Keston Hiura has a .984 OPS in Nashville

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, DHonks said:

It's totally illogical that we haven't called up Hiura.  He was our 2nd or 3rd best hitter last year and would dramatically improve the lineup.  The only thing I can come up with is we're leaving him in AAA (and off the 40-man roster) until the trade deadline, hoping he can be a piece of acquiring something else for our big league club.  In that case, I'd fully expect him up on August 1st if he's not party of a trade.  

… or the team has some very logical reasons why he’s not in the 40 man roster and you’re unaware of them and haven’t  figured them out yet,

Why? For a few reasons: 

1. The Brewers FO and manger are smart baseball people. Virtually all of them want to continue in pro-baseball and therefore give their best efforts to do their jobs. So we can rule out, them being ignorant of his stat sheet, metrics, etc. or trying to sabotage his career. 

2. Since being DFA’d no team has come calling on Hiura (or at least none that’s been reported). The Brewers have a track record of doing right by their former players (One example putting Suter on waivers instead of a non-tendering so he wouldn’t have to take a pay cut. Another, trading Erceg to Oakland who wanted him for the big league team) you have to believe if a team wanted Hiura for their big league roster the Brewers wouldn’t stand in the way by keeping him in AAA all year.  Also the sheer number of hitters who have cycled through Milwaukee this year ahead of Hiura.

3. It’s now two successive GMs (Stearns and Arnold) who haven’t see Hiura as a major leaguer, I don’t think they are idiots, thus there must be a legit baseball reason there is no interest in him from Milwaukee or really from other clubs. 

[rickh150]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

… or the team has some very logical reasons why he’s not in the 40 man roster and you’re unaware of them and haven’t  figured them out yet,

Why? For a few reasons: 

1. The Brewers FO and manger are smart baseball people. Virtually all of them want to continue in pro-baseball and therefore give their best efforts to do their jobs. So we can rule out, them being ignorant of his stat sheet, metrics, etc. or trying to sabotage his career. 

2. Since being DFA’d no team has come calling on Hiura (or at least none that’s been reported). The Brewers have a track record of doing right by their former players (One example putting Suter on waivers instead of a non-tendering so he wouldn’t have to take a pay cut. Another, trading Erceg to Oakland who wanted him for the big league team) you have to believe if a team wanted Hiura for their big league roster the Brewers wouldn’t stand in the way by keeping him in AAA all year.  Also the sheer number of hitters who have cycled through Milwaukee this year ahead of Hiura.

3. It’s now two successive GMs (Stearns and Arnold) who haven’t see Hiura as a major leaguer, I don’t think they are idiots, thus there must be a legit baseball reason there is no interest in him from Milwaukee or really from other clubs. 

Smart baseball men make mistakes. And this is one. Whether it’s not playing Hiura, letting Winker DH regularly for four months, or something else, our DH spot has been a dumpster fire. And this DH position has been a problem for going on two years now.

And yes, the organization is without excuse for this.  Random fans on  brewerfanatic would have managed this position better.

[rickh150]

Hiura has not made an error at 1B in over 100 innings there this year. 
Hiura hit .949 OPS as DH last year in 98 PA. 
Last year’s MLB numbers make him our 3rd best hitter this year. 
Hiura arguably has the best hitting numbers in the entire system this year at AAA.
For every other player in the system it seems (except Winker), performance matters. And it’s not like there isn’t a carved out role for him to play… he can DH! He could even play some 1B while a Tellez is out.  
Just end the madness. Bring him up or cut the guy already.

[rickh150]

Or trade him. End it.

[sveumrules]

6 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Just end the madness. Bring him up or cut the guy already.

There is no madness, just baseball happening. Hiura is out of options, call him up now and he has to stay on the roster all year or risk losing him to another org.

The new DH is very likely to be acquired via deadline deal, at which point Winker should be DFA’d in turn.

Now that the deadline is a hard deadline and there isn’t a month afterward to make waiver pickups, organizational depth is more important to cover for potential injury.

If some other organization wants to give Hiura a spot on their 26 man, I can’t imagine the Brewers will stand in their way.

If he’s still in Nashville on August 2nd that essentially means Milwaukee isn’t the only team who doesn’t view him as an MLB player currently.

