[ad_1]
Officially, Christian Yelich ended the season with 36 bombs. But if you count the F-bombs he helped launch very early in January, it was closer to 40.
The date was January 25, to be exact. Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearns was in his office waiting for a phone call from Mike Hill, executive director of the Miami Marlins. The night before, Stearns and Hill agreed on an exchange principle that would send Yelich to Milwaukee in exchange for four prospects. It was the kind of blockbuster that could make or break a franchise.
If Stearns's ideas about Yelich – the former first draft pick that he'd admired by far since arriving at Cream City a few years ago – were right, this deal could help propel the club into the spotlight. Upper echelon. contenders to the National League. If the GM was wrong, he could paralyze the Brewers, depriving them of many young, affordable talents and delaying them for many years.
In the wee hours of a winter morning when he was just sleeping, Stearns had already managed to get approval for the Brewers' property. Although he was optimistic that Hill could do the same with a group of Marlins led by Derek Jeter and seemed to want to liquidate all assets, including Giancarlo Stanton, the fucking phone would not ring. Until there.
Around 10 am, Stearns finally got a call from Hill. The case was a go. Stearns got up from his chair and walked into the office of Assistant General Manager Matt Arnold.
"We had it!" Stearns shouted.
Beside themselves with enthusiasm and not knowing how to react, the pursuit was over, they had finally had their guy, the two leaders stood there. Then Arnold dropped a bomb F and Stearns did the same. Arnold dropped another, Stearns too.
Just like that, Christian Yelich was unofficially joining the club of 40 bombs.
Given Yelich's curriculum vitae, the level of excitement shown by Stearns that morning was, to say the least, disproportionate. After all, it can be said that Yelich was the third best of the three field players that the Marlins dropped during their fire sale last season. He was certainly not in the same category as Stanton, the most valuable player in the National League title, who was sent to the New York Yankees (with his $ 325 million contract) earlier this month of December. It was not as accomplished as Marcell Ozuna, twice All Star, who was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals a week after trading with Stanton. He had never hit higher than .300. He had never run in 100 points. In five seasons in the major leagues, he had managed to hit exactly as many circuits as Stanton did not hit in 2017 (59).
So why all these stories?
"Christian was one of the most prominent players on our list who, in our opinion, could eventually become an elite type player," said Stearns, in the canoe visiting Coors Field. It is the eve of the third game of the Division Division series of the League with the Colorado Rockies, a contest that the Brewers would win. Just as they won the first two games in the series. Just as they won their decisive match against the Chicago Cubs before that. Just as they had won their last seven games of the regular season before.
To say that Yelich is the only reason for the unlikely series of 11 consecutive wins of the Brew Crew would be an injustice to the rest of the training. To say that he and he alone is responsible for qualifying Milwaukee in the championship playoffs for the second time since 1982 would not be fair to Lorenzo Cain, the center midfielder Milwaukee who signed as a free agent the same day that Yelich was traded and who spent most of the season at the top of the ranking of players par excellence or almost. It would not be fair to Josh Hader or Jeremy Jeffress. It would not be fair to Travis Shaw, Ryan Braun, Craig Counsell, Bernie Brewer or the good citizens of southeastern Wisconsin, among others.
That said, there is one person who is at the heart of the Milwaukee playoff campaign, a player who has been driving a season of 96 tied wins for the best of the world. franchise history, that is Yelich. "He's a special player," said head coach Darnell Coles. "The numbers speak for themselves."
Here's what the numbers say: according to Fangraphs, Yelich has counted for 7.6 War this season, best among NL position players and more than a full victory over the nearest player (Anthony Rendon, from Washington ). Thanks to a second half of another world – more on this in a moment – he is about to become the first national player since Ducky Medwick's 1937 victory to win the Triple Crown. Instead, he had to be content to lead the league batting (.326) while finishing with 110 RBIs (one less than Javy Baez) and 36 homers (two behind Nolan Arenado). But perhaps nothing says more about Yelich's worth: his victories in Brewers this season (1,205) were 524 points higher than in the losses, the most important gap of the majors, according to ESPN Stats' research. & Information. Stearns says, "He is an important player for us."
"I thought that during his stay here, he would have had the chance to reach a year like this … … To say that we saw this happen right away would be a little unreasonable . "
GM brewers David Stearns
Yelich was at his most important – and impressive – point in the far right. After the break from the All-Star game, in which the Brewers came in with all the steadiness of a wader (they finished the first half losing six in a row and eight out of 10), he had an absolute tear . The skinny left-handed swinger beat .367 the rest of the way, better in the majors. His 1,219 OPS in the second half was also in the lead – more than 150 points. In August and September alone, he crashed 21 home runs, a figure that marks his career-highest for a whole season. During the last week of the regular campaign, when Milwaukee had to win just to force a match in the 163rd match, Yelich was a devastating crew, reaching the goal 21 times and leading in 16 points.
Its seat in the second half turned a very open MVP race into a seemingly acquired one. More importantly, it helped the Brewers win a division title for the third time in 50 years. The success, both individual and team, was faster than expected.
"I thought that during his stay here," said Stearns, "he was fortunate enough to experience a year like this.It was in the realm of possibilities.Think we saw that to happen immediately would be a bit unreasonable. "
It's not as if Christian Yelich did not have the pedigree.
Like 10 of the 12 selected players who have won the most valuable player award of the decade, he is an old-timer in the first round. It was part of the 2010 class outline, a touted group that produced superstars such as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. 23rd overall selection, he was taken to the same neighborhood as Mike Trout (25th in 2009). However, before this season, Yelich, the MVP's closest player, was playing alongside Stanton, who had won last year's award.
