Christian Yelich’s Contributions Should Not be Overlooked

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Photo via Christian Yelich - Instagram

Christian Yelich batting practice

Christian Yelich

He may spend the rest of his career chasing the highs of his 2018 and 2019 seasons, but that shouldn’t obscure the fact that Christian Yelich is a productive hitter on a hot streak right now.

After collecting a pair of doubles on Sunday Yelich has 22 hits and has reached base safely 38 times in his last 19 games. He’s batting .324 with a .452 on-base and .515 slugging over that span and has been one of the Brewers’ few reliable performers recently: Over that same stretch Yelich’s teammates have combined to hit just .204 with a .288 on-base and .337 slugging. Yelich has either scored or driven in 19 of the Brewers’ 82 runs over that span.

There’s more to Yelich than just a recent hot streak, however. His .271 batting average, .367 on-base percentage and .434 slugging for the season are all his best marks since he nearly repeated as National League MVP in 2019. He’s on pace to hit 20 home runs, score 111 times and connect for 32 doubles. He hasn’t done any of those things since 2019, either.

He’s also done all of this despite peripheral numbers that suggest he should be even better. After taking the quality of his contact into account Baseball Savanthas Yelich’s expected batting average (xBA) and expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) as .287 and .376, as compared to his actual BA and wOBA of .271 and .350. Yelich continues to be one of the best players in baseball when it comes to hitting the ball hard: He ranks in the 94th percentile among MLB hitters in average exit velocity and the 96th percentile in hard hit percentage.

Aggressive at the Plate

The biggest difference in Yelich’s offensive game between this season and previous years might be that he’s being more aggressive at the plate. According to Baseball Reference, he’s taking a lower percentage of pitches for called strikes than he has at any point since, again, 2019. Swinging at more pitches has cost him some walks (he’s walking just 12% of the time in 2023, as compared to a peak of almost 19% in 2020), but he’s also cut down slightly on his strikeouts and put himself in better position to succeed by hitting the ball hard somewhere. Baseball Savant’s Swing Percent Profile shows Yelich is more likely to swing at inside strikes than most of his MLB peers and more likely to swing at pitches just above the strike zone but is still less likely than most to swing at pitches out of the zone.

It’s also worth noting that Yelich’s defense, which had long graded out as a weakness in his game, has been better this season. Baseball Savant rated him at five outs below average in the outfield in 2022 but has him four outs above average in 2023. His throwing from the outfield has also rated poorly each of the last three seasons but has improved noticeably this year, with an average velocity of 85 miles per hour as compared to 81.8 last year. FanGraphs rates Yelich as a positive contributor on defense this season, the first time they’ve done so since 2016.

FanGraphs estimates that Yelich has already been worth 2.2 wins above replacement this season, matching his total from all of last year. His contributions would likely be easier for many fans to appreciate, however, if they weren’t overshadowed by the 7.7 and 7.2 wins he put up in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and the $215 million contract extension he signed in the spring of 2020. Yelich’s first years as a Brewer put him on pace for “all-time great” status, a trajectory he’s struggled to match since. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s also been a productive Brewer in recent years, however, and he’s trending in the right direction in 2023.