Up to now this season, the Milwaukee Brewers have been okay. Their beginning pitching, which turned some extent of main concern when accidents decimated their depth early within the season, stabilized rapidly and the staff presently ranks a good twelfth in starter ERA. The bullpen has struggled at instances, however the emergence of Nick Mears, the reliability up to now of Abner Uribe and Jared Koenig, and up to date encouraging outings from Trevor Megill have that group trending upward.
Offensively, Milwaukee has gotten greater than they seemingly anticipated from a number of sources. Brice Turang has seemingly taken one other leap ahead with the bat after he improved considerably final season. Sal Frelick is defying the BABIP gods to the tune of a 120 OPS+. After his worst season in 2024, Rhys Hoskins is again to placing up numbers that look proper at dwelling along with his six years in Philadelphia.
And but, the Brewers, a staff that raked all by way of spring coaching, are within the backside third of baseball in staff OPS. Loads of that is because of the utter lack of manufacturing they’ve been getting from the left facet of the infield, and that’s an actual drawback, however one for an additional day. What I’d like to debate at this time is the “massive three” of the Brewers’ order: Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich, and William Contreras.
What the primary two video games of the Cubs sequence over the weekend made clear was that their offense was on a distinct stage, and that was primarily due to three guys: Kyle Tucker, Seiya Suzuki, and Pete Crow-Armstrong. (Additionally, Carson Kelly, however come again to me if he nonetheless has a 1.300 OPS in July.) The Brewers got here into this season anticipating Chourio, Yelich, and Contreras to hold their offense. Up to now, they haven’t. Are there any indications that they’ll flip it round quickly?
Contreras and an alarming lack of energy
Large Invoice began poorly (no less than on offense — his protection has been improbable up to now) and has been coming round a bit recently, however the factor that his sport up to now in 2025 has been lacking is energy. Since hitting his lowest level in batting common on April 9, Contreras is hitting a good .282 (one level higher than final season) with an excellent .386 on-base proportion (higher than final season by a big 23-point margin) … however he has simply three extra-base hits in that span (24 video games), two doubles and one dwelling run.
How can Contreras enhance right here? Effectively — the considerably troubling indicator is that Contreras’s bat pace is down from final season. Final 12 months, Contreras averaged 74.7 mph on his swings, which was within the 86th percentile league-wide. This 12 months, that’s right down to 72.8 mph, within the sixty fifth percentile. Contreras’s strategy has typically been good — he’s not putting out a lot, he’s strolling a ton, he’s not chasing, he’s hitting singles. He’s simply not hitting the ball onerous.
Might this should do with an damage? Adam McCalvy famous on Wednesday that Contreras has been taking part in by way of a painful finger damage, which was reported to be an “outdated fracture” — one which Contreras will proceed taking part in by way of, no less than for now. Is that what’s slowing down his bat? It’s onerous to say, but when it’s the finger damage that’s sapping his energy, the staff ought to strongly take into account giving him a pair weeks off if it’s the one option to let it totally heal. Contreras must get that bat pace again, or he’ll be no higher than a mean hitter, and the Brewers want extra from him.
Might a breakout be in Yelich’s future?
Yelich has been hitting the ball onerous. He’s within the 84th percentile this season in hard-hit proportion and 72nd in common exit velocity — these aren’t famous person numbers, however they’re strong. However the problem right here has been the launch angle. Yelich simply isn’t squaring the ball up in a method that’s serving to; he’s in simply the seventh percentile in Statcast’s “Launch Angle Candy-Spot Proportion,” and also you don’t want me to inform you this, however the variety of balls that Yelich is bashing into the bottom is at an all-time excessive: going into Wednesday’s sport, a whopping 37.5% of Yelich’s batted balls had been grounders pulled to the best facet, practically 10 proportion factors larger than in any of his different seasons. (For reference, that quantity was at 21.5% and 20.6% in 2018-19, and even throughout his run from 2020-22, when he was typically struggling, it hovered between 23-26%.)
This can be a drawback. Yelich’s 37.5% pulled groundball price is the best in baseball amongst certified hitters — solely two others, Pittsburgh’s Tommy Pham and Houston’s Jose Altuve, have even 35%. Solely 9.1% of Yelich’s batted balls are pulled within the air; the league chief in that metric is likely one of the season’s greatest energy hitters, Cal Raleigh, at 36.7%. (An encouraging nugget in right here for Brewer followers is that Hoskins ranks third, there, at 34.2% — a very good indicator that extra dwelling runs needs to be coming.)
