How the Brewers Will Try to Unlock Owen Miller's Inner Luis Urías

In what figures to be the last twist of the Brewers’ long spring of roster uncertainty, Owen Miller made the Opening Day roster, relegating Joey Wiemer to Triple-A Nashville. The reason is partly roster math, but it's also partly about Miller, whom the team might have unlocked this spring with some refinements to his approach.

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It came a couple beats after the barrage of news early on Monday, which included Luke Voit re-signing on a big-league deal and Brice Turang officially making the cut. Owen Miller is a Wisconsin native and a fine, versatile player, but for many fans, taking him over an outfield prospect as highly-regarded as Joey Wiemer was the wimpy choice. The only thing more frustrating than following a team that doesn’t take a far-sighted approach to roster decisions is following one that takes an extremely far-sighted one, and the Brewers are the latter.

That’s a good thing, in the long run. While they have less of a crunch on the 40-man roster than many other teams right now, the Brewers are rightfully cognizant of the costs and risks that come with putting a player they hope will be a long-term part of the organization onto the 40-man roster. In the case of Wiemer, it wouldn’t have triggered any immediate crisis, but if Tyrone Taylor’s rehab goes smoothly, he could be back with the team by May 1. At that point, they’d need to demote Wiemer, and they’d be one player shallower in the upper minors for having forced him into the picture right away.

Of course, it’s far from a guarantee that Taylor will be back that soon. The elbow injury with which he’s dealing has already required a platelet-rich plasma injection, which tends to mean that there’s some substantial damage or inflammation in the affected area. The key thing to keep in mind, then, is that the Brewers still have the ability to option Miller (or someone else) in a couple of weeks, or to make Wiemer the first callup to the parent club, if they start to sense that Taylor is going to have a long road back to the lineup.

In the meantime, Miller has more to recommend him than meets the eye, and it’s a good bet that the Brewers believe they can boost his production well above the 89 OPS+ he put up with Cleveland in 2022. If there’s one thing Milwaukee has consistently done in recent years, it’s helping hitters make good swing decisions. They pride themselves on not expanding the zone, but also on crushing what’s within their hitting zones. That’s exactly where Miller needs help.

Last year, Miller did several things well. He’s fast. He fielded three infield positions sure-handedly. He also made contact at a healthy rate. His deficiencies were a lack of authoritative contact and too little patience at the plate. For his career, he’s walked in just 6.1 percent of his plate appearances.

A few years ago, Luis Urías was in the same position. In his two stints with the Padres, he had an OPS+ of 76, thanks to a pitiful hard-hit rate and too many strikeouts for that profile, Those issues carried over into his first season with the Brewers, the pandemic-ruined 2020. Since then, though, Urías has become a dangerous and fascinating hitter, and much of it can be chalked up to the way he and the Brewers’ hitting coaches have overhauled his approach.

Urías leverages the count by adjusting his swing rates to it. That doesn’t sound revolutionary. Every serious hitter does it, and certainly, every MLB hitter does it. The trick is that every hitter has to do it uniquely. The best situational approach, based on count, depends on a hitter’s strengths and weaknesses, and on what pitchers might be expected to throw them in that situation.

Both Urías and Miller are right-handed hitters with line-drive swings. When they’re right, they hit the ball in the most productive band of launch angles more often than a typical hitter. Both also make contact at above-average rates. However, they both also have below-average power, in an absolute sense. That means that their approaches based on count should be very similar. They can expect similar things from pitchers, and their swings and skills create roughly the same balance of risk and reward when they make their swing decisions.

Here’s how often each swung last year, based on who was ahead in the count, and where their respective swing rates ranked among qualifying batters.

That’s the difference between Luis Urías and Owen Miller–a 110 OPS+ and an 89. It’s all in the fact that, with the count in their favor, Urías was able to be patient, knowing that even if the pitcher stole a strike against him, he could try to spoil a two-strike offering, and if the pitcher elected to be careful, he would only get further ahead, or else draw a walk. Miller, meanwhile, got antsy. He tried to attack anything he saw once he got ahead, and it didn’t work, because he’s not that kind of hitter.

It would be unfair to expect Miller to instantly morph into Urías this season. There is an often underrated element of intrinsic talent involved in pitch identification and plate discipline, and Miller might not be able to see and react to pitches quite as consistently as Urías does. On the other hand, he’s looked phenomenal this spring at the plate, and he’s an even better overall athlete than Urías is. It might be that the Brewers have found another solid piece for their lineup, just by helping him make the same approach adjustments that worked for his new teammate.

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