Any way you slice the numbers, Yeli's bat back in MVP form

CINCINNATI -- Christian Yelich is packing a punch to begin his 12th season in the big leagues, and Statcast’s “expected” statistics say it’s just as good as the surface numbers indicate.

Yelich added a 107.2 mph RBI single and a 107.5 mph two-run double to his torrid start in the Brewers’ 9-5 win over the Reds on Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park.

The series-evening victory put veteran starter Joe Ross in the win column for the first time in nearly three years and gave Milwaukee its first victory of the season over a National League Central rival.

The surface numbers say Yelich is slashing .324/.410/.706. Then there are his “expected” stats, which consider the nature of a batter’s balls in play and calculate what his numbers could be. For Yelich, those numbers suggest that his hot start is not simply a matter of well-placed hits.

“He’s been unbelievable,” manager Pat Murphy said. “This looks like a version of Yeli that I don’t even want to talk about because if it happens, that bodes well. He was so clutch tonight.

“People are starting to look at him like, ‘Whoa, is this the Yeli of [old]?’ No, it’s the Yeli of 2024. And it’s damn good.”

Going into Tuesday’s games, his .346 expected batting average was 14th among MLB’s qualifying hitters. Yelich’s .476 expected weighted on-base average was seventh and his .733 expected slugging percentage was third.

And there’s more. Yelich’s 14.3 percent barrels per plate appearance was eighth-best in baseball going into the night.

Does Yelich look at numbers like that?

“As players, we care less about the ‘expected’ and we want the actual,” Yelich said. “We’ll take a broken-bat hit and have really bad expected numbers over a lineout to the center fielder, even though one is technically better. They don’t put your expected numbers on the scoreboard or the back of your baseball card.”

That may be changing. Teams use expected stats to dig deeper on hitters’ performance, following the basic adage that the point of baseball is to hit the ball hard and see what happens. Here’s the explanation from Baseball Savant, where these numbers are housed:

Expected Outcome stats help to remove defense and ballpark from the equation to express the skill shown at the moment of batted ball contact. By looking at the exit velocity and launch angle of each batted ball, a Hit Probability is assigned based on the outcomes of comparable historic balls in play.

By accumulating the expected outcomes of each batted ball with actual strikeouts, walks and hit by pitches, Expected Batting Average (xBA), Expected Slugging (xSLG), and (most importantly) Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA) tell the story of a player's season based on quality of and amount of contact, not outcomes.

“We like the tangible number. Like, ‘That actually happened,’” Yelich said. “But it does help you have a sense of, ‘Just stick with the process and it should turn around.’”

Process has occupied Yelich’s focus for years. He has tinkered with and without a toe tap in his swing and lately feels comfortable with the tap. Yelich has altered his hands and his lower half in an effort to elevate the baseball like he did in his best seasons with the Brewers in 2018, when he won the NL MVP Award, and 2019, when he finished as the runner-up, but also missed the end of the year with a fractured kneecap.

Around him, the Brewers’ position player group has gotten younger and younger. After catcher William Contreras established himself last season and the likes of Brice Turang and Sal Frelick made big league debuts, this season has brought 20-year-old phenom Jackson Chourio and fellow rookie starters Oliver Dunn and Joey Ortiz.

“It’s a very, very young team,” Yelich said. “In 2018, you kind of had a bunch of those guys on the pitching side breaking in, but as a position group, we were pretty veteran. Now, both sides of the ball are very, very young. Hopefully it’s a quick learning curve because we’re still trying to be competitive.”

Yelich is ready to do his part to smooth that learning curve, like some veteran Marlins players did for him more than a decade ago. Jeff Mathis was the most impactful, and the two spoke as recently as the day before Milwaukee’s home opener. He wasn’t alone. Juan Pierre taught Yelich how to bunt big league pitching. Casey McGehee was another influence.

But the biggest influence by far, Yelich said, is experience.

“You can’t replicate the big leagues,” he said. “So, sometimes there’s an adjustment period. Not always. As much as you can shorten that, the better off we’ll be.”