This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Every player has his strengths and weaknesses, and throwing the baseball is not one of Christian Yelich’s strengths.
He knows it. He’s working on it.
Yelich chatted about that part of his game during the Brewers’ weekend series at Dodger Stadium, where he made arguably his best throw of the season in Monday’s series opener to throw out Justin Turner at home plate in a 4-0 Brewers win that was closer than the score indicates. If you get the sense watching Milwaukee that opposing teams are taking increasingly aggressive liberties on balls hit to Yelich, you’re not alone. The Brewers sense it, too.
“I knew [Turner] was going to go,” Yelich said, acknowledging the scouting report, but also that there were two outs in the inning, and that’s a send for virtually any third-base coach in any situation. “I don’t know, I don’t think anybody has ever held anyone when I’m out there.”
Yelich won a Gold Glove Award in 2014, but the metrics don’t love his fielding these days. Statcast’s outs above average metric ranks him 117th of the 131 outfielders on the list at -4 OAA. (Incidentally, Juan Soto is at the bottom of that list at -12 OAA).
Yelich is also near the bottom of Statcast’s outfield jump leaderboard, -3.2 feet versus average. There’s a lot to digest there, so I suggest taking a look at that leaderboard and its accompanying explanation.
The throws are the thing most evident to everyone in the stadium, however.
“You try to do the best that you can,” he said. “Certain people have gifts and that’s not really ever been one of mine, my whole life. I just try to work on it and do the best that I can. You do what you can with what you’ve got, I guess.”
Yelich described the effort as a “day-by-day” process with Brewers first-base coach and outfield instructor Quintin Berry. The afternoon following Yelich’s great throw to get Turner, Berry was in the small visitors' clubhouse at Dodger Stadium to talk through mechanics with Yelich. At one point, Brewers closer Devin Williams even joined the conversation to offer a pitcher’s perspective on getting as much on the baseball as possible.
MLB.com Statcast whisperer Sarah Langs helped put some data to Yelich’s performance in the throwing department this season, separating max-effort throws -- defined by Statcast as a player’s top 10 percent of throws -- apart from the hundreds of light tosses back to the infield. Of the 131 outfielders with at least 100 “max-effort” throws in 2022, here were the five lowest average velocities going into this weekend’s series:
- 79.3 mph Marcell Ozuna
- 79.8 mph David Peralta
- 81.9 mph Mark Canha
- 82.1 mph Yelich
- 82.1 mph Adam Engel
Yelich’s throw to get Turner at the plate was 86.7 mph, his second-fastest tracked throw this season and his fastest for an assist this year. He had an 88.1 mph throw on May 23 against the Padres, but it did not result in an out. That 88.1 mph is his fastest tracked throw since the start of 2019, and the 86.7 mph assist against the Dodgers is his fastest tracked throw for an assist in that same span.
So, the numbers agree with the eye test. The throw at Dodger Stadium was one of Yelich’s best.
Here’s another question we have asked some coaches: Has Yelich’s arm gotten worse in recent years? They say no, contending that Yelich was so off-the-charts productive for the Brewers in 2018 and ‘19 that no one minded that his arm was below average.
What does Yelich think?
“You’d have to check,” he said.
Statcast again can provide the answer. Since tracking began in 2015, here are Yelich’s average max-effort throws:
2015: 89.6 mph
2016: 87.8 mph
2017: 84.8 mph
2018: 85.4 mph
2019: 84.8 mph
2020: 79.5 mph
2021: 79.7 mph
2022: 82.1 mph
“I’m sure there is a lot of emphasis on me and how [bad] I’ve been out there,” Yelich said. “For me, for the most part, it’s been the same. My arm’s been what it’s been my whole life. It’s gotten me this far, you know? So I’m going to keep going and do the best I can out there.
“Believe me, I hear it out there. You hear it all. It’s something I keep working on and do the best I can. I know I don’t have an arm like Hunter [Renfroe] or Jackie [Bradley Jr.] or other guys who I’ve played with. You try to make due with what you’ve got.”