[rickh150]

24 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

There is no madness, just baseball happening. Hiura is out of options, call him up now and he has to stay on the roster all year or risk losing him to another org.

The new DH is very likely to be acquired via deadline deal, at which point Winker should be DFA’d in turn.

Now that the deadline is a hard deadline and there isn’t a month afterward to make waiver pickups, organizational depth is more important to cover for potential injury.

If some other organization wants to give Hiura a spot on their 26 man, I can’t imagine the Brewers will stand in their way.

If he’s still in Nashville on August 2nd that essentially means Milwaukee isn’t the only team who doesn’t view him as an MLB player currently.

Respectfully disagree.

Let him play. He stinks? He goes. Risk losing him? That’s why he is still in AAA? Ha. If he is good, guess what? He has arby with us for two more years. Not knowing wastes that potential, as well.  

Organizational depth is nothing when we are getting squat at DH. And DH should have the most candidates since defense really is not in the equation, even on the Brewers with our man Winker reminding of this daily.

Letting talent sit while dumpster fire 🔥 burns daily. 

[ClosetBrewerFan]

49 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

There is no madness, just baseball happening. Hiura is out of options, call him up now and he has to stay on the roster all year or risk losing him to another org.

I dont see the concern about losing him.  If we call him up and he stinks, then waive him.  There was little chance the Brewers were going to tender him a contract next year.  What's the risk?  At least this would show if he could still hit or not.

[sveumrules]

7 hours ago, ClosetBrewerFan said:

I dont see the concern about losing him.  If we call him up and he stinks, then waive him.  There was little chance the Brewers were going to tender him a contract next year.  What's the risk?  At least this would show if he could still hit or not.

One weeks worth of PAs until the deadline won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. It’s not a large enough sample to draw any meaningful conclusions from.

Which is essentially Hiura’s whole issue in a nutshell. Since he strikes out so often, and doesn’t walk, and doesn’t play defense, he has to get top tier batted ball results to have any value at all.

.355 BABIP and 29.8 HR/FB%, you get a 115 wRC+ like last year.

.269 BABIP and 10.0 HR/FB%, you get a 53 wRC+ like 2021.

Last year itself is a tidy encapsulation of the phenomena…

Through Aug 22: 173 PA | .381 BABIP | 41.9 HR/FB% | 143 wRC+

After Aug 22: 93 PA | .319 BABIP | 6.3 HR/FB% | 63 wRC+

[torts]

18 hours ago, trwi7 said:

You're gathering a lot of info from less than a half a second of video.

Kestdaddys pissed

[rickh150]

9 hours ago, sveumrules said:

One weeks worth of PAs until the deadline won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. It’s not a large enough sample to draw any meaningful conclusions from.

Which is essentially Hiura’s whole issue in a nutshell. Since he strikes out so often, and doesn’t walk, and doesn’t play defense, he has to get top tier batted ball results to have any value at all.

.355 BABIP and 29.8 HR/FB%, you get a 115 wRC+ like last year.

.269 BABIP and 10.0 HR/FB%, you get a 53 wRC+ like 2021.

Last year itself is a tidy encapsulation of the phenomena…

Through Aug 22: 173 PA | .381 BABIP | 41.9 HR/FB% | 143 wRC+

After Aug 22: 93 PA | .319 BABIP | 6.3 HR/FB% | 63 wRC+

You gotta be kidding with this all.. he hit last year, this year. If you want career, his career #’s are better than a large majority on this team. This year, last year…. and what trumps it all is the guy Winker actually getting now 196 PA!!!! Throw his stats next to Winker’s. Your picking stats from 2021? Better include 2019 then too. 
The team is Crazy, dumb and stubborn with this issue. Put.last year Hiura in DH this year, even with his supposedly “bad” stats from last year, it plays big time this year. He could bat cleanup!
 

 

[rickh150]

And with how he hit as DH last year…and DH isn’t for everybody.  Some would and have found it tough to just sit and hit four or five times a game. 
98 PA, .949 OPS

[umphrey]

He’s really just in purgatory until the trade deadline and potentially past that depending on what happens. If he had options he probably would have been up and down once or more. 

