The story of Christian Yelich: How hard work, perseverance, and Barry Bonds as your hitting coach can turn you into an MVP
When Christian Yelich exploded in his 2018 season, the casual baseball fan saw it as a player coming out of nowhere to become an MVP caliber player. In reality, Yelich has been in the major leagues since 2013 and was a first-round draft pick by the Marlins in the 2010 draft. Yelich has been developing his skills since he was in high school and he was finally reaping the benefits of his hard work. Here’s the story of how Christian Yelich became one of the top five baseball players in the world.
When the Florida Marlins (now the Miami Marlins) drafted Yelich with the 23rd pick in 2010 they saw him as a player with a very “smooth” swing who with the right development could become an elite power hitter. Yelich wasn’t a power hitter in high school; he hit a lot of doubles but didn’t have the strength to hit the ball over the fence. Yelich was a perfect example of a young player who didn’t have the numbers to show he was ready for the majors, but with enough raw talent combined with good coaching and development, he could become a top tier talent in the majors. Yelich got off to a hot start in the Gulf Coast League (the lowest level of the minor leagues) as he was called up to Class-A after just six games. He would spend his entire 2011 season in Class-A before being called up to High-A in 2012. In both 2011 and 2012, Yelich was named the Marlins minor league player of the year. Yelich was stellar, he was hitting lots of doubles and getting on base at an above-average clip. He hit 32 doubles in 2011 along with 32 stolen bases, and 29 doubles and 20 stolen bases in 15 fewer games in 2012. His efforts earned him an early-season call up to Double-A in 2013 where he was putting up similar numbers. Then on July 23rd the Marlins forwent Triple-A all together and called Yelich up to the majors. In 62 games in 2013, Yelich .288 BA, .370 OBP, and a 112 OPS+, with 4 home runs. Yelich was an above-average player, as he was getting on-base more than the average player, but he still hadn’t incorporated any power in his swing. Yelich became the Marlins starting left fielder and from 2014–2015, Yelich hit 60 doubles, 16 home runs, and had a slash line of .264/.364/.408 for an OPS of .772. Yelich was at about league average in all those stats, but 2016 would be when everything would change for the Marlins, when they acquired Yelich’s very special talent.
In 2016 the Marlins seemed to be nearing the end of their rebuild. The Marlins had spent the last 4–5 seasons putting all their attention to developing the great young talent they had drafted, and those players were finally ready to tear up the majors. They had Yelich, Giancarlo Stanton, who was becoming the leagues best power hitter, Jose Fernandez, who was slated to be the ace of the team for years to come, along with catcher J.T Realmuto, shortstop Dee Gordon coming off a season where he won the batting title, outfielder Marcell Ozuna, and they even had a 42-year-old Ichiro. The team was ready to become a playoff team, and they brought in a hitting coach to help make them even better. They hired Barry Bonds (yes, that Barry Bonds). Bonds, the greatest hitter in MLB history, the man who hit more home runs than anyone, was going to teach the Marlins hitters how to be the best they could be. This was a match made in heaven for Yelich. Yelich could get on base, hit for contact, and steal bases, but he couldn’t hit for power. Who better to teach him than Barry Bonds?
Yelich recently sat down with the former player, and a new member of Jomboy Media, Trevor Plouffe, on his show “Sequence”. Yelich talks about his development into the player he is today, crediting Bonds and Frank Menechino, the two hitting coaches on the Marlins for his improvement in performance. Yelich talks about his early conversations with Bonds, “He (Bonds) said that anyone can go out there and hit a homer.” Bonds taught Yelich to think about when he hits home runs and to ask why it happened, “Sure, I hit the ball hard and it went over the fence … But why did that happen?” Bonds began running drills with Yelich where he would force him to swing down on the ball. Swinging down on the ball is something that has been taught for a lot of years in baseball. Swinging down on the ball leads to more hard contact and more home runs. While swinging up on the ball can also lead to more home runs (for example, big power hitters like Joey Gallo swing up), but swinging up also leads to more popups and swings and misses. About the batting practice he had after that warm-up with Bonds, Yelich said, “It was the best batting practice [he] probably ever had in [his] entire life.” Yelich credits Bonds’s drills in teaching him how to properly hit for power, “It was when I understood how to pull the ball correctly in the air, and hit for power, and what I did personally that allowed that to happen.” Yelich would go on to hit seven home runs in the first half of the 2016 season and hit 14 in the second half for a total of 21 on the season. Yelich set a new career-high in almost every offensive stat; home runs, doubles, on-base percentage, and OPS (On base plus slugging). The Marlins as a team had a good season but still finished 79–82 (played one less game due to a makeup game being cancelled). The future looked very bright for the Miami Marlins but then everything changed.