Mainly, Yelich wants to determine find out how to elevate the ball. When he does, good issues occur: Yelich ranks first within the majors in dwelling runs per fly ball, at 31.6%. When he will get the ball within the air, he hits homers. He’s simply not hitting the ball within the air.
Will that enhance? Yelich has hit a whole lot of floor balls over the previous 5 years, however he’s by no means hit this many. It’s tough to counsel a lot when it comes to a change of strategy as a result of there’s proof beneath his numbers to counsel that if he simply finds a option to elevate the ball, he might be in for an explosion of homers. Some regression might be coming, right here, and if Yelich can get his groundball price again to the 26% or in order that he’s had the previous couple of years — nonetheless excessive, however undoubtedly manageable — issues might flip round rapidly.
The opposite observe is that Yelich is putting out an excessive amount of. His 27.5% strikeout price is the second highest of his profession, behind solely his disappointing 2020 season. There are some similarities between Yelich’s 2025 and his 2020: that season, Yelich turned an excessive three-true-outcomes hitter — he had profession highs in strikeout price but additionally in stroll price, and he maintained the elite HR/FB price that he’d had throughout his earlier two MVP-level seasons. This season, the HR/FB price is again in that territory — it’s been over 30% solely from 2018-2020 and, up to now, this season — however his strikeouts are creeping again to 2020 territory, with out the elite stroll price.
Strike out much less and elevate the ball. That’s extraordinarily straightforward for me to say. However there’s proof right here that he might be in for a significant breakout if he can do these issues.
The place are we on Chourio?
I’ll be briefer on Chourio, as we’ve already lined a few of his struggles this season. It’s been a bizarre 12 months: at instances, Chourio has regarded like top-of-the-line hitters alive. To name him “streaky” wouldn’t even essentially be correct; his streaks are so sudden and unpredictable that they arrive and go with out warning. Willy Adames was streaky: he’d be dangerous for per week, good for per week, and dangerous for per week. Chourio will look good for 4 at-bats then horrible for 4 then all-world for 4. It’s unusual.
The headline object right here remains to be the walks. Chourio has walked 3 times in 165 plate appearances. The fewest walks ever by a participant who had 500 plate appearances in a season (Chourio is on tempo for roughly 650 PA) is 13, carried out by Randall Simon in 2002, Bengie Molina in 2009, and Salvador Perez in 2015; Perez, who had essentially the most plate appearances of the three, had a stroll price of two.4%. Chourio’s as of at this time, is 1.8%.
He’s a gifted sufficient hitter that he’s nonetheless useful to the staff, however in his final 25 video games Chourio is batting simply .226, and he’s solely obtained one homer since April 12. With the whole lack of walks, Chourio’s OBP within the final 25 video games is an eye-gougingly dangerous .255.
Possibly he’s beginning to flip issues round: in Tuesday’s sport towards the Astros, Chourio noticed extra pitches than standard and leveraged a 2-0 depend right into a double, even when it was a cheapie. On Wednesday, he drew one other stroll, simply his third of the season.
My suspicion is that the teaching employees views his confidence as a power and consider that Chourio is in a greater place with a “do, don’t suppose” mentality. I get it: generally with gamers who’re clearly very gifted, overcoaching will result in overthinking which is able to result in lack of outcomes and lack of confidence and people issues can spiral. However this stage of anti-walking is simply fully unsustainable, and I feel it must be addressed earlier than later.
Last ideas
None of those gamers has been a catastrophe. Chourio has gained video games along with his offense, and he and Yelich are tied for the staff lead in dwelling runs. Contreras has been fairly good recently on offense though the extra-base hits aren’t there, and the way in which he’s been throwing out base stealers this season has been a revelation.
However the Brewers aren’t attempting to accept mediocrity, and with mediocre performances from these three gamers, that’s precisely the place they’ll find yourself. This staff has the expertise to provide the Cubs a run for his or her cash within the division race, and whereas there are a selection of points which have contributed to the Brewers’ 19-19 report by way of 38 video games, I feel that is the one which might want to flip round in the event that they wish to actually separate themselves from a .500 report.
