Milwaukee Brewers: Why Christian Yelich’s 2020 season was not a fluke
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich had the worst season of his MLB career in 2020. I am not so optimistic to say that it was an outlier of a season.
There is not a lot of explaining that needs to be done about Christian Yelich‘s history, which is a testament to what he has accomplished over the years. He was a good player while in Miami, but after joining the Milwaukee Brewers he blossomed into a star. He made his first All-Star team in 2018 and won the NL MVP award. 2019 was a similar story where he made his second All-Star game appearance but he finished second in NL MVP voting.
The shortened 2020 regular season did not fare so well for the former MVP. He played in 58 out of 60 regular-season games and batted .205. To put it into perspective, he hit .326 in 2018, and .329 in 2019. His slugging percentage was much lower than the previous season and struck out more often. There are some glaring numbers that make me think Yelich’s 2020 season was not an outlier, and how 2021 could be a similar story.
Reason No. 1: Struggles against the shift
According to Baseball Savant, there were more teams that shifted against Christian Yelich in 2020. Historically speaking, Yelich has been a very balanced hitter who hit to all fields and used his speed, sort of like a typical lead-off/contact hitter profile. But the league has taken notice and shifted more often on Yelich.
In 2018, during his breakout MVP season, teams shifted 1.7% of the time. His wOBA (weighted on-base average) was .487 with the shift, and .422 without the shift. In 2019, teams decided to shift more often, approximately 32.3% of the time against Yelich. It did not make much of a difference because his wOBA was a whopping .470 with the shift. Without the shift, his wOBA was .429.
It is almost like he hits better with the shift on according to 2018 and 2019, but this was not the case in 2020. His 2020 wOBA with the shift on was down to .310. Without the shift, his wOBA was .370. Teams shifted 54.3% of the time in 2020 against Yelich. This should be a genuine concern for Milwaukee Brewers fans because data is telling teams to shift even more on the former MVP, and it seems to be working.
What is interesting is that he played better against the shift in 2018 and 2019, so the shift wOBA numbers may not be the direct cause of his low numbers. But I think it could be a big reason why his game changed. Going from 32.3% to 54.3% of times teams have shifted is a large bump.
What is also interesting is that his pull percentage is not higher than usual. His pull % in 2020 was 33.9%, while his 2018 pull % was 31.3%, and in 2019 it was 35.8%. So the move to shift more often against Yelich must mean teams figured out how to shift on Yelich.
Another number to look at is his .259 BABIP (batting average on balls in play). Yelich’s BABIP has not dropped below .300 since he entered the MLB. This might also represent how the shift has affected his lack of hits because teams are just in the right positions at the right time.
Reason No. 2: Yelich had a career-high strikeout percentage but he hit balls harder
In 2020, Christian Yelich’s K% was up to 30.8%. That is a 10.6% difference compared to 2019 where his K% was 20.2%. Yelich has never surpassed 21% over the last 5 years so it was not some minuscule change, it was drastic. It is easy to nitpick big changes, but it could be a result of a different hitting mindset. The reason why I say this is because his exit velocity and hard-hit % was the highest in 2020 compared to the last five seasons.
To me, this means he is sacrificing barrel to the ball for more power. This could also explain why teams shifted more often on Yelich. His pull % did not mightily increase in 2020, but it has increased a little since his time with the Miami Marlins. The former MVP had a career-high 55.6% hard-hit rate which is in the top 2% of the league.
According to FanGraphs, Yelich also minimized his soft contact percentage to 8.1% compared to his 14.4% in 2019. But, his medium-hit rate was higher while his hard-hit rate dropped compared to 2019.
Another interesting number to look at is his walk rate. Even with the Milwaukee Brewers OF’s high strikeout rate, his walk rate increased as well, which does not make too much sense. His walk rate was another career-high at 18.6%. The second-highest walk rate Yelich posted was 13.8% in 2019.
These anomalies may make you think that Yelich just had an off-year, but I think it says something about the bigger picture. My concern is that the stats we have covered thus far are representative of Yelich trying to do too much, and teams are effectively shifting against him.
Reason No. 3: I have a feeling that Yelich’s timing was off, or he was not seeing pitches well
I am not just using the eye test to think Christian Yelich’s timing was off or he wasn’t seeing pitches well. I came to these conclusions because his zone swing percentage was surprisingly lower than in past years. His 2020 zone swing rate was 58.1%, compared to 2019 where he swung at 69.6% of pitches in the zone.
That is quite the difference and tells me that he is either being too patient, or his timing is off which led him to not swing at hittable pitches. And even when he did swing at pitches in the zone, he only made contact 78.1% of the time, compared to 83.9% like in 2019. His whiff percentage was higher than in past years, reaching 33.6%. His second-highest whiff % was in 2019, but only at 28.2%.
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His chase % was nearly 10% less than 2019, but his contact on pitches chased out of the zone was dramatically lower. The Milwaukee Brewers outfielder historically chases around 25% of pitches out of the zone, but his chase contact is around 50% so it does not hurt him too much when he does chase. In 2020 though, his chase contact percentage was 38.4% which is a big drop-off.
Yelich also swung at the 1st pitch a lot less frequently in 2020, which also makes me think his timing was off or was not seeing pitches well. In 2018 and 2019, he swung at the 1st pitch nearly 30% of the time, while in 2020, he only swung 13.4% of the time. I do not think that was an intentional change, because why would you change something when you are playing well (2018 MVP).
His flare/burner % was also highest than in 2019, which might signal his lack of good timing and pitch recognition. In 2020, his flare rate was 28.2% compared to his 23.8% in 2019. Christian Yelich’s barrel percentage was a tad lower in 2020, but I do not think the difference is big enough to be a major source of concern.
What is also concerning though is his lack of success against the offspeed pitch compared to past years. During the Milwaukee Brewers outfielders 2018 MVP run, his wOBA against offspeed pitches was .398. In 2020, his wOBA against the offspeed was a horrible .188. That is a huge difference and might be a sign of bad pitch recognition, his timing is off, or he is being too aggressive and whiffing more often.
But, his whiff % on offspeed pitches did not really change, he actually limited his whiff % on offspeed pitches compared to 2019. This tells me that he is just not making good contact on the offspeed pitches because his timing is off. To build on my point, he also was unsuccessful against the fastball compared to 2019. His fastball whiff rate was nearly 10% higher than in 2019.
Yelich usually crushes the fastball but his wOBA dropped down to .382 against the fastball. In 2019, his wOBA against the fastball was .458. But as I mentioned earlier, he is hitting balls harder but at the expense of consistency.
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When you put all of this together, there should be genuine concern about how Christian Yelich will perform for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2021. It is not like Yelich just had a career-high strikeout rate, or just was struggling against the offspeed, he was struggling in many aspects. When an MVP caliber player is struggling in so many areas, that makes me think it is a bigger picture issue such as lack of timing or pitch recognition.