Fear The Chorizo

Hiura's 2023 walk rate - 10% Canha's 2023 walk rate - 10.5%

This thread really started early last summer, when Hiura's last MiLB option was burned so the Brewers could call up Connor Sadzeck to give them an extra bullpen arm for a handful of games before the AS Break, and earlier that season by putting Hiura on the Opening Day roster despite also paying McCutcheon to be the primary DH and then not giving Hiura regular playing time against RHP when nobody else was hitting, either. That July demotion for Sadzeck really stuck out, because Hiura was OPS-ing over 1.000 in the 12 games leading up to it. The move made zero baseball sense and was done entirely because other position players that were in Milwaukee didn't have options remaining and the Brewers always want to carry a billion relievers - so instead of DFA-ing others who weren't hitting at the time they picked the guy who was more or less carrying them at the plate during that stretch to go back down. At this point, the Brewers have gotten average DH production in recent weeks, and the trade for Canha has helped that - but I don't get why the Brewers just didn't call up Hiura internally instead of making that trade. His production in August strongly suggests that's a very reasonable position to take. The Brewers wound up having to clear a 40 man roster spot anyway to bring Canha into the mix, so it's not just about Hiura not currently being on the 40 man. The only explanation is they prefer Canha's middling defense at corner OF and 1B positions as an added bit of roster flexibility to fill the primary DH role, despite having a gameday roster that currently has 4 other OFs and now 2 other 1B on it. The collection of roster moves with Hiura compared to other young players and even moreso to non-core veteran players who haven't hit at the MLB level is the reason why this thread has as much life to it as it does - Why hasn't Wiemer been sent down to AAA at any point this season to try and get going offensively and potentially add another season of MLB control? Turang was sent down for a bit, and as soon as he showed improvement at the plate was back up in Milwaukee. Why has Tyrone Taylor gotten extended leashes to find his multiweek hot streaks and stay on the roster when the Brewers are currently loaded up with young OFs who provide good defense? Why has Winker spent an entire season on the 40 man without being DFA'd despite zero MLB production when he also can't play defense or stay healthy? Couple that with seeing a 26-27 yr old former 1st round pick hitting 0.320 with 22 HRs in 77 AAA games, and Hiura turns into a flashpoint for larger frustration with how the organization manages its MLB roster with hitting being a much lower priority than pitching, defense, baserunning, and apparently defensive versatility.

I'm not familiar enough with the ramifications of that reduced salary option if the Brewers add Hiura back to the 40 man before the Rule V draft in the offseason...outside of Quero there really aren't any other prospects that would be a huge priority to protect this offseason, so the Brewers would have ample room to put Hiura back on their 40 man and protect him through spring training next season, too. In the end we're talking the difference of a million bucks after they've been ok with paying Hiura a couple million to play all season in AAA (was a sunk cost anyway, just like lighting $8M on fire for Winker's "production" this season), so the value to the Brewers would be maintaining roster depth/flexibility (like it always is) and then heading into the 2024 Spring Training with Hiura and 18 other middling veteran options vying for part time MLB DH duty next season.

I don't think the Cubs have enough pitching to stay hot enough to pass the Brewers provided Milwaukee keeps getting even average production offensively now that the Brewers are running out Burnes, Woody, and Peralta more often than not on the mound..

Sigh - guessing Hiura would be among the league leaders in defensive range factor at the DH position...and if you'd look at a digital animation of his 2023 swing compared to what it looked like at various stages from 2020-2022 you wouldn't be able to tell it was the same player. But sure, let's keep bringing up old and at this point worthless stats during sporadic at best playing time as reason why Hiura won't be able to hit if he was up in MLB again right now, while also neglecting to include his 2019 MLB stats that contradict the theory. The reason why Hiura hasn't been called up this season is the Brewers value defensive versatility at the DH spot on their roster and they opted to pay ~$8M to Winker to OPS sub-600 at the MLB level and spend half the season in the minors himself rehabbing instead of DFA-ing him - both of which IMO is madness. On top of that, they torched through Hiura's MiLB options far too readily in 2021 and 2022 because the other MLB vets who also weren't hitting at any given time didn't have options, so he's not on the 40 man roster at present, and a callup would require someone else to get DFA'd. That makes even a September callup more difficult managing the roster than simply sending Hiura a plane ticket to Milwaukee on August 31. A September callup would totally be the Brewers' way of managing Hiura at the MLB level once again - that would mean limited playing time, sporadic ABs, and even if he does hit well he wouldn't be eligible for the postseason roster. IF there's anything to the weird extra year of roster control the Brewers have with Hiura due to him being on the MLB roster the full COVID season and it coming at a reduced salary being the reason why he hasn't been up in Milwaukee this season, his representation should look long and hard about filing a grievance with the players union.

