After winning NL MVP in 2018, and just falling short of another MVP in the 2019 MLB season, Christian Yelich has had a pretty rough stretch of years. But, so far in 2023, the lefty is scorching hot, and hitting the ball just like his MVP campaigns. Is MVP Christian Yelich back? What changes has he made this season to return to form? Today, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the numbers to find out exactly what has helped the Brewers superstar return to form.

2020-2022: A Fall Off

After his 2019 season coming to a close early due to injury, Christian Yelich entered the pandemic season looking to do some damage. Yelich would be solid in 2020, but he would definitely see some downward trends across the board. Yelich played 58 of the 60 games played in 2020. In this 58 game stretch, Yelich would hit 12 homers, 18.6% BB%, 30.8% K%, .378 xwOBA, 114 wRC+, 0.7 fWAR, 12.1% barrel percentage, and a 55.6% hard hit percentage. These numbers are really solid, and serve to be better than a lot of other hitters during the pandemic season. But, 2021 is where the real fall off would occur.

Yelich would go into the 2021 season hoping for another MVP caliber season, but that would certainly not be the case, as Yelich would regress further to about league average. Yelich would play in 117 games, and in those 117 games he would hit just 9 homers, 14.7% BB%, 23.8% K%, .337 xwOBA, 102 wRC+, 1.5 fWAR, 7.6% barrel percentage, and a 48.4% hard hit percentage. As you can see, the glaring issue is the significant drop in power when it comes to Yelich’s 2021. After hitting 44 homers in 2019, only seeing 9 homers is very disappointing. As part of the drop in power, we can see a significant drop in barrel percentage, as he dropped from 12.1% in 2020, to just 7.6% in 2021. Yelich’s swing decisions would actually significantly improve starting in 2021, as his zone swing percentage would go from 57.6%, to 67.1% across the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Yelich would also see increases of 5.5% when it came to zone contact percentage, and an 8.7% decrease in whiff percentage. So, even though Yelich struggled in 2021, there was some improvement.

Coming into 2022, Yelich was looking to once again return to his 2018-2019 form. But, Yelich would once again not find this version of himself, but he would take another step forward. After having some red hot months, Yelich finished the season hitting 14 homers, 13.1% BB%, 24.1% K%, .339 xwOBA, 111 wRC+, 2.2 fWAR, and a 8.2% barrel percentage. Yelich had a ton of improvement as previously mentioned, but with him being relatively inconsistent, the MVP Yelich was still far away. While staying under the radar, Yelich continued to work towards a return to MVP form in 2023. Yelich would not see much difference when it came to his swing decisions, and other metrics, as he’d be relatively on par with his 2021 season.

2023: Resurgence

So far this season, Christian Yelich is playing the best baseball we’ve seen from him in a long time, as he’s finally returned to his MVP caliber self. Yelich has made significant improvements across the board, and he’s looking like the player we once saw when it came to Yelich.

In 99 games so far this season, Yelich has hit 15 homers, 11.4% BB%, 20.6% K%, .382 xwOBA, 132 wRC+, 3.6 fWAR, 9.7% barrel percentage, and a 53.5% hard hit percentage. When looking at Yelich’s stats, the most obvious thing you can see is improvement all across the board. But, the areas we see this most prevalent are in his power increase, and decrease in strikeouts.

Yelich has raised his barrel percentage slowly through his past three seasons, but his mark of 9.7% in 2023 is the second highest barrel percentage we’ve seen Yelich produce since his MVP level 2019. Along with this, Yelich’s hard hit percentage of 53.5% in 2023 is also the second highest mark we’ve seen Yelich post since 2019. Yelich has also significantly improved his average launch angle to 4.9 degrees. While this is still a relatively low mark compared to other hitters across the league, Yelich’s launch angle of 4.9 degrees is right on par with his 2018 season, where he posted a launch angle of 5.0 degrees. Yelich is also posting a sweet spot percentage of 30.9%, which is almost on par with his best seasons, where his sweet spot percentage could be seen around 32-37%. While Yelich has always had similar splits when it came to batted ball direction, Yelich’s ground ball percentage is the second lowest it’s been since his MVP caliber seasons, while his fly ball and line drive percentages are the second highest marks we’ve seen from Yelich since his best seasons. Another improvement when it comes to hitting the ball hard Yelich has done this season? His average exit velocity of 93.1 MPH in 2023 is higher than his average exit velocity of 92.6 MPH in his 2018 MVP season. As you can see, a lot of Yelich’s success has come from improvements on batted ball statistics. Yelich is not only hitting the ball harder than he has since his best seasons, but he’s also showcasing the ability to improve his batted ball directions by getting the ball off of the ground more often.