[LouisEly]

On 7/20/2023 at 6:23 PM, DougJonesChangeUp said:

Did Keston not gel with CC or Murphy? There’s got to be something else going on, to not give him a chance this year.

It's unlikely but possible that it's another Taylor Jungmann situation where they've been asking him to make certain adjustments and he has quietly been refusing.  IIRC, that's why Jungmann never got another shot despite despite good numbers in AAA.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

It's unlikely but possible that it's another Taylor Jungmann situation where they've been asking him to make certain adjustments and he has quietly been refusing.  IIRC, that's why Jungmann never got another shot despite despite good numbers in AAA.

Hiura made plenty of adjustments to his swing and approach this offseason, to the tune where his k rate has plummeted...he deserves another extended look to see if those changes translate to MLB success.

I guess the Brewers would rather have Jones DHing and hitting 8th with Winker riding the MLB pine against a marginal RHP

 

[rickh150]

19 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Hiura made plenty of adjustments to his swing and approach this offseason, to the tune where his k rate has plummeted...he deserves another extended look to see if those changes translate to MLB success.

I guess the Brewers would rather have Jones DHing and hitting 8th with Winker riding the MLB pine against a marginal RHP

 

Yep. Seems like to spite themselves.

[Team Canada]

13 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Last year itself is a tidy encapsulation of the phenomena…

Through Aug 22: 173 PA | .381 BABIP | 41.9 HR/FB% | 143 wRC+

After Aug 22: 93 PA | .319 BABIP | 6.3 HR/FB% | 63 wRC+

I'm not saying we shouldn't try him again, but it's worth looking at those lines again. A 42% HR/FB%??

[sveumrules]

3 hours ago, Team Canada said:

I'm not saying we shouldn't try him again, but it's worth looking at those lines again. A 42% HR/FB%??

It was a minuscule, unsustainable sample. 13 HR out 31 fly balls in those 173 PA.

He struck out 74 times, walked 17 more and got plunked six times, so he only had 76 total batted balls to begin with.

Aaron Judge has a 32.5 career HR/FB%, anybody who posts anything over that for a stretch should be counted on to regress heavily, just as Keston did to close out 2022.

Hiura’s career HR/FB% is 23.1. Seriously, all this internet ink spilled over a couple wall scrapers in a 31 fly ball sample.

[Bulldogboy]

This situation needs more attention. I have not heard Counsell asked about this matter nor Arnold for that matter. There has to be more to this story. I was not aware that Winker on top of being embarrassingly bad is making 10 million dollars. If so this could be ownership saying sorry boys but we aren't cutting loose 10 million dollars. 

[Frisbee Slider]

MA is smart enough to understand ‘sunk costs.’ We paid Lorenzo Cain money to go away.

I can understand the idea that Winker is an established professional hitter who may bounce back. It actually doesn’t matter how bad Winker has been for the past three months. We need Winker or anyone to simply be good for the next three months.

That said, I’m willing to believe Milwaukee is keeping Keston off the 40-man roster until after the trade deadline. 

[young guns]

I can see the thought of, we are planning on adding via trade so if we bring him up now we don't get a good enough look at him and we might have to dfa him for the guy traded for and they dont want to do that if he might have figured it out. 

And there may have been discussion about bringing him up, but then he got injured and so this whole situation might be bad luck meets circumstance.

Overall, in my opinion he was done enough to get another, last, chance, especially with where winker is at, but it has to be a solid chance where he is given the everyday dh, or 1b, job and not a start once a week and get some pinch hit opportunities.  If nothing develops for a trade, dump winker and give the do to huira.  He can do worse and he should be able to hit a couple over the fence at least.

[Fear The Chorizo]

8 hours ago, sveumrules said:

It was a minuscule, unsustainable sample. 13 HR out 31 fly balls in those 173 PA.

He struck out 74 times, walked 17 more and got plunked six times, so he only had 76 total batted balls to begin with.

Aaron Judge has a 32.5 career HR/FB%, anybody who posts anything over that for a stretch should be counted on to regress heavily, just as Keston did to close out 2022.

Hiura’s career HR/FB% is 23.1. Seriously, all this internet ink spilled over a couple wall scrapers in a 31 fly ball sample.

