It's Official: Christian Yelich Out for Season, Brewers Have to Find Offense Elsewhere

[Matthew Trueblood]

If you were still scribbling lineups with the Crew's best hitter restored to them on the backs of bank envelopes and cocktail napkins, first of all, what're you using bank envelopes for? And secondly, stop.

Image courtesy of © Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Brewers offense is completely transformed by the presence or absence of Christian Yelich. He went through a fallow period a couple of years ago, as myriad injuries left him a shell of his MVP self, and he never has quite recovered the power he showed in 2018 and 2019. However, since May 1, 2023, Yelich has batted .300/.391/.484, in 830 plate appearances. He's been one of the game's most well-rounded hitters for most of the last two seasons--when he's been in the lineup.

Alas, yet again, he isn't, and he won't be at least for the rest of this season. On Thursday night, Yelich and the Brewers announced that the star outfielder and DH will undergo back surgery that will shelve him for the rest of the year. The team will make the postseason, but any progress they make there will have to be achieved without their most balanced offensive threat. It's a painful loss, emotionally and in terms of sheer production. It also casts the four years and $106 million left on his contract feel a bit less likely to be money well spent, but that's a topic for the fall and winter ahead.

In the short term, this dramatically raises the stakes for hitters like Garrett Mitchell, Tyler Black, and Blake Perkins. Each of them needs to get and/or stay healthy, but assuming they do, each now has a path to broader contributions to the team as they hurtle toward an NL Central title. There's October heroism available. There are plate appearances that will need to be filled at the top of the lineup come playoff time.

Over the last week or two, I've written about Mitchell's approach and skill set, and how he would need to adjust the former to maximize the value and minimize the weaknesses of the latter; and about how Black can be a good hitter despite a dearth of power, relative to other players at the positions where he fits. Earlier this year, Davy Andrews wrote about Perkins as the perfect embodiment of the team's approach at the plate, in addition to the immense value he provides on defense. All of these players can do something valuable within the context of the Brewers offense. They just don't have the ability to take pressure off of other hitters, the way Yelich did so often this season.

Earlier this year, I built a statistic to try to capture the value of hitters who blend power and on-base skills on a game-to-game basis. It's called Big Game Rate, and it's simply the percentage of a player's games played in which their total bases and walks added up to at least four. The underlying theory is that, if you do that, you've made up for at least one teammate having a lousy day that day. Even if all you did was hit a solo home run, you accounted for a run. If you had a double and two walks, on average, you put your team in position to score quite a few runs. The leaders in this category are, generally, speaking, exactly who you'd expect, which verifies the value of it. Here's a chart showing all 212 batters with at least 300 plate appearances this year, with both their weighted on-base average (wOBA) and their Big Game%.

I've highlighted some of the players around Yelich, to show that he was truly one of the guys making an outsize impact on games this year. As you can see, Yelich was the guy with the capacity to carry the offense. Without him, the lineup needs to be longer, because it's a bit less dynamic.

The only hope to replace Yelich's dynamism, really, is the man who figures to replace him as the everyday left fielder for the next decade: Jackson Chourio. Here's the same chart as above, but just since Jun. 1, for the players with at least 200 plate appearances in that span.

He's not quite as lethal as Yelich was, but Chourio can change any given game. There have been a half-dozen contests over the last two months in which that capacity has been brightly displayed. With Yelich down, there are opportunities out there for several others to become heroes, but it's easy to see who's best positioned to take advantage of those opportunities. The Brewers just have to hope someone steps up, regardless of who it turns out to be.

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[Kripes - Brewers]

Almost have to consider giving Hicklin a look due to his power potential now, right? Just have to get the guys with the on base skills to get on base before Hoskins and Hicklin come up.

[Kripes - Brewers]

Almost forgot, but there is a chance Amed Rosario gets picked up? He's tagging lefties at a .327/.355/.462 clip this year. Never know who might take a shot on him...

[Trax]

Any word on exactly what type of back surgery we're talking about?  Shaving a bone spur i one thing, fusing or removing bone another