The Curious Case of Christian Yelich.

First things first: For as frustrating as this past weekend was at Am Fam Field, and for as annoying as it is that the Cardinals are getting hot, the Brewers finishing that stretch of 18 games in 17 days at 9-9 is pretty remarkable. Consider those injuries: No Adames for that whole stretch and no Renfroe for 90% of it. Those are arguably your two best offensive performers. At the very least they are everyday top-of-the-order guys. Then at the end of that stretch, you lose Narvaez, your hottest hitter at the time, and you lose Urias who is about the only player who gets on base consistently on a day-in, day-out basis. Freddy and Woody go on the IL, Hader had to miss some time, we’re talking about the best players on this team all going down at the same time. So yeah, the lead in the division is down to a half game, and you’re now even in the loss column with St. Louis, but this could have been MUCH worse.

Now on to Yeli: Holy moly it’s bad. He doesn’t have a hit in the month of June and he has 1 RBI since May 13th. Like everyone else, I was hoping he had turned a corner when he hit for the cycle in early-May. But it looks like that was just a mirage. It’s actually insane to think about how he  has fallen off since 2018/19. Back to back batting titles, would have been back to back MVP’s if not for the kneecap injury in early September of 2019, all around one of the most feared hitters in the game. After the injury he came back and looked off in 2020, but it was fair to write that season off given that it was only 60 games and a TON of premier players had bad numbers.

But then last season didn’t look any better. And this season hasn’t looked any better. We get flashes once or twice a month of what he used to look like, but then it goes flat for weeks at a time. He’s got zero confidence at the plate, his bat speed looks like he’s dragging it through molasses, he stares at strikes down the middle and swings at breaking balls two feet out of the zone, it’s nuts. It’s like the Monstars from Space Jam took his God-given talent away after the 2019 season and left him a shell of his former self.

So what is it? Does he have the yips? Has he subconsciously changed his swing after the shattered kneecap because he’s worried he’s going to hurt it again? Was he ‘on something’ in 2018/2019 and he’s not anymore? Were the Brewers pulling an Astros and relaying pitches to him in those two seasons as Yu Darvish insisted on Twitter a few years ago? Is he just getting older and physically struggling?

I’m not sure. Maybe it’s none of those things, maybe it’s all of those things. Maybe he’s feeling the pressure of the massive contract and he’s so in his own head at this point that he can’t get it figured out. I don’t believe he was cheating in 2018 and 2019 as some people have asserted, because if he were cheating, my guess is the Brewers would have known something about it. And I doubt they offer that contract if they believed those numbers were artificially manufactured. Plus: Yelich was a pretty damn good ballplayer in Miami for 4 seasons before he was traded to Milwaukee. He never hit for the home run power we saw in those two seasons in Milwaukee, but he was a .280-.300 hitter who scorched a lot of doubles. We’d kill for that version of him right now.

At this point, you’ve got to believe we’re a week or two away from a major move down in the lineup. I get* that some of his advanced metric numbers are good, so maybe there’s some bad luck in play. And given the injuries in the last three weeks, he’s had ZERO protection in the lineup. But if Adames and Renfroe get back tomorrow and Yeli can’t kick it in the ass at some point in the month of June, you’ve got to move him down to 7th or 8th in the lineup. Maybe it relieves some pressure and he can settle down a bit. Maybe it crushes what little confidence he has left. But you’ve got to try SOMETHING. Yelich is weirdly fortunate that Cain has been even worse at the plate, otherwise we’d have to have a really tough discussion about benching Yelich in favor of Tyrone Taylor. It’s depressing, and NO ONE is hoping that Yelich can get it turned around more than me, but man, this has been tough to watch for the last 2+ seasons.

*I actually don’t get those stats at all but Twitter seems to think they’re important so I’m willing to believe blindly that bad luck is a part of his problem.

PS: I had a texter this morning say that, ‘Yeli’s contract is going to be worse than Braun’s!’ Ummmm, if this is Yelich for the rest of his contract (SEVEN more seasons) you can’t even compare the two. Braun’s worst offensive season in Milwaukee (if you throw out 2020) was 2018. That season he hit .254 with 20 home runs and 25 doubles. If you told me that Yelich could get to those numbers this season I’d be overjoyed.

Double PS: I know we’ve gone over this before, but stop with the, ‘TRADE HIM,’ takes. He has zero trade value right now. ZERO. Unless Mark Attanasio wants to swallow 75-80% of that contract, no one is going to take him on at those contract numbers. Mark Attanasio: