Christian Yelich Isn't Locked In... But He Is Getting There

[Jake McKibbin]

The Brewers' highest-paid player is slashing just .143/.262/.321 early in the season, and not providing a whole lot of production for the team. Is he showing any signs of a breakout?

I haven't broadcasted it too much, mainly because I was impressed that Christian Yelich was still able to smoke bombs, but spring training wasn't pretty for the Brewers star—and that seems to have carried forward into the regular season. The main reason for concern was the regularity with which Yelich was swinging and missing. He has always had more swing-and-miss in the preseason than he does in the regular season—a very swing-happy approach geared towards finding his timing—but even then, this was quite excessive. (Unfortunately, Yelich didn't play in many Statcast-equipped parks, so this is based on the eye test.)

It's understandable for a player who had major back surgery, and who was always likely to take a little time to find the timing in his swing. The good news is, it appears that he's beginning to do so.

Yelich has shown some power, in between all of the whiffs reflected above, but it was undeniably concerning to see a player who has such good hand-eye coordination and plate discipline having a 50-pitch rolling average whiff rate of 68.4%. Since then, this has come down nicely, and even to the naked eye, he appears to be on time more often at the plate. There was a concern that he couldn't catch up to velocity, but the fastball whiff rate has been declining—although breaking balls are still giving him some trouble, particularly left on left, so it's possible he's cheating a bit to catch up to the heat.

He was hitting the ball incredibly hard when making contact, doing damage, but he wasn't making contact often enough in the early going. Now that he's beginning to right the ship on that front, we can begin to look at the quality of batted balls. His expected slugging, due to the additional contact and some of the mammoth homers in Colorado, has spiked to above .520 over a rolling 25-plate appearance sample—a number that would leave us all quite content, were he to maintain it through the end of the year:

The one downside, as always, is the last thing that usually comes round right for Yelich: his launch angles. Unfortunately, these have been trending down, but this has been a common theme throughout the 2020s. Yelich will, randomly, find that contact point out in front and go on some slugging tears, but at this point (over the same rolling 25 PA sample) the launch angle is averaging -4.2°. Thence the lack of production against Arizona.

Perhaps it was rash to believe Yelich could slot straight back into the form he was on in 2024, it was always going to require a period of time for him to get back up to speed. Some of the early results (behind the bare stat lines) are showing that improvement. He appears in a similar place to his 2022 iteration (not his best form, I'll admit), but with more positive indicators early in the season, those final steps may not be all that far away.

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What are your thoughts on Christian Yelich? Has he met your expectations to begin the season, or did you have higher hopes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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[Trax]

Haven't totally given up on him.  There's still a chance he will start living up to his contract in the present, there's sure no making up for the past since his big signing.  

 

Hopefully it's not the case but if we end up sellers at trade deadline he would be on the top of my list of one I'd try to move if he was doing well enough to move.

[Sixtolezcano]

Mammoth homers and Colorado is true for >90% of MLB players. As mentioned the ground ball rate has been a mammoth concern for many years. With at least 3 more years until his contract expires, I believe Arnold (or whomever the future GM will be) would do well to offload his contract, as now about 40-50% of clubs would view it as a reasonable salary.