The Brewers Need Christian Yelich To Get (And Stay) Hot
With the ball club hovering around .500, now is the time for Christian Yelich to break out of his slump and lead the way for the Crew.
What an eventful start it’s been for the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers. It’s been anything but smooth sailing to this point for the Crew, but they’ve managed to claw their way back from a dreadful start to the season.
The Brewers currently sit in a three-way tie for second place in the NL Central with a record of 19-19. They’ve flirted with .500 for a few weeks now, as they’re 10-10 in their last 20 games and 15-15 in their last 30 games.
Just as their record suggests, the Brewers have looked like a middling ball club in more ways than one.
Milwaukee’s pitching staff has actually been pretty solid since the calendar turned to April. Despite being dealt numerous injuries, their starters are fifth in ERA since April 1. Likewise, while it’s been up and down for the bullpen, Milwaukee’s relievers are middle of the pack in terms of ERA and FIP since that date as well.
Instead, it’s the offense that’s been dragging behind. Milwaukee’s offense rank 24th in MLB in wRC+ (90), 23rd in batting average (.237), and 22nd in OPS (.673).
They’re certainly had some strong performers lead the way, such as Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, and Rhys Hoskins. But there are also a handful of bats who have underwhelmed to this point, keeping this offense from reaching its true potential.
One of those bats is Christian Yelich, who has looked like a shell of his 2024 All-Star self to open the new year. Yelich was terrific in his 73 games last season prior to hitting the shelf with back surgery, but he has failed to hit the ground running in 2025.
Through 36 games this season, Yelich has a negative fWAR (-0.3) and is hitting just .197 with a .657 OPS, 85 wRC+, and .295 wOBA. He hasn’t been a black hole in the lineup, but those numbers are a far cry from what fans were seeing from him just a season ago.
Obviously, Yelich is one of the most important players in Milwaukee’s lineup. As we’ve seen in years past, his performance at the top of the order can be a difference maker for the Brewers’ offense.
Unfortunately through the first few weeks of the 2025 season, Yelich has swung a cold bat, and the offense has followed suit.
Of course, there’s still more than enough time for Yelich to turn things around at the plate and get this offense back on track. But in order for that to happen, he’ll need to address several areas of his game if he wants to return to his All-Star ways.
All stats and rankings taken prior to play on April 8.
Yelich Continues To Hit the Ball Hard
While his numbers on the surface level are far from impressive, it hasn’t been all bad for Yelich.
On a positive note, he’s continued to hit the ball hard out of the gate. That strong contact has led to some big swings in big moments, including a timely grand slam on the Crew’s most recent road trip and a crucial two-out, two-run homer this past week against the Houston Astros.
While his average exit velocity of 90.4 mph would be his lowest mark in the Statcast era, it’s still above average when compared to the rest of the league. Moreover, his maximum power output is still in line with where it’s been in recent seasons.
He’s already popped a 113.4 mph maximum exit velocity this season, so it’s good to see that he still has that level of power inside him when he gets his best swing off.
His hard-hit rate is actually up nearly two ticks from a season ago as well, sitting at 48.4%, which is in the top 25% of MLB hitters.
In turn, Yelich already has six homers on the year through 36 games, which is tied for the team lead. He’s also tied for second on the Brewers in extra-base hits with nine, yielding an ISO of .159 that is also second on the team.
So, the one major positive takeaway from this article is that Yelich continues to produce some encouraging quality of contact. There are signs that he’s swinging the bat well, he just hasn’t been able to translate it to consistent results.
Once Again, Groundouts Continue To Be a Concern
Transitioning to what’s gone wrong for Yelich thus far, there are several things that stick out, including an issue that’s haunted him for quite some time.
Most Brewers fans are tired of hearing about Yelich’s ground-ball issues at this point, as it’s been a well-documented source of his struggles in recent years.
Unfortunately, after taking a step forward in that department last season, Yelich is putting the ball on the ground more than he ever has to open his 2025 campaign. That has once again bogged down his offensive production.
Through his first 153 plate appearances of this season, Yelich is hitting the ball on the ground at a monstrous 63.7% rate. For reference, the average MLB ground-ball rate for hitters is 44.4%, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that his mark is the single highest in Major League Baseball.
Yelich is also averaging a negative launch angle on the year at -1.2 degrees. Again, to little surprise, that is the lowest launch angle in baseball. Not only is he the only hitter with a negative launch angle this season, but he’s the only qualified hitter with an average launch angle below one degree.
But even in years past when Yelich was putting the ball on the ground at a high rate, he’s been able to use all fields and put the ball where the defenders aren’t. This season, however, that has not been the case. He’s pulling ground balls more than he ever has, often times right into the defense.
