Rolling with Hiura

[Hopper]

It didn't help him that once he did have a good game, the following day he was benched because that is what was planned.

I'm not saying that would have saved him, but it wouldn't have hurt to allow him to try and build on that game.

[brewcrewdue80]

The only reason Hiura should be on the team right now is because of the 3 Brewers on IL, Urias, and Robertson being worse as a hitter. The moment Urias is healthy and any of the 3IL players come back Hiura needs to be optioned.

Its the loss in depth and your starting SS day to day. Hiura is doing so bad theres reason to send him down and keep him there rewinding his clock and pick up another season of control. He'd become a Super 2 but with how horrible hes been what are you worried about on future money?

[StearnsFTW]

Yeah, he's gotta go down as soon as Wong and Yelich are back. We're trying to win a pennant here.

 

Narvaez/McKinney/Wong/Urias/Shaw/Yelich/Cain/Garcia is the starting 8 to me, with Bradley and Vogelbach sprinkled in occasionally.

 

If he comes back strong, great, because the team is pretty left-handed hitting heavy right now (never thought I'd say that).

[sveumrules]

Looks like the AAA season starts Tuesday May 4th.

 

If Keston doesn't make some progress over the next couple two tree weeks I think he'll be trying to figure things out in Nashville.

[tmwiese55]

I agree. He has a couple weeks to show some sign otherwise he needs to go down and figure it out in low pressure situation and hopefully he comes back up and rakes like he did his first year when he came up. I'm not a hitting coach but it sure seems he's too back leg and upper cut swinging. Which to my memory is not what he was like when he came up as he sprayed hard hits in every direction. Guessing he maybe got a bit too caught up in the launch angle HR aspects and needs to get back to basics that made him good.

[SRB]

It does seem like a rebuild-confidence situation where a crack at AAA pitching would help.

[trwi7]

Craig Goldstein on Hiura (article is free to read with a login.)

 

 

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/66323/trout-keeps-fishing-angels-pham-san-diego/

[xisxisxis]

Baseball has been selling itself as an entertainment business for YEARS...

 

There is nothing entertaining about the way Keston Hiura plays baseball either in the field or while batting. NOTHING...

 

He's the really bad comedian you roll your eyes at during an open mic session you paid $0. When you pay more than a $1 then you're getting robbed with Hiura's act... Next!

 

He should see Nashville at the first opportunity with McKinney and Vogelbach sharing 1B until they FIX him. Otherwise the baseball gods may just extend our WS Hell for another few years.

[roadcrew3]

I won't pretend to be a hitting expert but it seems fairly obvious that his double toe-tap isn't working. I can't remember but did he do this in 2019? Have heard it discussed on a few broadcasts already that doing this makes it easy for pitchers to mess with his timing. Seems to make sense based on his inability to hit a fastball.

 

Hopefully when he goes to Nashville or the ATS his approach gets scraped and they work on a new stance for him. Let him go down and get right and then he'll serve almost like a mid-season acquisition when they bring him back. Could be a nice catalyst for the stretch run if he can figure it out.

[umphrey]

Was browsing his batting metrics and it seems he’s basically just whiffing on strikes more often. He’s also getting a lot more sliders and less fastballs I guess. But overall not a plate discipline problem, it’s a contact problem.

[pacopete4]

This can’t be helping things: Keston’s mother has cancer.

[RollieTime]

This can’t be helping things: Keston’s mother has cancer.

 

I was just coming here to post this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is on his mind and making it hard to play baseball. If your mind isn’t 100% in it, you’re not going to succeed with how overpowering pitchers are these days.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

This can’t be helping things: Keston’s mother has cancer.

 

I was just coming here to post this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is on his mind and making it hard to play baseball. If your mind isn’t 100% in it, you’re not going to succeed with how overpowering pitchers are these days.

 

No doubt. I feel like I've been pretty hard on Hiura, and have been down on him. Sometimes we forget that most of these guys are in their early to mid 20s, with all the emotions and drama that everyone deals with at that point in their lives. Being a professional athlete doesn't insulate you from having to deal with a lot of the same types of problems everyday people have to deal with. I always appreciate when a pro ballplayer is willing to open up and share some of their personal life with the fanbase. It makes me cheer for them all that much more.

