This Brewer was the most searched player in Wisconsin in 2025

The annual Baseball Reference Year in Review has finally been released for 2025, and suffice it to say, there are a few surprises to talk about.

As expected, the New York Yankees dominated the eastern seaboard, the Seattle Mariners owned the Pacific Northwest, and the San Francisco Giants were the talk of the town in... Wyoming?

Naturally, with the Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins soaking up most of the attention in the Midwest, the Milwaukee Brewers were only the darling of their home state, Wisconsin. That's a continuation from last year's trend; the 2024 map generally looks the same as its 2025 counterpart.

However, one notable departure from last year's norm was Wisconsin's most-searched player. While Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge continued their years-long domination of player page searches, it was the Brewers' stomping grounds that proved immune to their charms.

After a brilliant comeback season, Christian Yelich was Wisconsin's favorite player in 2025.

Christian Yelich breaks up Shohei Ohtani-Aaron Judge dynasty in Baseball Reference Year in Review

To be clear: In 47 out of 50 states, Judge or Ohtani was B-Ref's most-searched player. That is a 94% monopoly over the United States. If you include Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sweeping all of Canada's provinces, three MLB players demanded the most attention from nearly all of North America.

Besides Wisconsin, the only other two states that had a unique favorite were Washington (Cal Raleigh) and Kansas (Bobby Witt Jr.). Those two were top-five AL MVP finishers behind Judge this year, meaning that Yelich was the only most-searched player this year who got there based on vibes rather than performance. Truly, an ethical victory by Yeli.

Of course, this is all in good fun, and none of this should downplay how good the 34-year-old Yelich actually was in 2025. He hit .264/.343/.452 with 29 home runs and 103 RBIs, good for a 121 wRC+ and 2.4 fWAR. As one of the most productive hitters on the best regular-season team in the league, it's no surprise that the 2018 NL MVP was at the top of fans' minds throughout 2025.

Yelich's run of search-related dominance may be short-lived, however, if the team's postseason run can be learned from. Whereas the veteran slugger struggled, 21-year-old phenom Jackson Chourio put on a show, batting .303/.314/.576 with two home runs in nine games. In real time, it seemed to serve as a passing of the face-of-the-franchise torch.

If that proves to be the case, there may be a new favorite in the clubhouse to control Wisconsin in Baseball Reference's Year in Review in 2026.