Christian Yelich Opens Up About Brewers' Disappointing Season

The Milwaukee Brewers were just recently eliminated from postseason contention, concluding a frustrating season that saw the team trade away popular star closer Josh Hader.

The Brewers led the NL Central for a substantial portion of the season, and remained competitive in the Wild Card race even after the Cardinals surged past them into first place.

Even so, numerous issues prevented them from reaching the playoffs, namely poor offensive performance and some high profile struggles at the back end of the bullpen.

After the Brewers were eliminated, star outfielder Christian Yelich was interviewed in the clubhouse and had some interesting things to say when discussing what went wrong with the team this year.

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 02: Christian Yelich #22 of the Milwaukee Brewers dives back to first base against the Miami Marlins at American Family Field on October 02, 2022 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

Compared to the previous Brewers teams that have made the playoffs, Yelich said that there didn't seem to be as much of an identity that players could grab on to:

“Each one of those playoff teams we’ve had kind of had an identity. Offensively, defensively, pitching wise, we kind of knew what we needed to do to win. For whatever reason it kind of just felt like we didn’t really have that this year. We were obviously trying to win every game.”

Every group of players has a different path to winning games, some are elite offensively, some have dominant pitching. The implication from Yelich is that the 2022 team lacked a cohesive vision of what they could do to win games.

One other potential explanation for their struggles was the trading deadline, when the team traded away Josh Hader to the Padres.

When asked if the loss of Hader played a role, Yelich responded:

“That’s going to be the easy story or the easy thing to point to. We’ve had to deal with those questions for the last two months. Honestly, we will never know. We can speculate on it and say that it was the reason. At the beginning, everyone talked about how it was a shock to the room. It caught everybody by surprise. That’s the truth. At the same time, we got guys back. It’s the easy way out, kind of point your finger and be like ‘that’s the reason, if we didn’t do that then we’d be in the playoffs.’ I don’t think that’s true.”

While seeming to reference the possibility that his departure had an impact on the team's psyche, Yelich also explained that the players that remained were ultimately responsible through a lack of execution.

Essentially, the players remaining had the skills and ability to get the job done, they just ultimately weren't able to.

You rarely see this level of candor and detail from players when discussing what went wrong. Oftentimes, they'll resort to generic platitudes instead of getting into real, substantial issues.

Yelich's honesty was refreshing, although it doesn't change the fact that the Brewers will have significant amounts of work to do to return to the postseason in 2023.