[Greenleaf1]

We do face a couple of lefties next week, so let's hope that can get him going.

 

Kind of amazing our offense has been as potent as it is without Yelich/Cain/Wong and with Hiura being a black hole in the lineup. He's got too much talent and history of hitting well to just completely bottom out like this, I hope it's just something mechanical that he can figure out, but whatever it is, he didn't figure it out between this year and last year.

[Hopper]

This can’t be helping things: Keston’s mother has cancer.

 

I was just coming here to post this. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is on his mind and making it hard to play baseball. If your mind isn’t 100% in it, you’re not going to succeed with how overpowering pitchers are these days.

 

No doubt. I feel like I've been pretty hard on Hiura, and have been down on him. Sometimes we forget that most of these guys are in their early to mid 20s, with all the emotions and drama that everyone deals with at that point in their lives. Being a professional athlete doesn't insulate you from having to deal with a lot of the same types of problems everyday people have to deal with. I always appreciate when a pro ballplayer is willing to open up and share some of their personal life with the fanbase. It makes me cheer for them all that much more.

 

A lot of people have been hard on him, but no one knew his personal situation.

No reason to beat yourself up over comments made previously.

[HiAndTight]

 

A lot of people have been hard on him, but no one knew his personal situation.

No reason to beat yourself up over comments made previously.

 

 

 

Sure...and I also don't think anyone who's been hard on him(at least that I've seen) has gone after him personally. Just pointing out that he's struggled and maybe could use some time to get straightened out.

 

That's probably even more true now knowing that he's dealing with personal issues aside from professional struggles.

[Warning Track Power]

As someone who has dealt with a mother with a serious form of cancer, I know you cannot focus on the day-to-day stuff in any way close to normal. Let alone being half a country away while she goes through the hard stuff that comes along with treatment (chemo, radiation, etc). While I think Keston has some real challenges he needs to work on (toe-tap timing thing, uppercut swing that seems to be getting more pronounced) the reality of life has to be having its own impact in its own crappy way.

[Eye Black]

Someone asked the other day if an article had been done on Keston Hiura’s struggle with contact on balls in the zone. Well apparently FanGraphs must’ve been listening because this article came out this morning...

 

The Struggle Is Real for Keston Hiura

 

 

That Hiura spray chart embedded in the story and note about how he’s flying out to right field so frequently this season when he does make contact makes me further wonder what in the world the Marlins were doing last night with their positioning of Garrett Cooper.

[djoctagone]

do the brewers still roll with keston hiura and give him some experience in the outfield during spring camp?

before adding andrew mccutchen, it looked like hiura had a shot at some playing time in the outfield corners and at designated hitter. now, his chance of filling that role is diminished greatly.

working in hiura's favor is the roster expansion that will likely be in place to start the season.

but when it's time to trim the roster to 26 guys, will the brewers still roll with hiura?

[KeithStone53151]

31 minutes ago, djoctagone said:

do the brewers still roll with keston hiura and give him some experience in the outfield during spring camp?

before adding andrew mccutchen, it looked like hiura had a shot at some playing time in the outfield corners and at designated hitter. now, his chance of filling that role is diminished greatly.

working in hiura's favor is the roster expansion that will likely be in place to start the season.

but when it's time to trim the roster to 26 guys, will the brewers still roll with hiura?

I believe they will, primarily because I'm expecting hiura to bounce back in a big way and force them to.

[yourout]

The only hope they have is the new hitting coaches being able to fix that train wreck of a swing.

 

[markedman5]

 

[yourout]

3 hours ago, markedman5 said:

 

One of the things i really like about Freddy Freeman is his setup and swing. No exaggerated front foot lift. No exaggerated upper cut. Really quiet in the box with minimal wasted movement and his head is never moving through the process.

[CheezWizHed]

The encouraging thing about Huira is that we know he can hit.  And hit well.  If they can fix whatever caused him to become Mr. Swing-n-Miss, he should still be an excellent hitter.  And a quieter setup is always better. 

[Robocaller]

24 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

The encouraging thing about Huira is that we know he can hit.  And hit well.  If they can fix whatever caused him to become Mr. Swing-n-Miss, he should still be an excellent hitter.  And a quieter setup is always better. 

Do we? Or did the pitchers just figure him out?