The Milwaukee Brewers Need a Better Version of Christian Yelich

The Milwaukee Brewers had brief moments of success in the early 1980s, 2008, and 2011 when they went on what were originally the franchise’s only playoff runs. However, a Golden Era of Brewers baseball kicked off eight years ago in 2018.

Milwaukee made just its fifth ever postseason that year, but it kicked off a string of seven playoff appearances in eight seasons. At its current pace, the team seems well on its way to making that eight out of nine.

Two players have been with the organization from that season up until now. One is pitcher Brandon Woodruff, who is currently on the injured list. The other is designated hitter Christian Yelich.

Yelich came to the Brewers via trade the January before the 2018 season. His immediate impact was substantial as he led the team to the playoffs for the first time in seven years while winning the NL MVP award.

The Brewers star followed that with an even better season in 2019 that was heartbreakingly cut short by a knee injury. 14.3 fWAR over most of two seasons was enough to earn the former MVP a nine-year contract extension, easily the largest in franchise history.

Yelich has had his share of ups and downs since then with a good chunk of the downs stemming from nagging back issues. But he has yet to return to the level that earned him the big contract.

Still, Milwaukee’s superstar has continued to be an above average hitter, posting a wRC+ over 100 in every season with the Brewers. In fact, it’s been no lower than 121 in each of the last three seasons.

That’s helped the Brewers have one of the top offenses in baseball in recent years. They finished sixth in MLB in runs per game in 2024, fifth in 2025, and are currently fourth at 5.09 rpg as of the 2026 All-Star break.

Oddly, that mark for this season has been achieved often despite Yelich. A recent swoon has the 14-year veteran posting some of the worst numbers of his career, including a .327 on base percentage, a .706 OPS, and a 96 wRC+.

Regardless, that hasn’t stopped Milwaukee from having the regular season success they’re used to as they sit second in MLB at the break with a 59-37 record. But Brewers fans don’t want to settle for that anymore. They want to finally see their team reach, and hopefully win, a World Series.

And for that, they’ll need all the firepower they can get, including a more productive Yelich.

The Brewers Need More From Christian Yelich

The beginning of the season would provide some ominous foreshadowing for Yelich. After just 15 games played, he landed on the IL with a groin strain that would sideline him for a month.

Injury aside, it seemed early on like Yelich might be in for another solid season. Through June 4, he was hitting .289 with a .821 OPS, seven doubles, four homers, 20 RBIs, and a 125 wRC+ in 32 games. Then things went down hill. A lot.

In 30 games since then, Yelich has been in one of the worst slumps of his career, hitting just .197 with a .593 OPS. He has just eight extra base hits in that span as well as 41 strikeouts to just 15 walks, not to mention a wRC+ of just 69.

When you take a look at Christian Yelich’s page on Baseball Savant, you see a lot more blue than normal. Among other concerning numbers, his barrel rate (7.3%), hard hit rate (41.6%), average exit velocity (89.0 mph), xwOBA (.296), and strikeout rate (28.6%) are either the worst marks of his career or very close.

As you dig into Yelich’s plate discipline metrics, you start to get a feeling as to why some of the above numbers are so far down. Ultimately, he’s just being way more tentative at the plate.

Starting with the first pitch of at bats, Yelich is being more passive than normal this year. His first pitch swing rate is down to 20.5%, his lowest mark since a disappointing 2020 campaign and way down from a 28.3% mark last year.

Yelich’s in-zone swing rate is down just a touch over last year but his chase rate is down further, at 23% from 25.7% a year ago. That’s still an elite rate compared to the rest of the league, but for him it’s resulting in connecting with fewer pitches.

Down to a 40% chase contact rate, Yelich is down from 44.2% last year, a 50.9% career average, and at the lowest rate of his career outside of 2020. Of the 200 batters with at least 250 plate appearances, his chase contact rate ranks 189th.

It would be one thing if the passivity translated into more walks. But Yelich’s walk rate has risen to just 10.1%, only 0.2% higher than last year and his second lowest rate since his rookie season.

Being so tentative has caused Yelich to particularly struggle against breaking pitches, which is makes sense. He is batting just .167 against such pitches, his worst average since he was a rookie, and is whiffing 45.8% of the time, his highest rate since 2020.

Amid the struggles, Brewers manager Pat Murphy has praised how Yelich is grinding through things. After showing up early for a coaches’ session on the road in St. Louis, Murphy stated, “people have got to know how much this kid cares about the team and about the Brewers….he feels awful about it. He’s working his tail off, and to come up today and do what he did, I’m just really proud of him,” per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com.

It wouldn’t be the first time Yelich worked back from a low point. He battled for two years after his shattered kneecap in 2019 to find his old form. He fought off back issues in 2024 that limited him to just 73 games.

And the Brewers are hoping he can fight through this too. Even with one of the best offenses in baseball last year, Milwaukee was held to a single run in each game of a four-game sweep at the hands of the eventual World Champion Dodgers.

So the Brewers will need to be better this year if they want to complete the National League gauntlet and reach the World Series. And they will need Yelich to be better than he’s been lately to get the job done.