Keston Hiura has a .984 OPS in Nashville

[rickh150]

14 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Let me put it more bluntly and you can have the final word as far as I’m concerned:

Who cares what his stats were last year? He was given a shot to make the team this spring failed to do so, was cut, and every other team in both leagues passed on him.

That tells you all we need to know about the importance of his statistics from last year.

 

That tells you all we need to know about the importance of his statistics from last year.

 

There is a reason/s Hiura is not on the Brewers 40 man roster. Repeatedly pointing out the obvious, that Winker has not played well, and citing Hiura’s  has stats either from last year or from AAA doesn’t really move this debate anywhere.

 

 

So let’s review here…

2022 stats do not matter.

2023 Spring Training Stats do matter.

2023 AAA stats do not matter.

Winker playing not well at DH does not need to be repeated, even though he continues to play fairly regularly.

No matter what Hiura has done or will do this year, it does not matter.

 

Yeah, I disagree with everything.
I even disagree with you that Hiura blew his chance this Spring. This is based on him STILL not getting a call up and actually looking for warm bats outside of the organization, I doubt that he makes the team regardless of what he did in Spring Training because of Winker.

 

 

[rickh150]

35 minutes ago, 82brewcrew82 said:

Are you saying that something that has proven to be awful to this point in the season has zero chance of turning it around despite a proven track record of performance in past seasons?

Nope. Not zero chance. We can go with Winker. I would go with Hiura. I would be ok with going with both actually…Tapia or Perkins can go. 

[rickh150]

33 minutes ago, 82brewcrew82 said:

Is 230 at bats enough to make the determination that Keston has improved?  Are we ignoring the previous 500 or so at bats that say he isn't very good at all?  I tend to be in the camp that think bringing Keston up is worth the try but its not a different  gamble than trading for Winker.  There are reasons to think it may help but plenty of reasons to think it might not.

If we cannot ignore the “previous 500 or so at bats”, then let’s go all the way back in his career and take the whole shabang… 

Minors career OPS .993

MLB career OPS .771

Brewers 2023 DH MLB .601 OPS (Hiura DH in 2022-.949 OPS)

[82brewcrew82]

3 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

If we cannot ignore the “previous 500 or so at bats”, then let’s go all the way back in his career and take the whole shabang… 

Minors career OPS .993

MLB career OPS .771

Brewers 2023 DH MLB .601 OPS (Hiura DH in 2022-.949 OPS)

You're right.  Mixed results for sure and I have no issue with the guy getting a shot. 

[umphrey]

Overall though I do think the FO kind of hates him as a high strikeout low utility guy, but they haven’t found a reason to get rid of him

[82brewcrew82]

4 minutes ago, umphrey said:

Overall though I do think the FO kind of hates him as a high strikeout low utility guy, but they haven’t found a reason to get rid of him

Nor has any other team found a good enough reason to acquire him despite his minor and/or major league numbers.

[LouisEly]

4 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Alex Jackson has a 1.003 OPS in Nashville.

Franchy Cordero has a 1.082 OPS in Scranton (572 OPS in NYY).

Bobby Dalbec has a 1.057 OPS in Worcester (452 OPS in BOS).

Matt Reynolds has a 1.021 OPS in Louisville (400 OPS in CIN).

 

Can Alex Jackson play first base?

[rickh150]

24 minutes ago, 82brewcrew82 said:

Nor has any other team found a good enough reason to acquire him despite his minor and/or major league numbers.

Agreed. The Mindset to simply have him “play” the position of DH regularly and consistently is not there with the Brewers or seemingly most teams. His defensive liabilities, bad spring, and Winker’s presence  have cost him here and/or elsewhere.

[sveumrules]

33 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

 

Can Alex Jackson play first base?

Can Bill Hall pitch?

[82brewcrew82]

27 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Agreed. The Mindset to simply have him “play” the position of DH regularly and consistently is not there with the Brewers or seemingly most teams. His defensive liabilities, bad spring, and Winker’s presence  have cost him here and/or elsewhere.