On September 25th, the Marlins were nearing the end of their 2016 season when star pitcher Jose Fernandez passed away after a late-night boating accident, with two others losing their lives. Fernandez’s death understandable shocked the baseball world — he was becoming one of the best pitchers in the league and was a surefire Cy Young award candidate for years to come. The Marlins made a decision after losing Fernandez to begin another rebuild. The Marlins had built their team with Fernandez as one of the key features, and after his passing, they decided to hit the reset button. The Marlins would have another mediocre season in 2017 and then their overhaul began. Within four days of each other, the Marlins would trade two of their three-star outfielders, Giancarlo Stanton (to the Yankees) and Marcell Ozuna (to the Cardinals). About a month later, Yelich was out the door too. Yelich was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for number 13 MLB prospect Lewis Brinson, the number 86 prospect Isan Diaz, and two other lower level prospects. The Brewers gave up a lot to get Yelich but they had seen his value and believed the reward would outweigh the risk. Nobody, not even the Brewers, knew what Yelich would do in 2018 on the field, but a year later the Brewers would realize that they had made a valuable trade for an MVP.
2016 was for sure Yelich’s breakout season; it was the season where Yelich truly showed the league that he wasn’t just an on-base player. Yelich was going to get on-base but he was also going to hit 20–25 home runs. In 2018, Yelich became the best hitter in the National League. Yelich got off to a good start on the season, he only hit 7 home runs in the first two months, but in regular Yelich fashion, he was getting on-base very often and hitting for power though the home run numbers weren’t there (477 slugging-percentage). Yelich earned a spot on the NL’s all-star team, his first time being named to the team. After the all-star break Yelich would go on to have one of the best second halves to a season that baseball had seen in a while. Yelich hit 11 home runs in the first half and hit 25 in the second half for a total of 36. He would have a league-best OPS at 1.219, while his OBP was .367 (the league-best was .449). Yelich’s second half was otherworldly and combined with his above-average first half, he earned the NL MVP award. Yelich got 29 out of 30 first-place votes for MVP, with the only other vote going to Cy Young award winner, Jacob Degrom. My personal favourite thing about Yelich’s 2018 season is his stats when his team won vs when his team lost. Yelich hit 29 home runs in games that the Brewers won compared to seven when they lost. He had an OBP of .470 when they won compared to .293 when they lost. He drew more walks, struck-out less, and had a whopping 70 more RBI’s when the Brewers won (90 when they won, 20 when they lost). The Brewers made it to the playoffs, and they swept the Colorado Rockies in the division series; then taking the powerhouse Dodgers to seven games but ultimately lost. The Dodgers lost the World Series to the Red Sox in five games.
After the 2018 season, Yelich wasn’t done yet. 2019 wasn’t going to be just another season for him, and he was determined to make his 2018 look like a mediocre year. Unlike in 2018 where he was slower getting started in the season, Yelich started off his 2019 season with a bang. In the first half of the season, Yelich had a slash line of .329/.433/.707 for an OPS of 1.140, to go along with a whopping total of 31 home runs. Yelich also hit a home run in each of his first four games of the season. Yelich was putting his stamp on the league, and showing pitchers that he should be feared. He was named to his second consecutive all-star team and was the early favourite to win his second straight MVP, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished since Miguel Cabrera in 2012 and 2013. Backed by Yelich, the Brewers were having a good season as a team: they were 47–44 at the all-star break and were in a good position to win their division, (or at least pick up one of the two wild-card spots). Yelich was having just as good a second half as his first, and he was in a tight MVP race with Dodgers slugger, Cody Bellinger. At the all-star break, Yelich and Bellinger were neck and neck. Bellinger’s slash line was .336/.402/.650 with 30 home runs. The MVP race was going to be very close if they both kept up their first-half numbers. Then on September 11th, with the Brewers being just one game back of the Cubs for the second wild-card spot, Yelich fouled a ball off of his knee, and his season was over. Yelich broke his kneecap and needed surgery, meaning that if the Brewers did make the playoffs, he would not be apart of the team. The Brewers got the second wild-card spot and took on the Washington Nationals. The Brewers lost the game 4–3 after an eighth-inning rally capped off with a Juan Soto two-RBI single.
Yelich would eventually lose the MVP award to Bellinger, in what will go down as one of the tightest MVP races in recent years. 2019 MVP or not, Yelich has proved that he is one of the best hitters in the entire world, and he is only just getting started. Doctors say that an athlete’s prime is from the age of 28–33, and Yelich is only 28 years old. In early March when spring training was just getting started, Yelich and the Brewers agreed to a nine-year, $215 million dollar contract, making it certain that Yelich will likely be a Brewer for the rest of his career.
Yelich is a great role model for young baseball players who haven’t quite figured everything out yet. Yelich was not a complete player when he started in the major leagues. Yelich shows that with hard work, perseverance, and the best hitter of all time (Barry Bonds) as your hitting coach, that you can become one of the best players in the entire world. Yelich isn’t done yet, and I’m excited to watch him destroy pitchers for the rest of his career.