Not only is Yelich hitting the ball harder than he has in years, but he’s also seeing pitches better than he has in a long time. Yelich is currently posting a wOBA of .458 against fastballs, which is the best wOBA Yelich has recorded against fastballs since his stretch of dominant seasons. With Yelich’s recent struggles primarily coming on breaking balls and off-speed pitches, hitting the fastball is something Yelich must do well in order to succeed. When it comes to plate discipline, the most surprising thing I’ve noticed is that Yelich is posting numbers that are better than his MVP season in 2018 this season. For example, Yelich’s zone swing percentage of 67.8% in 2023 is higher than his mark of 65.2% in 2018. Along with this, Yelich is also chasing a decent amount less than his MVP season, as he has a chase rate of 22.2% in 2022 opposed to his chase rate of 25% in 2018.

With Yelich not only hitting the ball much harder, and improving upon his swing decisions, it’s easy to see how this is a recipe for success. And success is exactly what Yelich has been having a lot of in 2023.

A Swing Change

Not only have changes been clearly seen when it comes to Yelich’s numbers, but when I was reviewing video, I noticed a change in Yelich’s swing starting during the Brewers vs Royals series in May. Before the Royals series, Yelich had a slow load into his landing position, where he swung from. But the change I noticed was a toe-tap, something which I had not seen previously. When it came to Yelich’s swing, I always thought of the slow load, but this toe tap was completely different. For reference, the videos below are from Mother’s Day this season, and during Yelich’s 2018 MVP Season.

When looking at the swings above, you can very clearly see Yelich’s new toe-tap in full effect. Now, this adjustment could be for a very large amount of reasons, but there are some very popular reasons as to why hitters typically switch to the toe-tap. The toe-tap mainly gives hitters more rhythm, and allows them to use it as more of a timing mechanism than the slow load towards the plate. Another reason to back up this change affecting Yelich’s timing? Yelich is significantly striking out less against the fastball. Yelich has a 17% strikeout rate against fastballs this season, which is the lowest mark he’s posted since 2019. This is not only super impressive, but clear proof that the toe-tap has been game changing for his ability to see fastballs.

As I previously mentioned, the first time I saw Yelich doing the toe-tap this season was against the Royals in May. Before I noticed Yelich using the toe-tap, he hit 6 homers, 9.8% BB%, 23.9% K%, .326 wOBA, 104 wRC+, and an average exit velocity of 92.8 MPH. As you can see, these numbers are decent, but not close to how Yelich has been all year. But, since he began doing the toe-tap, Yelich has hit 11 homers, 12.3% BB%, 19% K%, .405 wOBA, 156 wRC+, and an average exit velocity of 93.4 MPH. Yelich has become a completely new hitter since implementing the toe-tap, and I can’t help but think that this has significantly changed his game for the better.

Final Thoughts

Christian Yelich was arguably baseball’s best hitter during the 2018-19 seasons, but his fall off was one for the ages. But recently, Yelich has really started to turn things around. There are a lot of reasons for his recent success as we covered today, but with his upward trend, I can’t help but wonder if the best is yet to come for Christian Yelich. If he keeps on the upward trend, he could easily be the MVP level player we once saw. Yelich’s recent success is attributed to many things including swing changes, hitting the ball harder, better swing decisions, and more. But one thing is for sure, and that is the fact that MVP Yelich is far from gone, as he might be on the rise once again.