While he has had some big swings as was just mentioned, Yelich simply is not catching the ball on the optimal part of the bat or squaring up balls with any sort of consistency to this point in the year, and that’s been an enormous contributor to his lack of results in the batter’s box.
Whiff Is a Glaring Red Flag
Another area where Yelich has struggled is in the bat-to-ball department. However, unlike his ground-ball issue, this shortcoming is one that is quite unusual to see from Yelich.
Even in Yelich’s down years, he was able to maintain a respectable strikeout rate and walk at a high clip. While the latter is something he’s continued to do this season, strikeouts have been a major and unusual flaw thus far, and it stems from his substantial step back in contact rates.
Yelich is currently sporting a whiff rate of 32%. That’s in the 12th percentile of hitters and is nearly a nine-percent increase from 2024.
What’s even more concerning is his step back in contact on pitches within the strike zone. Other than the shortened 2020 season where he sported an in-zone contact rate of 78.4%, Yelich’s lowest in-zone contact rate for a season was 82.3% back in 2023.
So far this season, Yelich has a 79.4% in-zone contact rate, a 5.3% decrease from his mark a season ago.
Furthermore, Yelich is chasing pitches outside of the zone more than he ever has. He is currently sporting a chase rate of 27.8%, which is nearly a three-percent bump from 2024 and just about tied with his career-high mark.
Even further, not only is he expanding the strike zone more than ever, but he’s making significantly less contact on those chases as well. Yelich’s chase contact dropped from 57.4% in 2024 to 43.5% this season.
Combine all of those factors, and it’s no surprise to see that his 27.5% strikeout rate is in the bottom 20% of MLB hitters. He’s finished with a strikeout rate over 24.5% just once in his career (30.8% back in 2020), so seeing a number this high is quite unusual for Yelich.
Again, even when things weren’t going great for Yelich, he still made smart swing decisions and was able to at least put the ball in play at a high rate. That has not been the case thus far.
This area in particular is one Brewers fans should monitor as the season progresses. As Yelich works to break out of his slump at the plate, improving this area should be the top priority.
Struggling Against Both Fastballs and Breaking Balls
When taking a deeper look into how Yelich is performing against various pitch types, a lot of what we’ve discussed can be explained by his uninspiring numbers against heaters and breaking pitches.
Compared to last season, Yelich is currently seeing an increased number of fastballs (60.1%) and breaking balls (31.8%), which make up over 90% of the pitches he is seeing. Not only is he seeing more of these pitches, but his numbers against both pitch types have taken a hit across the board to start the year.
Starting with Yelich’s production against fastballs, Yelich hit .323 against fastballs in each of his last two seasons from 2023-’24. In 2022 he hit .292 against the pitch type, and the year before that he hit .271. So far this season, Yelich is hitting just .186 against fastballs.
Yelich has always been able to get his own against fastballs by making contact often and with authority. This year, he’s done anything but that. He’s slugging just .300 against the pitch type while whiffing 27.1% of the time.
That swing-and-miss rate is 12% higher than it was last season. Dating back to 2015, he’s had a whiff rate over 20% against fastballs just one time (25.6% in 2020). Similarly, his in-zone whiff rate against fastballs went from 11.6% last season to 21.5% in 2025.
Moreover, when he has made contact with fastballs, it’s been on the ground more often than not, largely explaining his enormous ground-ball rate to this point.
Yelich has an average launch angle of -8 degrees against fastballs. Not only is that the lowest average launch angle of his career against fastballs, but he’s never finished with a negative launch angle against the pitch type.
It’s a similar story against breaking pitches, although the results are a little less extreme. After batting .333 against breaking balls in 2024, Yelich is hitting .163 so far against them this season. His whiff rate of 44.8% against breaking pitches is his highest since 2020 and is over an eight-percent increase from a season ago.
He’s actually doing a good job of elevating against breaking balls, but he’s failing to do any sort of significant damage. He’s posting an average exit velocity of 87.4 mph, his lowest mark in the Statcast era.
All in all, when you’re slugging just .303 while hitting .176 and whiffing 33.5% of the time against over 90% of the pitches you are seeing like Yelich currently is, that is certainly a recipe for a slow start.
Yelich’s presence in the lineup is of vital importance for Milwaukee, most baseball fans know that by now. But it’s especially true when the pitching staff is being pieced together like it currently is, and the ball club is fighting to stay around .500.
When he’s feeling right at the plate, not only does it completely transform that offense, but it’s simply good for the game of baseball when Yelich is playing like an All-Star.
The Brewers need a spark on offense, especially with the way the Cubs are swinging the bat. Yelich has proven that he can be that jolt of life in the middle of the order, and he can be the one to help this team break out of its stretch of mediocrity.
Written by
Joey Peterson is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an editor for Just Baseball. He covers the Milwaukee Brewers, along with general MLB topics…