2024 MLB Miscellaneous News

[KeithStone53151]

18 hours ago, sveumrules said:

If it were really that simple Hiura wouldn't have a .207 batting average and 38.2 K% in the 717 major league plate appearances he has taken since his rookie season.

I watched his atbats yesterday, first at bat...Jon Gray threw him 3 high fastballs to get 2 strikes and then a curveball in the dirt to strike him out. Small sample, but it seems that simple. Gray throws 92-94 and his fastball looked pretty straight to me. It's about as bland as you're going to get at this level...and Hiura still couldn't handle it at the belt.

[KeithStone53151]

16 hours ago, homer said:

He's a horrible defender. Maybe he's thought of a little differently if he was adequate at 2nd base.

Agreed. It certainly is difficult to give rope to a 1b/DH. If he was Turang as a defender, with his potential with the bat Hiura without question would get a ton more rope.

[rickh150]

17 hours ago, Vgmastr said:

A lot of fringe major leaguers can hit AAA pitching.  Clearly from what the Brewers saw from Keston's swing last year, they didn't think it would translate to major league success.

That is what is maddening…they brought him back in 2023 by giving him $2 million!  Does that sound like they were convinced he couldn’t play at the major league level. And more importantly, he had better OPS than about anyone on the Brewers team in 2022!  

And then when ALL our backups/DH cannot hit with a laughable OPS around the lows.600 and dead last in 2023 (even with great Sept. numbers), the top hitting guy in almost all AAA cannot come up and hit EVEN then. EVEN THEN!

So all who want to defend the Brewers and be company guys with this, you have no leg to stand on. And to make matters even worse, Winker and his awful season gets miraculously put on our postseason roster after six weeks hurt/minors and is the first person to pinch hit against a righty vs the Braves. The boos are still resounding in some darkened corner in AmFam with that.

I would have loved to have seen Hiura get an opportunity here last year at DH in the lower part of the order. He could have played poorly and outhit whatever we threw out there…,backup catchers.  Give him the at bats and routine (in 2022 hit in every spot of the order- remarkable, and played in four different positions in the field….even then he outhit most of the team!) and he might actually be a player that isn’t so easily brushed aside.

[Brewcrew82]

9 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

That is what is maddening…they brought him back in 2023 by giving him $2 million!  Does that sound like they were convinced he couldn’t play at the major league level. And more importantly, he had better OPS than about anyone on the Brewers team in 2022!  

And then when ALL our backups/DH cannot hit with a laughable OPS around the lows.600 and dead last in 2023 (even with great Sept. numbers), the top hitting guy in almost all AAA cannot come up and hit EVEN then. EVEN THEN!

So all who want to defend the Brewers and be company guys with this, you have no leg to stand on. And to make matters even worse, Winker and his awful season gets miraculously put on our postseason roster after six weeks hurt/minors and is the first person to pinch hit against a righty vs the Braves. The boos are still resounding in some darkened corner in AmFam with that.

I would have loved to have seen Hiura get an opportunity here last year at DH in the lower part of the order. He could have played poorly and outhit whatever we threw out there…,backup catchers.  Give him the at bats and routine (in 2022 hit in every spot of the order- remarkable, and played in four different positions in the field….even then he outhit most of the team!) and he might actually be a player that isn’t so easily brushed aside.

We played the Braves in the postseason last year?

Also, if you're using past seasons and this year, Winker has way more success as a hitter than Hiura....

[TURBO]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

We played the Braves in the postseason last year?

Also, if you're using past seasons and this year, Winker has way more success as a hitter than Hiura....

You can't defend Winker here, you just can't.  His playoff pinch hit appearance that Rich is talking about was about the worst piece of managing all year, and that is saying a lot.

Winker being put on the roster at all is even worse.

You just can't defend anything having to do with Winker last year, you just can't.

[Brewcrew82]

11 minutes ago, TURBO said:

You can't defend Winker here, you just can't.  His playoff pinch hit appearance that Rich is talking about was about the worst piece of managing all year, and that is saying a lot.

Winker being put on the roster at all is even worse.

You just can't defend anything having to do with Winker last year, you just can't.

I'm not "defending Winker". I'm just pointing out the flaws in Rick's logic if he's dismissing even more ABs of Hiura sucking here since 2019. 

[brewerfan82]

8 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Winker being put on the roster at all is even worse.

You just can't defend anything having to do with Winker last year, you just can't.

A challenge! Jk, not really defending how long they kept him on board, but thought it'd be interesting to take a look at "if" they thought his 2022 year was an aberration (at only a slightly above average 108 wRC+) how the previous three years compares to what he's doing this year:

2019-2021:


2024:


Just thought that was interesting ;)

[sveumrules]

12 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

A challenge! Jk, not really defending how long they kept him on board, but thought it'd be interesting to take a look at "if" they thought his 2022 year was an aberration (at only a slightly above average 108 wRC+) how the previous three years compares to what he's doing this year:

2019-2021:


2024:


Just thought that was interesting ;)

Brewers seem to be a very process themed organization, which I'd guess is a big reason Winker (0.71 BB/K career) and McCutchen (0.63 BB/K career) got more opportunities than Keston (0.20 BB/K career) at the DH spot.