"Everyone wants you to be the kind of player you will be after a few years in the big leagues," Yelich said. A fast-paced player who has carved a reputation as a positive defender in Miami, he hit an average of .290 and averaged 12 homers per season during his stay with the Marlins. His statistics were so consistent from one season to another that it was easy to imagine them repeating themselves in perpetuity.
"When you're still very young, they think that's what you're going to be forever," says Yelich. "I'm 21 years old, still learning in the big leagues, you're still learning as a player, everyone wants to be like: Oh, that's what you're going to be for." always. "They see it as if you would never change, you'll never do better, you'll never do worse, that's what you are, I think it's a stupid way of see things. "
It's particularly stupid to see where Yelich spent the first five years of his career.
Every year, from 2013 to 2017, Marlins Park ranks penultimate in terms of usability, according to FanGraphs. Even after the closing of the central field was moved before the 2016 season – from 418 feet to 407 feet – the field remained a nightmare for the batters because, finally, powerful 392-foot lanes (like the one at Miami) -center) have a way to do it. Yelich says, "You feel that your best ball will not be good enough."
Miller Park, meanwhile, is a paradise for the batters: over the same five-year period, from 2013 to 2017, the Milwaukee field is ranked among the top five baseball stadiums welcoming homer players. It's also at this point that Yelich has hit 22 scorers this season, four more than during his time at Marlins Park during his entire tenure in Miami.
"If you look at what he did, he always flew baseball." Brewers Brewer says Curtis Granderson, a former Met who has seen Yelich regularly during his career as NL East rivals. "He's just rewarded for that now."
This is not to say that fleet factors are the only factors that have affected Yelich's production. If that were the case, he would not have led the National League in OPS +, a measure that levels the playing field by taking into account, among other things, variations in stadiums. Clearly, when it comes to the escape of this Brewer, other forces are at stake. More natural forces.
When it became apparent that Counsell's best game days were behind him, it sparked a series of events that allowed one of Milwaukee's players to take the lead in the lead. Brewers.
Two of the most popular baseball teams will meet for the NL crown. Who has the edge?
From the Wild Cards round to the World Series, we'll be covering the 2018 playoffs.
2 related
"What was so cool, is to look at organic improvement," says Stearns. "It's not a story of Chris Taylor, where he went and basically changed his swing.It's not a story of JD Martinez.It's a really talented player who s & # 39; Trust is trusted, trusted in its process and gradually improved over time.
It's a kind of incremental improvement that has become almost obvious in recent years, as players have apparently begun to reach their potential younger and younger. In 2014, Trout was only 22 years old when he won his first MVP. The following year, Harper was the same age when he grabbed his. The following year, Kris Bryant won it at the age of 24. This season, Ronald Acuna, a 20-year-old Braves freak, and Juan Soto, a sensational 19-year-old Nats, have been two of the best on the players in the game. Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, the old man Yelich , two months before her 27th birthday, makes her best impression of fine wine.
Physically, he does not seem to have changed much, if at all. He is still so thin and still looks like Pete Davidson from "Saturday Night Live". He makes fun of the 27-year-old theory, which states that players of a certain level of maturity suddenly reach the power of puberty, magically transforming duplicates into dingers. "I feel like in recent years, I've been the same force," he says. Instead, he qualifies the essential of his evolution of revelation to finally determine who he is as a hitter. "I think it's understanding an approach, understanding your momentum, understanding what you do when you succeed and you do not succeed."
One of Yelich's main activities during this season, his most successful, is to ambush the pitchers. Earlier in his career, he was one of the most passive hitters in the game, consistently ranking last in terms of first-base percentage. In 2018, he beat the first throw 188 times, against 135 times last year. More often than not, he did serious damage Despite an average league swing rate on the initial bids (29%), Yelich had 12 innings on a score of 0 to 0, most in the majors . Of the first 73 shots he put in, he averaged .521, nearly 100 points higher than his career at the start of the season. Despite the apparently obvious correlation, Yelich's increased aggression does not appear to be the result of a premeditated adjustment of his approach.
0:58
The most valuable player candidate, Christian Yelich, said that having a day-to-day mentality fueled Milwaukee's momentum.
"I do not think he's changed anything," said Coles, the Milwaukee coach-trainer who's already been teammate to Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr., and who sees a lot of things in Yelich. "He fits the mold, he just has a good understanding of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it."
"I'm just looking for some ground to hit hard, be it first, fifth, third," said Yelich. "There was no conscious effort to be more aggressive or anything of the sort."
Informed of his massive production at the first step this season, he says he is ignorant.
"Honestly, I did not even know it, I had no idea," he says. "It was fair, be ready to hit, I was not going there, I was swinging to swing, be ready to hit, get stuck in an area, have a plan and go to the place. 39; run ".
Exactly 15 minutes after the final of the Brewers NLDS Parade over the Rockies, Yelich stands in the middle of a tight circle inside the Coors Field Visitor's Pavilion. Glasses spread around his neck, he hops while his teammates cover it with iced alcoholic drinks and sing repeatedly.
"M-V-P! … M-V-P! … M-V-P!"
Although the results of the playoff votes are not published until mid-November, smart money indicates that Yelich will prove that his friends in Milwaukee are prophetic in the end. As productive as Baez and Arenado have been, as good as Matt Carpenter and Freddie Freeman and Anthony Rendon were, the growing consensus does not just mean that Yelich was better, he was at his best when he mattered the most. And for this reason, the Brewers – who have not lost a baseball game since the autumnal equinox – are still alive as they prepare to face the Dodgers for a trip to the World Series.
"It's the goal," says Stearns, moments after receiving his own shower of cold beer at the clubhouse. "When you take players like this, the goal is to win a world series." It's our goal as an organization – it's been our goal since I came here. "
That's why, last January, Stearns did not hesitate to drop some bombs F.
Source link
