Christian Yelich Has Found His Timing—and Intriguing Hints of His MVP Form

Christian Yelich has tantalized the Milwaukee Brewers fan base in the 2020s with two- to three-week spurts of his 2018 and 2019 self—before reverting to a more slap-and-dash hitting production, reminiscent of his time with the Miami Marlins. In 2024, pre-injury, Yelich produced his most consistent stretch of powerful baseball, producing a .910 OPS and 3.0 WAR in just 73 games. He looked "back". Then the back injury struck again.

To begin 2025, Yelich's timing seemed off. He was consistently late to the ball, resulting in numerous ground balls and far higher whiff rates than we usually see from the Brewers' star. After the surgery to remove tissue in his back, Yelich was showing some worrying signs of regression. As our Milwaukee Tailgate Partners would say, "there's no such thing as "used" to have a back injury" and surgeries in this area are always tricky.

That being said, all the underlying metrics around swing speed and sprint speed looked nearly identical to past versions of Yelich. If he was swinging the bat as hard, then surely the issue must be something else? Well, thanks to Baseball Savant's swing path data, we can actually chronicle how Yelich's timing was off. I did so a week ago, here.

Looking at the last week of games compared with the earlier part of the season, some clear differences jump out:

Over the last week (above) Yelich's contact point is 30.3" in front of his center of mass, and 1.8" in front of home plate. Catching it out in front, put into numbers. Now, let's see the results from the rest of May for him. Catching the ball on average 25.8" in front of his center of mass, and 2.2" behind home plate is a completely different contact point altogether, leaving Yelich unable to extend through the baseball or gain a feel for the natural flow of the bat through contact. He was late, and it caused him no end of problems.

If we isolate it to just his eight swings in June, there are even more stark differences compared to the prior months. It is a small sample size, but his bat speed is increased, the contact point is even more extreme over the front of the plate, and he's pulling the ball more than ever in his last two games.

How does this compare to his 2023 and 2024 seasons? We know that Yelich showed glimpses in 2023, but it was 2024 where his production really took off.

Lo and behold, the biggest change is in two areas. His attack direction (the horizontal angle at which the bat impacts the ball, where 0° would be directly at the center of the field) and the distance of his contact point compared to his center of mass both stand out. He's contacting the ball further forward, and is more pull-oriented as a result. 

There's one other reason for real optimism. Yelich's biggest weakness since 2020 has been an inability to hit and do damage on breaking balls down and in. Sliders, curveballs, you name it, and it's been whiff central for the Brewers star. Over the last four days, Yelich has crushed two monstrous home runs off such pitches. against Carlos Hernandez and Brady Singer.

From 2021 through 2024, Yelich only hit one home run in gameday zones 9 and 14 (down and in) against a breaking ball way back in 2022 against Locke St John of the Cubs. Even then, the contact was slightly different, with a slight inside out on the contact and just clearing the center field wall:

From 2021 onward, Yelich ranks 14th among left-handed hitters in whiff rate from these strike zones with a 64.9% miss rate when he swings. Being able to do damage in this area will force hitters to attack him in different ways and could open up a whole new level of success in this decade for Yelich. It's something he was known for in his heyday, doing damage across all areas of the zone. Pitchers have pummelled him down and in since and gotten a large level of success to the point that, by giving them doubt and forcing them to be pinpoint if they do attack him down and in, Yelich could see his walk rate spike on top of more mistake pitches as a result of the pressure.

So he's catching the ball out in front. He's pulling it in the air. Over the last week, he's hit six home runs. When Christian Yelich goes nuclear, this is what it looks like.

I'm not saying Yelich is back to his 2018/19 form. We need a far larger sample size to even contemplate a comparison. However, the ascending pull rate and bat speed that have linked into his ability to do damage on breaking balls down and in is a remarkable change from the last few years. There's also hope that his back can hold the strain longer than usual with the volume of inflamed tissue they removed during his surgery.

Over the last week, Christian Yelich has been the prime provider of runs, He's stepped up when his team needed him most, and  he's doing it with a swing very similar to that which held up throughout 2024. He is prone to streakiness, but there is a very real possibility that if Yelich can remain healthy, his bat will continue to be a source of extreme comfort, and perhaps increasing excitement, for this beleaguered Brewers offense.