[rickh150]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

We played the Braves in the postseason last year?

Also, if you're using past seasons and this year, Winker has way more success as a hitter than Hiura....

Arizona….

I am using how simply bad Winker was in 2023 and how many at bats he received because he was supposed to be good. He hit second for half the year. He was awful.  

I have no idea how you are making any case for Winker.  No idea what you are talking about.  Winker got ALL the breaks with the team last year to a fault, Craig’s fault, and we were stung by any faith put in him. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the team pretended to like Hiura, paid him, watched him perform extremely well in 2023 AAAalong with good in Milwaukee in 2022, and then sat on their hands to watch Winker and 18 other DH and back ups do little to nothing.

[RWeeksFan23]

All this Keston Hiura talk got me thinking of right after he was drafted, and he was in the booth with BA and Rock, and he was in the middle of saying something and just casually said "hitting is the easy part"

Man if only.

[Brewcrew82]

21 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Arizona….

I am using how simply bad Winker was in 2023 and how many at bats he received because he was supposed to be good. He hit second for half the year. He was awful.  

I have no idea how you are making any case for Winker.  No idea what you are talking about.  Winker got ALL the breaks with the team last year to a fault, Craig’s fault, and we were stung by any faith put in him. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the team pretended to like Hiura, paid him, watched him perform extremely well in 2023 AAAalong with good in Milwaukee in 2022, and then sat on their hands to watch Winker and 18 other DH and back ups do little to nothing.

Once again, I am not "defending" or "making any case for Winker". I am simply pointing out the illogic in you selectively dismissing A) Winker's much larger sample size of being an effective MLB hitter and B) Hiura's much larger sample size of being a poor hitter as a Brewer

Winker received a grand total 166 ABs as a Brewer. Hiura averaged more than that from 2021-2022, a time period in which you persistently claim he was mismanaged and maligned while Winker got "All the breaks to a fault."

Why did Winker get those 166 ABs in 2023 and Hiura received 0? Again, because Winker had a much better and more consistent track record of being a good MLB hitter than Hiura AND because Hiura got injured right during the pre-deadline period when they may have considered calling him up. 

[rickh150]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Once again, I am not "defending" or "making any case for Winker". I am simply pointing out the illogic in you selectively dismissing A) Winker's much larger sample size of being an effective MLB hitter and B) Hiura's much larger sample size of being a poor hitter as a Brewer

Winker received a grand total 166 ABs as a Brewer. Hiura averaged more than that from 2021-2022, a time period in which you persistently claim he was mismanaged and maligned while Winker got "All the breaks to a fault."

Why did Winker get those 166 ABs in 2023 and Hiura received 0? Again, because Winker had a much better and more consistent track record of being a good MLB hitter than Hiura AND because Hiura got injured right during the pre-deadline period when they may have considered calling him up. 

Brewers coulda shoulda called him up and there were plenty of times to do it, pre and post injury….

I didnt mind the Winker signing one bit!  I thought he could be an upgrade somewhere. He wasn’t. Why he was kept thru the sad weeks and then months of middle of the order ABs (Winker/Adames/Rowdy) to the postseason I do not know. 

Why Winker got all the breaks, I do not know. Like you said, his career is likely why. But how did that work out for the Brewers?  And why Hiura couldn’t be brought up instaed of oh let’s see…John Singleton, Darin Ruf, Luke Voit….guys that were similar but outside the organization, I do not understand.

The easy answer is that they should have just let him go after 2022 because they thought so very, very, very little of a guy with a higher career OPS than their current cleanup hitter.

[rickh150]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Once again, I am not "defending" or "making any case for Winker". I am simply pointing out the illogic in you selectively dismissing A) Winker's much larger sample size of being an effective MLB hitter and B) Hiura's much larger sample size of being a poor hitter as a Brewer.

Hiura was not a poor hitter for the team in 2022 and should have been given many more ABs that season. Instead, he was yanked around mercilessly. 

[Thurston Fluff]

4 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Brewers coulda shoulda called him up and there were plenty of times to do it, pre and post injury….

I didnt mind the Winker signing one bit!  I thought he could be an upgrade somewhere. He wasn’t. Why he was kept thru the sad weeks and then months of middle of the order ABs (Winker/Adames/Rowdy) to the postseason I do not know. 

Why Winker got all the breaks, I do not know. Like you said, his career is likely why. But how did that work out for the Brewers?  And why Hiura couldn’t be brought up instaed of oh let’s see…John Singleton, Darin Ruf, Luke Voit….guys that were similar but outside the organization, I do not understand.