Next offseason? absolutely

This is very common for star players on their rookie deals who weren't drafted in the 1st round, meaning they're on 4 year contracts with no option for a team to extend a lucrative 5th year option and use that extra guaranteed year as a starting point for a longterm extension. And it isn't really an issue limited to running backs in the NFL. Specific to Taylor, to get what he wants he has to be on the field. Aaron Jones got his 1st big payday after playing out his 4 year rookie deal and became a free agent - he still opted to stay in GB signing that deal. I hope his representation is giving him some good advice - this is probably the year to work out a longterm extension with the Colts if he actually wanted to stay there, but it's not the time to try and push your way out of town to a different team when there are so few with healthy cap situations to actually give him a large guaranteed deal. Sure, the Colts could franchise Taylor next offseason, but they would then shop him via trade leading up to the draft across the whole league, likely sending Taylor to a team that's a good fit for him and getting more value back. Then again, now actually would be the time to gripe and try to force his way out for a new contract if Taylor did have some lingering injury concerns with that ankle or any other issue.

Didn't Taylor also fail his pre-camp physical due to a combo of a bad ankle that's already undergone surgery once and a potential back injury that the Colts are claiming happened off the field? I don't see any team willing to part ways with a draft pick package equal to a 1st rounder in a trade to appease the Colts, let alone also want to hand him a longterm contract paying him $10M a season without knowing if he's damaged goods or not. Not getting on the field to show other teams he's fully healthy is no way to wind up securing a trade to a new team and a fat new contract, so I think there's something serious going on with Taylor's health right now. Some of the antics between him and Irsay could stem from Taylor's frustration with not being 100% healthy with a risk of him not ever being the same player that would be deserving of a big contract. Taylor's collegiate workload has to be taken in consideration when trying to determine how much good tread he has left on the tires, too. He didn't suffer a ton of injuries that would cause him to miss time, but he did push through a bunch of minor injuries any RB who touches the ball almost 1,000 times in 3 seasons would suffer. Bellcow running backs are indeed a dying breed in the NFL - and for the few elite ones that are still around, they need to pick the right offseason to hold out/force a team's hand on a new contract to get paid while they can. Unfortunately for Taylor, he seems to have waited one offseason too long since he's not healthy and really has no leverage until he is back on the field.

It's all circular to you I guess, because most of what you posted in this quote above either isn't entirely accurate or is your theory as to why different things happened. I know I'm not going to change your opinion, and I hope you know whatever point you're trying to make about Hiura isn't going to resonate with me at all, either.

He obviously didn't say as much and his actions suggest he isn't convinced a hitting approach shouldn't be open to change - particularly because he has dabbled with different stances, hand placements, preswing loadings, and swing paths multiple times (including during his first few minor league seasons and offseasons before he initially did reach mlb). So, in short, there's absolutely no point to psychoanalyze a theory that isn't based in reality.

Here I thought the whole reason he's not in the majors was his old approach got exposed by MLB pitching and he needed to make a significant adjustment to be a mlb hitter longterm. His willingness to go back to the drawing board and remake his swing is a sign of his confidence as a hitter IMO - if he didn't think he could hit any other way he'd still be trying to touch his chin with every leg kick in hopes he'd slug enough for a team to give him another shot. And I'd add that the initial swing change Hiura made to try and generate a better launch angle/more HR pop was probably the main reason his production cratered in 2020-2021 - when he was drafted with a hit tool considered the best in his draft year, he was not considered to have 30+ HR power potential over the course of a full season, more of a high average doubles bat that would hit 20ish HRs a year. What I'm seeing from Hiura now looks more like that type of player than the 2021-2022 version who would hit 35HR over 600 MLB plate appearances, but only hit around 0.215 and strike out 230+ times. Hiura's OPS-ing close to 1.000, hitting over 0.300, and I think leading the organization in HR for the season despite missing about 1.5 months of the year due to a minor knee injury - the changes he's made to his approach need to be looked at when facing MLB pitching for an extended run, because the numbers he's putting up this year in AAA are that impressive...it's unfortunate that doesn't appear likely to happen with the Brewers, when they've spent most of this season desperate for RH pop in the lineup.

