2025 MVBrewers #5: Christian Yelich

SB Nation

After a close vote for No. 4 (if you’ll recall, Sal Frelick won with nine votes to Christian Yelich’s eight votes), Yelich blew the competition out of the water in this week’s voting to slot in at No. 5

on our 2025 MVBrewers list. The BCB community voted for Yelich with 16 votes in The Feed, easily beating the other vote-getters in 0Quinn Priester (four votes), Jackson Chourio (three votes), and Abner Uribe (one vote).

Yelich, who took home the NL MVP Award in 2018 and arguably should have done the same in 2019, has not been the same player since a knee injury forced him to miss the end of that 2019 campaign. His best season since that time came in 2023 (not counting an injury-shortened 2024), when he hit .278/.370/.447.

That being said, he remains a valuable player within the Brewers’ organization, especially as a veteran presence. Primarily working from the DH spot in the order these days, he appeared in 150 games in 2025, hitting .264/.343/.452 with 29 homers (the most he hit since 2019), 103 RBIs, 88 runs scored, and 16 steals. He even earned some down-ballot MVP votes, garnering a 12th place finish (and the highest among Brewers).

One concerning area for Yelich this year was a high strikeout rate (25.9%, the worst rate of his career, not including the COVID-shortened 2020 season) and a low walk rate (9.9%, the lowest rate since he was 23 back in 2015). He still provided above-average offensive value, finishing with a 121 OPS+ and 121 wRC+.

His Baseball Savant page is a mixed bag. Even with the lower walk rate, he still ranks in the top third of the league (71st percentile). He’s right in that same range for xwOBA (64th percentile), xSLG (64th percentile), barrel rate (62nd percentile), hard-hit rate (66th percentile), bat speed (68th percentile), and chase rate (65th percentile). While he looked dismal at the plate at times (especially down the stretch and into the playoffs), he was a solid presence in Milwaukee’s lineup for much of the season.

Yelich turned in three multi-homer games, in wins against the Pirates (May 22), Phillies (May 30), and Reds (August 15). He also drove in a season-high eight runs against the Twins on June 20, picking up four hits, including a pair of doubles.

In terms of win probability added (WPA), Yelich’s best game was that two-homer night against the Reds in August, as the Brewers stormed back to win 10-8 after trailing early to extend their win streak. He also slugged a huge walk-off grand slam to beat the Red Sox on May 27 in a 5-1 victory, which was the second-best game of the year for him in terms of WPA. In that one, he added a double and a steal to the homer.

Yelich previously slotted in at No. 7 in our 2024 rankings, No. 2 in our 2023 rankings, and No. 9 in our 2022 rankings.

We’ll continue these rankings on Tuesday with our No. 6 player. To weigh in on the voting, visit The Feed. (Note: Voting for the next spot on our list will open on Friday morning.)