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In this era of striving for more power to counteract insane pitching, many have forgotten that getting on base remains just as valuable of an asset when creating consistent offense. Especially for the leadoff man, finding a way to reach base is vital. Milwaukee has plenty of potential power bats in their lineup, and with Yelich struggling to find his home run stroke the past two seasons, his other skills are perfectly suited for the number one slot.
Yelich owns a career .379 OBP, which would have been good for 6th in the NL last season. His .362 OBP in 2021 still ranked 20th had he had enough plate appearances to qualify. Amazingly, MLB leadoff hitters had a lowly .333 OBP last season. The person in that spot will get the most plate appearances, so reaching base at a higher clip creates far more opportunities for runs.
It’s also reasonable to believe that if Yelich were consistently hitting leadoff, he’d focus even more on reaching base instead of worrying about power. Hitting in the middle of the order can get into many players' heads. While Brewers fans would love to see 2018-2019 Yelich reappear, chances are his 30 HR days are gone for good (for various reasons). Last season, Yelich finished with a career-worst .373 SLG, while his isolated power (ISO) of .125, a statistic that conveys a hitter's raw power and frequency of extra-base hits, was his lowest since 2015. Among hitters with at least 400 plate appearances in 2021, Yelich finished 77th out of 90 players in ISO. Not ideal for a middle-of-the-order bat.
However, as you can see in the graphic below with Yelich's 2021 Baseball Savant rankings, he rated highly in some areas of hard contact; it simply didn’t translate into the production one would expect. On the flip side, he owned a 14.7% walk rate (BB%) to rank 3rd in the NL. Take that percentage and give that guy extra plate appearances over the course of an entire season, and you'll see an even more significant impact.
Yelich can be even more selective with his swing in the leadoff spot, utilize a shorter and quicker stroke, and zero in on burning the defense with line drives and hard contact spread all over the diamond. A more “natural” swing for Yelich will allow him to make solid contact more frequently than he has the past couple of seasons. He batted .248 last year – a full 44 points below his career number. If he can raise that halfway to his career mark, there will likely be a noticeable jump in OBP and SLG to a point where a cross between “Miami Marlins” Yelich and MVP Yeli emerges in Milwaukee.
Who wouldn’t take a slash line in the neighborhood of .275/.385/.440/.825 from number 22 in the leadoff spot? He could undoubtedly attain that with more singles, doubles, and walks with an altered approach. If Yelich is on base more often in front of the middle of the lineup, he can utilize his fantastic base running to create more runs.
He may not be one of the fastest pure runners in baseball, but he is among the best at circling the bags. His long strides and sharp cuts on the corners make him an efficient gazelle on the base paths. Yelich is extraordinary at taking extra bases and could easily get back to swiping 15+ bags in a season. He’s an all-around whiz as a runner, making him an asset in front of the run producers. FanGraphs’ BsR stat is a “catch-all” number encompassing all baserunning events. Since 2017, Yelich ranks 9th in all of MLB.
So if Yelich moves to the leadoff spot, many are probably wondering, what about Wong? Though Counsell likes Wong hitting first, he had an OBP of just .335 last season. Wong put more of a premium on increased power in 2021, and it paid off with a career-high in home runs (14), doubles (32), and SLG (.447). With his newfound pop and left-handed stick, I see two fits for him in the lineup: batting third against righties and sixth against lefties.
Maybe I’ll get into lineup construction in a future article, but let’s focus on Yelich leading off for now. Today, it seems unlikely Counsell goes this route, whether it’s because he prefers Wong in that spot, wants Yelich in his usual two or three-hole, or is reluctant to rock the boat with either veteran. And while Counsell tends to rearrange his lineups regularly, he had Wong bat leadoff in 108 of the club’s games – every game he started. Even more telling was how Wong continued to bat there in August and September when he owned a .308 OBP and .307 OBP, respectively.
So, while much more goes into scoring runs than one spot in the batting order, perhaps Counsell should be more open-minded with the Brewers leadoff spot in 2022 – like he typically is with the rest of the lineup. That’s not to say Yelich leading off is the cure-all for an offense that floundered for much of last season; however, statistical and practical evidence says it's worth a shot.
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