a few good reasons why he should rest for a few weeks.

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

We all know how good a healthy Christian Yelich is. This summer was a forcible reminder that that talent is still there. Alas, the summer is over.

Yelich’s Performance Has Slipped, Significantly
After playing the first game of the series against the New York Yankees, Yelich was benched due to lower back soreness, a move that may have been a few days (or weeks) too late. Since the start of September, Yelich has slashed just .125/.241/.167 over 29 plate appearances, a far cry from his midsummer renaissance. 

Yelich has been a workhorse for the Brewers for the past two seasons and for most of his career, but after fracturing his knee in 2019 and repeatedly aggravating a back issue that started in 2015, it’s more likely that his deteriorating performance is a result of injuries than anything else. Furthermore, given that he was scratched from the lineup for soreness in an an area he’s had issues with in the past, it would be a prudent move to rest him before it gets any worse.

At his best, Yelich is one of the best outfielders in baseball. At his worst, he’s a liability in the lineup. History has shown us that he’s usually at his worst when he’s battling physical limitations, so maybe an extended break will help restore him to full strength.

The Brewers Don’t Really Need Him
In Yelich’s worst full month of the season, the Brewers had their best month since April, going 17-9 in August. The team’s offense was average, posting a .708 OPS, but the pitching was lights out. With Freddy Peralta having his best month and bullpen names like Abner Uribe, Hoby Milner, and Trevor Megill rising to the occasion, Milwaukee had a 3.36 ERA in August, third best in MLB. 

All year, the Brewers have made it clear that they win games through pitching and scoring barely enough runs to squeak by with the win. At 631 runs scored, they are 18th in MLB and have scored the fewest of any division-leading team (the Minnesota Twins are next, with 664). It also helps that his replacement, Tyrone Taylor, slashed .271/.339/.542 in August and has an OPS .260 points higher than Yelich’s in the limited sample size of September.

Milwaukee doesn’t have the biggest lead over the Chicago Cubs, but given their relatively similar strength of schedule, FanGraphs is still giving the Brewers an 80.4% chance to win the division. Thus, benching a freezing-cold and battered Yelich accomplishes two goals. It gives the Brewers a stronger lineup to finish the regular season so they can secure their spot as the third seed, while getting Yelich ready to perform in the postseason. Something like a 10-day IL stint would likely pay dividends for the team, allowing him to heal without getting too rusty when the games start to really matter.

It’s never easy to bench a player, especially when he’s the face of your organization (not to mention its highest-paid player, by a margin of $15 million a year), but managing a baseball team is all about making hard decisions. The Brewers are fortunate enough to have the outfield depth and standings position to cruise into October baseball, but if they keep letting Yelich limp out there, even that might change.

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[Jake McKibbin]

Do you think his recent run of form is centered around the injury? It would explain why his exit velo's have dropped so much, but it begs the question why would the Brewers ask him to play through it when this is the clear end result?

Or is he just always battling it?

[Harold Hutchison]

It may be the case - and I think that like Tellez, it was bugging him for a while and he tried to tough it out and it got worse.

Best thing to do is to get him rested for a few games.

[BrewerFan]

I don't know if it needs to be for a couple weeks, but I think sitting him for a while is a good idea. 10 days? 

This is why I suggested IF possible trading him this off-season. He's a really good player, but he's had back issues since he was in his early-mid 20s...not that I want to get back into that or that it's likely to happen, but you're just always going to be dealing with this risk with Yelich.

He looked great earlier this year just using quantifiable metrics. Sprint speed and his arm strength looked better. It feels like that's just kinda regressed as the year has gone on(even when he was still hitting well). 

 

Could just be that he's in a simple slump and they want to give him time off, but if it is his back flaring up, then yeah, put him on the 10 day. We've got OFers to cover for him in the meantime. 

[Jake McKibbin]

10 minutes ago, BrewerFan said:

I don't know if it needs to be for a couple weeks, but I think sitting him for a while is a good idea. 10 days? 

This is why I suggested IF possible trading him this off-season. He's a really good player, but he's had back issues since he was in his early-mid 20s...not that I want to get back into that or that it's likely to happen, but you're just always going to be dealing with this risk with Yelich.

He looked great earlier this year just using quantifiable metrics. Sprint speed and his arm strength looked better. It feels like that's just kinda regressed as the year has gone on(even when he was still hitting well). 

 

Could just be that he's in a simple slump and they want to give him time off, but if it is his back flaring up, then yeah, put him on the 10 day. We've got OFers to cover for him in the meantime. 

I think you're entirely right about the outfield cover, more than enough there to get through things

I think he has a NTC so he could actually settle with the family in MKE, otherwise I'm sure they'd consider it

He's actually gotten better as the year went on until August when he slumped hard, and I'm just really questioning why, with their experience of it last season, they didn't immediately sit him down

[BrewerFan]

53 minutes ago, Jake McKibbin said:

I think you're entirely right about the outfield cover, more than enough there to get through things

I think he has a NTC so he could actually settle with the family in MKE, otherwise I'm sure they'd consider it

He's actually gotten better as the year went on until August when he slumped hard, and I'm just really questioning why, with their experience of it last season, they didn't immediately sit him down

His hitting has, but he had a throw from the OF that came in at 94 MPH earlier this year. And it's entirely possible I'm fixating on his throwing arm more than necessary(it's looked real bad the last couple months) and making a jump to his back, I don't know. 

As for the NTC, yes, he has that. He's also 10/5 by now, so even without it he could block any trade. So it'd have to be somewhere he wanted to go and the most obvious places would be out West. And again, I said this in another thread, but I don't believe players demand No Trade Clauses just because they want to stay somewhere, but so they can control where they go and have some leverage. Perhaps it'd be picking up his option year. I don't know. When I first suggested it, he was still ascending and playing if not his best Baseball, close to it. But places like perhaps...LAA, LAD, SD, SF, AZ, Col, Seattle, etc...maybe he'd have interest. Maybe he does really want to finish his career in Milwaukee and it's completely a moot point. I don't know.

[Playing Catch]

I like the idea of a 10-game IL stint, even if he's healthy-ish. See what Donaldson has in the tank, give some ABs to the bench guys (who haven't been seeing many ABs lately, and I'd like to keep them in form), get Christian ship-shape for the stretch run.

[RobDeer 45]

I don't know if we need a full IL stint, but I love the idea of a couple games off each week down the stretch to get him rested.  I'm all for trying it.