Brewers: Christian Yelich Still Hits The Ball Hard, But Just Not Elevating

In what has been a common theme over the past several years, Christian Yelich is once again hitting the ball hard, but he is not barreling the ball. This was on display Sunday against Boston when the Brewers outfielder ripped 3 balls over 100 MPH but only 1 with a positive launch angle.

Christian Yelich has not looked like the 2018 NL MVP for quite some time. While the underlying metrics show him as still one of the best at hitting the ball hard, he continues to struggle to elevate the ball.

Christian Yelich currently has the 2nd lowest barrel % of his carrer, with only the 4.8% he recorded in 2015, the first year Statcast batting data is available for, lower than his current 5.1% entering play on April 24th

Yelich has the 9th highest hard hit percentage in all of baseball at 59.3%, despite that, he has the 196th highest barrel percentage of 5.1%.

Even with an uptick in average exit velocity this season relative to the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Yelich is still not elevating the ball, keeping his ground ball% right around 50%, in line with his career average except for the 2019 season where it dipped into the low 40s.

Year	Barrel %	Avg Exit Velo	Avg Launch Angle	Hard Hit%	Ground Ball %
2018	12.9%	92.6 mph	5.0	50.8%	52.8%
2019	15.8%	93.3 mph	11.3	49.1%	42.9%
2020	12.1%	94.0 mph	7.1	55.6%	51.6%
2021	7.6%	91.0 mph	2.8	48.8%	55.7%
2022	8.2%	91.0 mph	3.6	48.6%	59.1%
2023	5.1%	93.7 mph	4.4	59.3%	52.5%

Even when looking at what constitutes a barrel (98 mph, with a launch angle in the appropriate range corresponding to the value), Yelich is actually trending in a better direction by the exit velocity metric after three down seasons. He has the highest percentage of batted balls over 98 mph since his two breakout seasons in Milwaukee.

Year	% Batted Balls > 98 MPH
2018	7.4%
2019	7.3%
2020	5.3%
2021	6.0%
2022	6.1%
2023	7.3%

What does this mean?

While it is good that Christian Yelich continues to hit the ball hard, he unfortunately is not able to elevate the ball, hitting ground balls half the time. When examining Yelich and all other qualified hitters over the past six years on a plot graph, the difference is striking. Very few have hit the ball harder than Yelich, however, many more have barreled the ball at a higher rate than he has in 2023.

pic.twitter.com/wy7L3RsfzI
— Josh Waldoch (@joshwaldoch) April 23, 2023

The red dot is Christian Yelich this season, and while he is among the higher hard hit percentages, he is unfortunately not as high when looking at his barrels.

This accents how much Yelich has changed as a hitter. There are multiple different causes for this seeming drop off. The ball was juiced in 2018 and 2019. Additionally, Yelich suffered a fractured knee cap and a back injury as well since then. Those factors can explain why Yelich has returned as a hitter to the Miami version. He still hits the ball hard, but struggles to elevate, which leads to lots of ground balls and line drives, and not the 35 home run outlook we saw.

Despite that, as long as he continues to hit the ball hard, there is a chance he could unlock the previous brilliance we know he is capable of.

Christian Yelich has not looked like the 2018 NL MVP for quite some time. While the underlying metrics show him as still one of the best at hitting the ball hard, he continues to struggle to elevate the ball.

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