I doubt a bad spring training or the Brewers decision to employ Winker, wisely or not, have anything to do with it.  Every team knows the stats and metrics and every team deploys scouts.  I do believe his defensive...limitations are a big factor but his hitting skill is just as important and there does not seem to be a lot of belief in that ability league wide.

[Axman59]

2 hours ago, 82brewcrew82 said:

Are you saying that something that has proven to be awful to this point in the season has zero chance of turning it around despite a proven track record of performance in past seasons?

Winker's past performance is of less predictive value because of a cervical injury that required surgery. And then a post-surgery stint on the IL due to a "cervical strain." Not good. If the Brewers had healthy, non-cervical injury Winker, I highly doubt Winker would be this bad. I also doubt he's going to suddenly get truly healthy in the middle of the 2023 season.

[Ro Mueller]

4 hours ago, umphrey said:

Overall though I do think the FO kind of hates him as a high strikeout low utility guy, but they haven’t found a reason to get rid of him

I think Stearns loved him, but Counsell doesn't appreciate a no-glove, high-K guy. This dynamic led to the absurd decision to burn his final option in the midst of a productive streak last year, when trading him was the only logical move.

The lack of options and bad finish to the 2022 season depleted Hiura's value, so Arnold guaranteed him $2.2m for 2023 in the offseason rather than sell low.

Hiura was awful in Spring, so too expensive for other teams and outrighted to AAA. But 9 homers in his first 19 games had him deserved of a promotion, only hindered by a 5 BB / 22 K ratio. He remedied that enough over the next 4 games and should have joined the Crew or been traded on May 1st. Arnold was gun-shy and missed the window.

Hiura would have helped the MLB squad for those next 10 days, then got hurt May 12th. And now here we are, with him trying to round back into form 2 months later.

[nate82]

These are all of the players that are better than Hiura in the International League:

What Hiura is doing in AAA is nothing and means absolutely nothing.  If he were in the teens with his K% I would start to think he has turned things around but he is not doing that. 

At best Hiura is probably the same as Perkins and Topa but both Perkins and Topa have an advantage over Hiura they can actually field a position Hiura can not.  When you have a bench player and that is what Hiura is having that bench player only being a DH is going to hold that player back.  Hiura would have to be at the level of a Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz or Prince Fielder to be valuable.  He is not anywhere close to that even replacing Winker with Hiura doesn't really move the needle all that much.  If anything it probably makes the team worse. 

[BrewerFan]

6 hours ago, duewizard said:

I think that part of the reason for not why he is not up is that if he sucks he can refuse the assignment once DFA'd. If he comes back up we are likely to lose him, and I think the front office sees enough in him to try to keep him longer

I think this is a big part of it. Yes, I get he was already DFA'ed, but if you're going to get rid of Winker, a proven hitter(who has been awful) and go with Hiura, it's not something you can undo. You're stuck there. Maybe a convenient DFA for Winker is good as well, see if Hiura's adjustments lead to a different look at the plate. Not that you'd need to decide based on 10 days of stats, but you can see if he looks better.

I still think Winker is going to be a good hitter again, but I thought the ASB was enough time. I guess maybe we can afford a bit more with Yelich and Adames getting going, but there's just no reason to not bring up Hiura at this point.

 

If you were willing to let him go for nothing...it's certainly worth a shot to see if you can get him back to anything close to what he'd been. We waited 3 years for Yelich to get going again...maybe the same will be true with Keston.

[BrewerFan]

10 minutes ago, nate82 said:

These are all of the players that are better than Hiura in the International League:

What Hiura is doing in AAA is nothing and means absolutely nothing.  If he were in the teens with his K% I would start to think he has turned things around but he is not doing that. 

At best Hiura is probably the same as Perkins and Topa but both Perkins and Topa have an advantage over Hiura they can actually field a position Hiura can not.  When you have a bench player and that is what Hiura is having that bench player only being a DH is going to hold that player back.  Hiura would have to be at the level of a Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz or Prince Fielder to be valuable.  He is not anywhere close to that even replacing Winker with Hiura doesn't really move the needle all that much.  If anything it probably makes the team worse. 

