MLB: 8 hitters poised to bounce back from ugly 2020

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MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – JULY 19: Christian Yelich #22 of the Milwaukee Brewers swings at a pitch during Summer Workouts at Miller Park on July 19, 2020 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /

1. Christian Yelich

Christian Yelich is a former MVP and could have won back-to-back MVP’s if not for a broken kneecap he suffered late in the 2019 season. He posted a wRC+ of 113 last year which is still above league average, so why is he on this list?

Simply put, he swung and missed. A lot. Yelich had a career high in strikeout rate at a whopping 30 percent. At the same time he posted a walk rate of nearly 19 percent which was a career high by more than five percent. His 12 percent barrel rate was identical to that of 2018 and he had a career high 55 percent hard hit rate.

You do that math on how much you have to whiff and still post those kinds of numbers.

He saw a dramatic increase in whiff rate against 4-seam fastballs and combine that with the fact that his whiff rate against curveballs remained unchanged and you can see how things weren’t going his way last season.

Lack of in-game video can attribute to that the same as it did for J.D. Martinez. When you’re missing on the fastball it’s in theory a pretty easy fix especially with video. No video means it might take a little longer to make the necessary adjustments.

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Swinging and missing a lot would be a valid reason why his overall swing rate dropped almost 10 percent in 2020. You’d stop swinging too if you kept missing. Expect that to return to normal this season.

ZiPS only project him to have a wRC+ of 130 this season, which seems to make sense because it’s hard to replicate the astronomical 167 and 175 seasons he posted in 2018 and 2019. Still, one can assume should things go back to normal he’ll eclipse the 130 mark fairly easily.

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