They once represented the ruling class among National League position players. The Brewers’ Christian Yelich won the NL MVP Award in 2018, and finished 2nd behind then-Dodger Cody Bellinger in 2019. Both were still in their twenties and appeared poised for a long run among the game’s elite.

Then some stuff happened. Yelich fractured his kneecap near the end of the 2019 season, and signed a seven-year $188.5 million contract extension the next spring that locked him up through the 2028 season. He struggled to find his power stroke in 2021-22, hitting barely half as many homers (23) as he did in 2019 alone.

Bellinger took it year by year with the Dodgers, totally losing his hitting stroke in 2021, rebounding only slightly in 2022 before signing with the Cubs last offseason after being non-tendered by his previous club.

Coming into this season, Yelich was seen by many as little more than an albatross contract, while Bellinger was basically a Cubs’ lottery ticket. And here we are in late August, with both players ranking among the NL’s top 10 in Fangraphs WAR (Bellinger at 4.0, Yelich at 3.9).

Let’s dig a little deeper into the batted ball profiles of both players to see if they support their mainstream numbers and then attempt to project their respective future career arcs.

Many years ago I was writing for Fangraphs, and I predicted that Yelich was a potential future MVP. This, despite the fact that he had never even hit 10 homers in a season at that stage of his career. I reasoned that because he scalded the ball so hard across all batted ball types, despite carrying one of the lowest grounder rates in the game, he could become elite with only a modest increase in his ability to elevate the baseball.

And that’s exactly what happened. His average launch angle was incredibly only 4.6 degrees in 2018, his MVP season. He was arguably even better in 2019, when he finished 2nd to Bellinger. Yelich reached his career high in both homers and average launch angle (11.2 degrees) that season. He was absolutely lethal before his September injury - my batted ball-based evaluation method placed him ahead of the young Dodger.

He simply wasn’t the same after the injury, according to both the numbers and the eye test. Let’s focus on the latter for a moment. Yelich lost his base, and with it his improved ability to elevate the ball. He was off balance quite often, and it impacted his ability to make consistent contact. His K rate mushroomed, and he was little more than an average player in 2021-22, far off his peak.

The 2023 version of Christian Yelich is not an inner circle MVP candidate, what with the years Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman and others are having. He is, however, worthy of a lower spot on an MVP ballot.

He has essentially turned back the clock and once again become the Marlins’ version of Yelich from his pre-MVP days. His average exit speed of 92.2 mph is his highest since 2020. Both his average liner (97.4 mph) and grounder (89.9 mph) exit speeds are over a full standard deviation higher than league average. His 93.3 mph average fly ball exit speed is over one-half standard deviation higher. His 20.0% K and 11.5% BB rates are his best since 2018. Oh, and his average launch angle of 4.6 degrees is exactly the same as it was in that same MVP season.

Yelich is now 31 years old, and his contract no longer looks like a problem for the Brewers. He has that same young player skill set that once had me seeing stars - he has at least a puncher’s chance of making the slight adjustments necessary to once again become a 30+ homer guy and MVP candidate.

Bellinger’s path to MVP status was a little more typical than Yelich’s. He showed up on the scene as a 21-year-old in 2017, a power-before-hit guy with an uppercut stroke and a pretty high K rate. Over the next couple of seasons he leveled out his stroke a bit without sacrificing any power and sharply reduced his K rate as an added bonus. It was a perfect storm, resulting in a 47-homer onslaught in his MVP season.

He wasn’t quite the same cat in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but you have to give him - and many others - a mulligan for that. His K and BB rates remained solid, but all of his batted ball numbers drifted downward into the average range. The Dodgers won it all, and Bellinger did contribute three homers during their postseason run.

Then 2021 happened, and it appeared like Bellinger had totally forgotten how to a hit a baseball. His .165-.240-.302 line over 350 plate appearances evoked Chris Davis at the bottom. And about the only positive thing that can be said about his 2022 season is that he stayed healthy. His 27.6% K and 6.9% BB rates were by far the worst he had ever recorded in a full season.

It was this version of Bellinger that the Cubs offered a one-year, $17.5 million guarantee last offseason. And if the raw numbers - .322-.370-.556 through Monday’s games - are to believed, he’s worthy of placement somewhere on voters’ NL MVP ballots.

The batted ball data sees it a little bit differently. There’s really no other way to put it - Cody Bellinger is the single luckiest hitter on balls in play in the major leagues this season. He’s batting .360 AVG-.930 SLG in the air, but “should be” hitting .291 AVG-.685 SLG. That’s a 117 Unadjusted vs. 69 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score. On liners, its 116 Unadjusted vs. 95 Adjusted, and on grounders, 177 vs. 74. Overall, he has a 137 Unadjusted vs. an 85 Unadjusted Contact Score. Bellinger “should be” hitting .253-.308-.417, way below his actual numbers.

His 87.2 mph average exit speed is by far a career low. So are his average fly ball (88.6 mph) and liner (91.4 mph) exit speeds. His 83.2 mph average grounder exit speed is better only than his 2017 mark.

So you might think that I’m not buying Bellinger’s comeback season. Not quite.

It’s a huge deal to go from totally lost to back in the game at the MLB level. It’s an even bigger deal to go from a 27.6% to a 15.3% K rate in a single season. He has once again found his footing as a hitter at the MLB level and can build from there. Moving forward, if he trades a bit of contact for some increased power, Bellinger can continue to move upward. Plus, the offense he’s currently providing isn’t half bad considering his position’s place on the defensive spectrum. Plus, he’s only 27 years old. I can’t envision a full return to his MVP form, but an All Star? Sure.

Baseball is a humbling game, and hitting is harder than it’s ever been. While Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger haven’t exactly seen their careers go as planned after winning MVP awards, they’re still in there fighting, and for the first time in a while, both of their respective arrows are pointing upward.