Seriously? He would have to play at the level of one of the best RHed hitters of all time, one of the best DH's of all time or the Brewers best power hitter ever to be valuable?

That's...crazy. He'd simply have to be better than what we have now to be "valuable." We don't need a HOFer or HOF caliber bat from Hiura.

 

[nate82]

35 minutes ago, BrewerFan said:

Seriously? He would have to play at the level of one of the best RHed hitters of all time, one of the best DH's of all time or the Brewers best power hitter ever to be valuable?

That's...crazy. He'd simply have to be better than what we have now to be "valuable." We don't need a HOFer or HOF caliber bat from Hiura.

 

Yes if a player is going to be a DH only they need to be close to a HOF hitter to be valuable. 

A quick edit for a DH to be valuable they need to put up a 150+ wRC+.  Hiura in MLB probably doesn't even come close to 100. 

[rickh150]

27 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Yes if a player is going to be a DH only they need to be close to a HOF hitter to be valuable. 

A quick edit for a DH to be valuable they need to put up a 150+ wRC+.  Hiura in MLB probably doesn't even come close to 100. 

Disagree on all fronts… not even sure how to respond. Just putting up his 2022 #s helps us obviously if he plays DH five times a week.

 

[Outlander]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

Yes if a player is going to be a DH only they need to be close to a HOF hitter to be valuable. 

A quick edit for a DH to be valuable they need to put up a 150+ wRC+.  Hiura in MLB probably doesn't even come close to 100. 

So every team should have a HOF DH?

[nate82]

3 minutes ago, Outlander said:

So every team should have a HOF DH?

Teams have moved away from the DH only players because of this.  The value is just not there unless you have a HOF type player playing there.

[BrewerFan]

2 hours ago, rickh150 said:

Disagree on all fronts… not even sure how to respond. Just putting up his 2022 #s helps us obviously if he plays DH five times a week.

 

Yeah, I'm just at a loss for words on that one. That's objectively ridiculous. You had to go back and name three of the best hitters of the last 30 years.

Again, we simply need him to be an improvement. We do NOT need Manny Ramirez from Keston Hiura. 

Geez...ya wonder why it's impossible to please people sometimes!🤣

[jerichoholicninja]

I'll make a bold prediction that he will not be in Nashville past the trade deadline. He will either be in Milwaukee or traded. I think they'll make every effort to acquire a hitter that improves the lineup (and when that inevitably fails because they'll never give up what it takes for that kind of hitter) they'll bite the bullet and DFA Winkler and bring Keston up to DH the rest of the year.

[Fear The Chorizo]

17 hours ago, nate82 said:

Yes if a player is going to be a DH only they need to be close to a HOF hitter to be valuable. 

A quick edit for a DH to be valuable they need to put up a 150+ wRC+.  Hiura in MLB probably doesn't even come close to 100. 

I think most of us would be happy getting significantly better offensive production from the DH spot in the batting order than what we'd expect from pitchers hitting.  Hiura is the logical in house option the Brewers can add to their roster, and all it takes is DFA-ing one of the underperforming vets to get him on the 40 man roster for the rest of this season.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Low average hitter who Ks excessively and can't hit lefties to save his life. Not really the solution this offense needs right now.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

I guess I fail to see why Hiura wouldn't at least be worth a shot.

Jones made a big impression in....one AB. We're talking about the last position-player spot on the roster, where Hiura is basically only going to be used offensively. Maybe he gets one or two starts at 1B. I certainly get the perspective that he's not a long-term solution to anything, but there's not much to lose in making him the DH and having him available for PH duty on days when he's out of the lineup.

[jerichoholicninja]

I don't think Hiura fixes anything but we've got a whole thread about trading for a 1B in the rumor forum talking about marginal upgrades that will cost prospects and/or money. Keston costs nothing but the roster spot of one of our current horrible hitting players.