I think the counterpoint is that Hiura's bad rate/projection stats people endlessly use to justify keeping him off the mlb roster and not giving him one last long, extended look as this organization's DH come from small samples split up over multiple years, too.

Hiura hasn't had a full season at the MLB level in his career to work through his struggles and either come out on the other end a better  hitter or wash out of the organization entirely.  I don't count a 60 game COVID season in year 2 of his MLB experience as one.  His performance in AAA/mlb last season and AAA so far this season justify him being in MLB right now and in the everyday lineup as the DH.  If the reason Hiura isn't up yet is 40 man roster manipulation through the trade deadline, it's a bad baseball move because there are plenty of players currently on the 40 man who could be DFA'd and likely wouldn't even get picked up by a different organization right now.

[wildcat2237]

I find this Hiura stuff to be really funny. Here is the readers digest version of the situation: 

In March 2023 Hiura did not make the team. In March 2023 the Brewers decided Hiura was no longer part of the teams future plan moving forward and they put him on waivers. Not one other team wanted him. Hiura was then sent to AAA as minor league filler to help the Sounds. He is essentially now a AAAA player. 

Its a bummer but its facts. 

Hiura proved over a large MLB sample size: 

1. He plays terrible defense. 

2. He whiffs at an alarming rate. 

3. He hits a few HR's, but not enough to overcome the whiffs. 

 

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, wildcat2237 said:

I find this Hiura stuff to be really funny. Here is the readers digest version of the situation: 

In March 2023 Hiura did not make the team. In March 2023 the Brewers decided Hiura was no longer part of the teams future plan moving forward and they put him on waivers. Not one other team wanted him. Hiura was then sent to AAA as minor league filler to help the Sounds. He is essentially now a AAAA player. 

Its a bummer but its facts. 

Hiura proved over a large MLB sample size: 

1. He plays terrible defense. 

2. He whiffs at an alarming rate. 

3. He hits a few HR's, but not enough to overcome the whiffs. 

 

4. Even with all his warts he's by far the best option we currently have at DH.

[Samurai Bucky]

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Hiura hasn't had a full season at the MLB level in his career to work through his struggles and either come out on the other end a better  hitter or wash out of the organization entirely.  I don't count a 60 game COVID season in year 2 of his MLB experience as one.  His performance in AAA/mlb last season and AAA so far this season justify him being in MLB right now and in the everyday lineup as the DH.  If the reason Hiura isn't up yet is 40 man roster manipulation through the trade deadline, it's a bad baseball move because there are plenty of players currently on the 40 man who could be DFA'd and likely wouldn't even get picked up by a different organization right now.

This begs the question:  what would be a sufficient sample size?  I agree that he has to be a better option than Winker and should get the opportunity.  Let's say, he gets called up today and plays the remainder of the games as a DH.  If he doesn't rake, will the next step be, "he needs to get a full season under his belt?"

If we are calling for Hiura to get these chances, then we can't call out Turang or other young players who, at least, are an asset defensively.  

[rickh150]

1 hour ago, wildcat2237 said:

I find this Hiura stuff to be really funny. Here is the readers digest version of the situation: 

In March 2023 Hiura did not make the team. In March 2023 the Brewers decided Hiura was no longer part of the teams future plan moving forward and they put him on waivers. Not one other team wanted him. Hiura was then sent to AAA as minor league filler to help the Sounds. He is essentially now a AAAA player. 

Its a bummer but its facts. 

Hiura proved over a large MLB sample size: 

1. He plays terrible defense. 

2. He whiffs at an alarming rate. 

3. He hits a few HR's, but not enough to overcome the whiffs. 

 

1. No errors at 1B (or DH) at AAA in over 100 innings

2. Better K rate this year.

3. Yes, it does overcome Ks… everyone takes his 2022 stats over our DH #s this year. Everyone, including CC, Arnold, and you. And that is what needs to be emphasized…..Low bar. And his promotion costs us no prospects. And we desperately need 1B and DH to play in our lineup. And everyone knows it. 

2022

765 OPS overall

.866 OPS vs RHP,

.949 OPS as DH

2023 AAA 

.308 Avg, .406 OB, .963 OPS, 14 HRs,, 1.063 OPS vs LHP

.