Brewers Video
In the first 30 games of the season, the Brewers have a ground ball rate (as a team) of over 50%. That's five percentage points higher than the one they had in 2024. Worse, a lot of those grounders are coming from the hitters in the heart of their order—the veterans most relied upon to produce runs. Almost everyone is seeing a bump in their ground ball rate, already at an elevated level in 2024, and it's killing the offense.
Yes, William Contreras and Christian Yelich hit the ball hard enough that their BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is likely to improve, but even so, getting the ball off the ground will help. Through the first month of baseball, the Brewers have been feast-or-famine offensively, showcasing what they can manage when they do elevate the ball versus what happens when they can't—which is to say, getting stymied over and over again.
Without elevating the ball, their offensive production will become streaky, dependent on batted-ball luck in all the wrong ways. The question is, without change, is some regression to the mean coming, or will the Brewers simply struggle to produce runs in 2025?
Power Is King
The Brewers don't have a lot of innate power within their lineup. They were looking to modest but plausible power increases from Christian Yelich, Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell and others to collectively replace the power lost due to Willy Adames's departure. The problem is that they can't do that unless these hitters can catch the ball out in front more often. Of the names above, only Mitchell has reduced his ground ball rate (admittedly, aided by being pummelled in the upper third of the strike zone).
Four of the top five in the Brewers order on a regular basis are hitting more ground balls than ever. Hitting 60% of pitches on the ground is a recipe for disaster. Hard-hit ones will result in rally-killing double plays for Yelich and Contreras. Frelick's spike has paid off short-term with some batted-ball luck, but it's unlikely to fare so well as the season progresses. When you factor in Jackson Chourio and his swing-happy approach (which brings its own inconsistency), it's clear why the Brewers are struggling to produce pressure and runs from one game to the next.
As a unit, the Brewers are over eight percentage points (or a 20% jump) from average in ground ball rate, a category in which they ranked third-highest in 2024 with 45.4%. Rhys Hoskins has arguably provided the highest-quality at-bats, with a high walk rate, low strikeout rate and hardly any ground balls.
Can It Be Fixed?
The biggest factor that will drive consistency is for one of the players in the heart of the Brewers order to resolve their current issues. The issue with that is that Yelich and Contreras are well-known ground-ball hitters over their careers. Whenever either can get their ground ball rate under 50%, they become a terrifying proposition, but it can be streaky for both of them. It's typically the last thing to come for Yelich when returning from injury, and he struggles to catch it in his sweet spot. Contreras demonstrated in 2024 how he can go from a black hole to a dominant slugger in the flash of an eye. Both have shown improvements so far from their early form, but that's been in the form of less swing-and-miss, rather than a better batted-ball distribution.
Enter Chourio, who has chased more than anyone else in the league but Adolis García (min 100 PA)—and has somehow pushed that rate even higher over his recent sample of pitches faced. When pitchers are silly enough to attack Chourio in the strike zone, he's punishing them, but eventually, they'll begin to take the Javier Báez approach and give him nothing near the heart of the plate.
Over his last 40 pitches, Chourio is chasing over 50% of the pitches he sees outside the strike zone, and appears to be guessing at the plate. The best quality Chourio has, however, is an ability to adjust and learn more quickly than almost any other player his age. He took two months to suss out pitching last year, and went on a tear beginning when the calendar flipped to June. He'll probably manage to do the same here. His chase rates decreased each year in the minors as he adapted to each level, which makes the current issues something of an anomaly—but not one that we should anticipate he won't overcome. He's never played at a level this long before. He's into rounds of adjustments he's never had to make.
If Chourio can force pitchers into his wheelhouse through an improved eye at the plate, he's showing every other sign of a monstrous season. The Brewers need consistency from their big names in the lineup. Can they find it as the months start to warm up, or will a continued series of ground balls derail their offense? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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