Keston Hiura has a .984 OPS in Nashville

[Brewcrew82]

3 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

For everyone now, if a DH now… you pick who it is… comes up this year and plays 20  games as DH over a few weeks of the season and hits .949 there, what would compel you to switch? There isn’t a good answer to this, just like there is no defense for this year’s DH with Hiura hitting well in AAA. 
And finally, the Brewers are asking for my criticism! They are. When they signed the guy to a $2.2 million contract and said we want you in this organization, they are saying we really value what you do or can do. But they obviously do not now and I am calling them on it.  Our hitting experts, who have not improved upon a single bat in the last three years (Urias, Taylor, Adames, Tellez) outside of Yelich (who had his own huge slide) carry little weight, the opposite of how the organization develops pitchers and catchers.
Hiura has exceeded expectations and the DH spot could not be worse. It could not. I could pick names out of a hat from who CC did not start, and I would have done better than him. And the guys Arnold has signed or called up before or instead of Hiura….he even goes outside of organization to get Jones… have flopped. None of them have hit better than Hiura 2022 or Hiura 2023.  

2023? That’s entirely AAA #s. 

Remember Luke Voit? He’s homered in 5 straight games in AAA and has a higher OPS than Hiura…That meant absolutely nothing when his spot came up in the order for us.

[sveumrules]

7 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

You could split stats like this for every player in every season. And we all know this.

Right, every player has ups and down throughout the season, but not every player gets hurt and then loses 270 points off their slugging when they return.

[csbysam]

I love that nothing can get the brewers fan base more fired up than a discussion on Huira. 

[rickh150]

3 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Yes, and you’re completely ignoring what we saw from 2020 to 2021 and the 42% K rate last year or AAA #s since returning from injury. That’s the context that is missing from your posts whenever you post Hiura’s stats from a single game or his OPS in 20 games at DH.

Not really. I am taking him as he is, warts and all. I am not calling for him to be our regular 1B. His defense is suspect, even though he has no errors at 1B this year. I hated watching him play 2B. I am taking him as a DH and a spot replacement/start at 1B or LF.

What is happening is that others are listing warts (defense, Krate, hbp, stats since injury, 2020/2021 stats) to support team’s reason for him staying down. Still, I am saying warts and all, Hiura STILL deserves to be up here helping us at DH. Most love the warts it seems. Those are littered here all over. I post his actual full season season stats as a counter to all this and I am the one missing context? Disagree strongly.

 

 

[rickh150]

17 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

2023? That’s entirely AAA #s. 

Remember Luke Voit? He’s homered in 5 straight games in AAA and has a higher OPS than Hiura…That meant absolutely nothing when his spot came up in the order for us.

Then take 2022 MLB stats. If AAA means nothing, then compare those. 

[sveumrules]

1 minute ago, rickh150 said:

Then take 2022 MLB stats. If AAA means nothing, then compare those. 

If MLB teams thought Keston's 2022 MLB stats were indicative of his true talent level he wouldn't be in AAA to begin with.

It appears that they put more stock in the repeatability of his 41.7% K rate than they do his 115 wRC+ propped up by an unsustainable .355 BABIP and 29.8% HR/FB rate.

[rickh150]

And like said previously, if he was sooo bad and sooo down on the pecking order, why even sign him? He does really well, better than expectations, and just sits in AAA while others fail here at 1B/DH..

Such a unique situation….in 99.9% of other situations, if you do well you get promoted. And If you are not promoted, it’s usually because you are either rather young or others above you are doing well too. In our situation, MLB DH does incredibly bad and Hiura does incredibly good.  And 1B had its issues. On top of it in this situation, the team did not have to sign Hiura. They were not stuck with him and his contract.

 

[rickh150]

9 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

If MLB teams thought Keston's 2022 MLB stats were indicative of his true talent level he wouldn't be in AAA to begin with.

It appears that they put more stock in the repeatability of his 41.7% K rate than they do his 115 wRC+ propped up by an unsustainable .355 BABIP and 29.8% HR/FB rate.

So Brewers sign him for $2.2 million to seemingly hit for Nashville for the entire 2023 season and be their 8th back up at DH or 1B.
Great plan. 

[Team Canada]

7 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

the team did not have to sign Hiura. They were not stuck with him and his contract.

 

Is this actually true? They DFAed him, no one else wanted him, and so he was outrighted to Nashville. Or you mean the fact that they signed him to begin with?

[sveumrules]

Just now, rickh150 said:

So Brewers sign him for $2.2 million to seemingly hit for Nashville for the entire 2023 season and be their 8th back up at DH or 1B.
Great plan. 

No, they signed him for $2.2M as a depth option for an as yet uncompleted season.

He likely would have been called up when Winker got injured if he himself wasn't already injured at the time.

He could be traded at the deadline, he could be called up after the deadline since August waiver trades don't exist anymore.

Still plenty of time to get some ROI. 

[Ro Mueller]

22 hours ago, rickh150 said:

So Brewers sign him for $2.2 million to seemingly hit for Nashville for the entire 2023 season and be their 8th back up at DH or 1B.
Great plan. 

The offseason plan, even if it was flawed, was for Hiura to make the Opening Day MLB roster, splitting DH duties with Winker.

But Hiura hit .156 in spring training and more importantly looked totally lost while K’ing 15 times in 32 ABs. So the team grudgingly went with Voit instead.

