Christian Yelich and High Fastballs

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Photo: Christian Yelich - Twitter

Christian Yelich

Christian Yelich

One of baseball’s most surprising statistics from 2025 was about one of the game’s longtime stars: Of the 145 MLB hitters to qualify for the batting title, in 2025 only two faced more fastballs than Angels’ star and Future Hall of Famer Mike Trout. Sports Info Solutions estimates that over 58% of the pitches thrown to him were some form of fastball. A hitter long known as one of the most dangerous in the sport has now become one of the most likely for pitchers to challenge with velocity.

Last winter we noted that veteran hitters are becoming fewer and further between around the sport and posited a theory: As pitching development continues to race forward in the modern era, hitters in their mid-to-late 30s have a bigger challenge than ever before trying to match even slightly declining reaction times with rapidly increasing fastball velocities. At a bare minimum this theory would seem to apply to Trout: He’s about two and a half standard deviations above the league average in terms of facing fastballs.

While it may be the strategy for approaching Mike Trout, however, it’s worth noting that it’s neither the prevalent nor a particularly recommended approach against the Brewers’ elder statesman, Christian Yelich. Yelich was also above the median in terms of facing fastballs in 2025 (49%), but the data suggests that opponents threw him one at their own peril: Statcast data (as compiled under the Pitch Values tab on Yelich’s FanGraphs page) shows that Yelich was over 10 runs above average against fastballs in 2025, as compared to about 5.6 runs above average combined against all other pitches. Yelich also mashes changeups, but that may have more to do with who throws them: Right (opposite) handed pitchers threw 161 changeups to Yelich in 2025, while lefties had better options to use against him and threw them just 12 times.

Faster than Average

While it’s possible that Yelich’s reaction time already has or will experience a natural decline with age, it’s worth noting that once he decides to swing Yelich’s bat hasn’t lost any speed. Yelich took his average swing at 73.4 mph in 2025, which is both a couple of ticks faster than the MLB average and right in line with where he was over the prior two seasons.

However, some quick analysis of 2025 data shows that it’s possible that Yelich is at least slightly vulnerable to being challenged if it’s done in the right location. Using Baseball Savant’s Pitch Highlighter tool shows that Yelich was good against fastballs in the upper half of the strike zone, but not as good as he is overall. Our sample contained 463 pitches classified as fastballs in the upper half of the zone and found that Yelich still swung and missed at them almost 23% of the time but also had a slightly lower average exit velocity when he put them in play (89.3 mph, as compared to 90.3 mph overall). His weighted on-base average (wOBA) was .343 overall but just .295 on plate appearances that ended on high fastballs.

If some teams have adapted their game plan against Yelich while others have not, it might help to explain some of the streakiness he’s experienced in recent years. While all hitters have highs and lows across long seasons, Yelich has seemed to be more prone than most to extended stretches where he’s either extremely successful or largely unsuccessful.

When it’s all said and done Christian Yelich’s Brewers tenure will almost certainly be remembered for his mid-20s seasons in 2018 and 2019 when he very nearly won back-to-back MVP awards. He’s still been a very good player in his early 30s, however, and his ability to continue to do that at least in part depends on his ability to continue to catch up to high fastballs.