The easy answer is that they should have just let him go after 2022 because they thought so very, very, very little of a guy with a higher career OPS than their current cleanup hitter.

I think what Winker is doing now shows why they kept trotting him out there last season. It's hard to know when things will click after injuries. Look how long it took Yelich to return to form for example. His return didn't start until part of last season was played. While it didn't work out with Winker can you imagine what we'd be saying now if we'd have traded Yelich in January 2023?

[rickh150]

14 minutes ago, Thurston Fluff said:

I think what Winker is doing now shows why they kept trotting him out there last season. It's hard to know when things will click after injuries. Look how long it took Yelich to return to form for example. His return didn't start until part of last season was played. While it didn't work out with Winker can you imagine what we'd be saying now if we'd have traded Yelich in January 2023?

Depends on what we were able to get back, ala Burnes trade.

I know it’s not popular to say, but this offseason might be the perfect time to get a couple quality prospects back for All Star Yelich along with saving over $100 million for the back end of Yelich’s career. Our OF is stacked with guys fighting for ABs. All are better defensive options too.

[Thurston Fluff]

9 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Depends on what we were able to get back, ala Burnes trade.

I know it’s not popular to say, but this offseason might be the perfect time to get a couple quality prospects back for All Star Yelich along with saving over $100 million for the back end of Yelich’s career. Our OF is stacked with guys fighting for ABs. All are better defensive options too.

You missed the point. I used Yleich as an example of how hard it is to project when someone will come back from injury. That Winker has returned to form only lends credence to the reasoning behind playing him over Keston last season.

[rickh150]

20 minutes ago, Thurston Fluff said:

You missed the point. I used Yleich as an example of how hard it is to project when someone will come back from injury. That Winker has returned to form only lends credence to the reasoning behind playing him over Keston last season.

If the Brewers let Winker go at the All Star break in 2023, do you think the majority of Brewers fans would object? A very low percent would. And this is mid season! They trotted him out more in the 2nd half, and then when everyone thinks his Brewers reign is over, the trot him back to pinch hit after not facing MLB pitching for what, six weeks? 

In summary, they gave Winker a shot, and I was very glad for that. His numbers career wise are impressive.  It all backfired though keeping him around for an extended period of time to a fault.  Winker hitting this year does not make up for the craziness of 2023 and the boos of those pinch hit ABs.

[Thurston Fluff]

12 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

If the Brewers let Winker go at the All Star break in 2023, do you think the majority of Brewers fans would object? A very low percent would. And this is mid season! They trotted him out more in the 2nd half, and then when everyone thinks his Brewers reign is over, the trot him back to pinch hit after not facing MLB pitching for what, six weeks? 

In summary, they gave Winker a shot, and I was very glad for that. His numbers career wise are impressive.  It all backfired though keeping him around for an extended period of time to a fault.  Winker hitting this year does not make up for the craziness of 2023 and the boos of those pinch hit ABs.

Yes it backfired but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to go with him over Hiura. When presented with two struggling players, one with no excuse for his struggles and one who is coming back from injury it makes sense to think the one who had a reason for his lack of production would eventually come around. The other not so much.

[rickh150]

2 hours ago, Thurston Fluff said:

Yes it backfired but that doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to go with him over Hiura. When presented with two struggling players, one with no excuse for his struggles and one who is coming back from injury it makes sense to think the one who had a reason for his lack of production would eventually come around. The other not so much.

Hiura wasn’t struggling in 2022 (.765 and 115 wRC+)…..team OPS is .733 right now. His numbers were better than almost everyone returning in 2023. And his 2023/2024 milb numbers are well above avg.
I think a big part of this is that CC had a belief that everyone on the bench should be a defense plus player at different positions. And if Winker was the exception, then Hiura didn’t have a place.

[LouisEly]

Zack Wheeler left Tuesday's game early with lower back tightness.  Said his back had been bothering him lately.

All it takes is a couple of injuries...

[Team Canada]

I'm not going to feel bad for them, but the Dodgers pitchers currently on the IL: Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Emmet Sheehan, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin.

[LouisEly]

9 hours ago, Team Canada said:

I'm not going to feel bad for them, but the Dodgers pitchers currently on the IL: Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Emmet Sheehan, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin.

And Tyler Glasnow and Brusdar Graterol.

[TURBO]

26 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

And Tyler Glasnow and Brusdar Graterol.

and even in all that chaos, Bobbly Miller was so bad, they sent him down to AAA this week...

[Brian]

On 7/9/2024 at 10:46 AM, Brewcrew82 said:

We played the Braves in the postseason last year?

Also, if you're using past seasons and this year, Winker has way more success as a hitter than Hiura....

Winker had about 4-5 very good years during his career, Hiura had zero good years. 

[TURBO]

12 hours ago, Brian said:

Hiura had zero good years.