Then, as we often do with players (see Frelick, Almonte and Mathias last year), we watched him tear it up in AAA in April instead of making the gutsy early call to replace Voit, Winker or someone else.

We did the exact same thing with Singleton in May, watching him launch 7 homers in 17 games and only reluctantly promoting him in June after Winker got hurt.

And now did the same thing with Toro this month, watching him tear it up in AAA but not promoting him even when the MLB player at his natural position (Brian Anderson - 3B) went down.

[Robocaller]

The only thing that makes sense with regard to how the Brewers are treating Hiura is:

1) They value him enough to pay him some good coin to be in AAA.

2a) They value him enough that they didn't want to bring him up for a short while and require to expose him if they sent him down.

2b) Meaning they'll only bring him up after the trading deadline, if at all.

2c) They don't have confidence that he would hit well enough to keep his 26-man slot if they did bring him up.

3) They were keeping him around and probably would have eventually brought him up if they didn't acquire a 1B or DH. 

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Can they trade him to some team that will give him ABs for the rest of the year? It seems the best thing for both parties.

 

 

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, Robocaller said:

The only thing that makes sense with regard to how the Brewers are treating Hiura is:

1) They value him enough to pay him some good coin to be in AAA.

2a) They value him enough that they didn't want to bring him up for a short while and require to expose him if they sent him down.

2b) Meaning they'll only bring him up after the trading deadline, if at all.

2c) They don't have confidence that he would hit well enough to keep his 26-man slot if they did bring him up.

3) They were keeping him around and probably would have eventually brought him up if they didn't acquire a 1B or DH. 

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Can they trade him to some team that will give him ABs for the rest of the year? It seems the best thing for both parties.

Best thing for everyone except @Brock Beauchamp, Hiura is probably driving like 41.7% of all site traffic single handedly.

[Brock Beauchamp]

39 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Best thing for everyone except @Brock Beauchamp, Hiura is probably driving like 41.7% of all site traffic single handedly.

I’m pulling for him to be traded so I can Scrooge McDuck dive into a pile of money. 

[CheeseheadInQC]

*Checks Nashville box*

Post coming in 3 … 2 … 1 …

😀

[Guest]

At this point they could have Woodruff switch to hitting only and call him up to DH and it would at least be an attempt at improvement. I don't care if it's Hiura or Black or whomever. I just want them to try to find a competent hitter to play the role of designated hitter.

Much like picking up Santana to play at 1B, even an average, or slightly below average, bat at DH would be a pretty big boost.

 

[Jopal78]

Don’t overlook the fact the Brewers released Brosseau (another DFA’d player outrighted to AAA) go play in Japan.
 

If ANY team thought Hiura was worthy of a roster spot, I’m sure, just like with Brosseau, the Brewers would have released him to pursue that opportunity. That he’s still in AAA without so much as a sniff from other clubs says a lot. 

[Team Canada]

It's possible it's the opposite - they don't care about Brosseau and are happy to let him go, whereas they still see some potential with Hiura. Obviously at one point they were fine with other clubs taking his contract, but at this point in time, there still could be some hope that he does something in the majors again.

[Outlander]

There are plenty of teams that would play Hiura right now, just be patient. He will be in the bigs in August. 

[Samurai Bucky]

12 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

If ANY team thought Hiura was worthy of a roster spot, I’m sure, just like with Brosseau, the Brewers would have released him to pursue that opportunity. That he’s still in AAA without so much as a sniff from other clubs says a lot. 

Yeah?  Well, all of the other clubs are stupid.  That's the ticket.

[rickh150]

10 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

Yeah?  Well, all of the other clubs are stupid.  That's the ticket.

Almost as much  as our DH hot potato decision makers… let’s try everyone else and others outside the organization BEFORE the guy with the good numbers in MLB 2022 that we actually thought enough of to give $2.2 million….and then he outperforms those expectations and still cannot get a call…, Always some thing.

And the argument of value now is way different than after ST when rosters are being cut and squeezed already and he was awful at a 2.2 mil pickup.
Must be nice to hide behind management at every turn and decision and not think for yourself.  A good bandwagon soldier. 

[Jopal78]

34 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Almost as much  as our DH hot potato decision makers… let’s try everyone else and others outside the organization BEFORE the guy with the good numbers in MLB 2022 that we actually thought enough of to give $2.2 million….and then he outperforms those expectations and still cannot get a call…, Always some thing.

You make it sound a lot like the Brewers have moved on from Keston Hiura…..hmmmm

[rickh150]

33 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

You make it sound a lot like the Brewers have moved on from Keston Hiura…..hmmmm

Feels like it if he hasn’t gotten called up yet…. Maybe they are keeping him as the secret weapon for the big showdown.

[rickh150]

On 7/28/2023 at 4:25 PM, Brewcrew82 said:

2023? That’s entirely AAA #s. 

Remember Luke Voit? He’s homered in 5 straight games in AAA and has a higher OPS than Hiura…That meant absolutely nothing when his spot came up in the order for us.

And last year’s MLB #’s… with our MLB team.
Can’t really compare Voit’s #s with Hiura’s 2023 MLB #s….. you can compare Voit’s 2023 #s with Hiura’s 2022 #s though.

[rickh150]

15 hours ago, Outlander said:

There are plenty of teams that would play Hiura right now, just be patient. He will be in the bigs in August. 

Glad you are sure…. I am not. And if he is up, give him daily at bats at DH.