Hiura's stance, load/leg kick, and swing look much different now than even last season when he was trying to reduce the leg kick and eliminate the gaping hole his old swing had with pitches above the belt. He is starting off more upright and is much quieter with his front side, then simply taking bat to ball. Not nearly the moving parts with leg kick and hands loading getting to the hitting zone, but still elite bat speed. Makes some sense that knee injury sapped him of some pop for awhile after he came back because he uses his legs to generate all his power in his current swing. He may always struggle a bit with velocity upstairs (most hitters do), but I think his new approach will prevent him from being an auto swing and miss at those pitches at the MLB level - dude needs to up!

Hmmm...ok, that's a bit different then - but I still think game situation dictates being aggressive and trying to score on contact in that spot. Scoreless game in the 6th. Meanwhile, Cy Lynn on his way to a CG shutout🤢

To be fair, if Taylor doesn't break for home there the Dodgers probably turn a double play and he's standing on 3rd with 2 outs. you can't read and react to exactly where a ball is hit towards the middle if a pitcher will field it or not. Middle IF is at double play depth in that situation, so, unless it's hit right towards you at third base if it's a grounder you head for home trying to scratch that 1st run of the game across.

It's almost like he should actually get a day or two fully off instead of DH-ing so he doesn't wear down. 0.692 August OPS for Contreras btw, who also gets his "days off" DH-ing. Jeez, they're going to find a way to not score this inning, too

I feel like WAR is a terrible stat to use when evaluating DH productivity, particularly with a team like the Brewers who probably get most of any positive impact at dh when they have to put Yelich or Contreras in that spot this season, and in turn have to weaken their lineup elsewhere by starting a backup in LF or catcher. Not having a guy you can expect to be a positive offensive player at that position has a cascading effect on the rosters ability to consistently score runs. Just stick with more traditional offensive stats to see if a team is getting production from the DH spot in the order. OPS to me is a good indicator if a team is getting enough slugging from that spot.

It's already mid August...the Brewers appear to be pretty good at ignoring Hiura this season so I don't expect that to change - and even if they do I would expect them to wait until September callups to add Hiura as a bench bat/part time player, not plugging him into the daily lineup as DH.

I mean, I guess it's not to the extent of oil companies yet simply because the scales we are talking about even now aren't remotely comparable with all the lithium/cobalt/etc mining to date helping to get 1.5% of cars on the road today being powered by EV batteries. And, O&G companies make much more than gasoline and fuel from the oil the extract - they aren't going away anytime soon no matter how many or few ICE passenger cars are on the road over time. China is jumping head first into EV car production not because of any green/renewable efforts - it's because they also happen to control most of the world's known supply of mineable battery minerals and do most of the high heat manufacturing for batteries (and frankly most of the world's other material needs that require high heat processes) powered by an electrical grid driven by coal. China got a big head start because they already had the supply chain and mining reserve rights gobbled up for phone/computer/electronics manufacturing. China also happens to have a pretty limited reach in controllable proven oil reserves and a population that is adding more new drivers/cars on the road than anywhere on a daily basis besides India. Make no mistake, if China was sitting on a ton of readily extractable oil EV's wouldn't be a thing anywhere else on the planet, either.

Rats...

They were careful with May, too and he almost has more TJ's than wins...there's being careful and then there's being too cautious when a pitcher is comfortably rolling with a low pitch count.

This half inning has trouble all over it

Why wait longer, sounds like he's already in midseason form...honestly he shouldn't take ABs from Santana - and Santana hasn't been good since the trade, either.

I agree with you on local package delivery vehicles and a good # of fleet trucks for contractors working locally (wasn't even thinking about that segment), but anything that needs to haul significant weights of materials, no matter how far the distance, is unlikely to be shifted to EV on a grand scale - at least with the current battery technology. Batteries for those type of vehicles would take up too much weight to be road-worthy unless the freight they haul isn't very dense. Rail infrastructure as currently designed is already at its max capacity and needs a ton of semi trucks to facilitate loading/unloading and transport on a local scale. Long haul trucking is already heavily integrated with the rail system - there are just too many places freight needs to be in order for rail to be the most efficient on a time basis. It would take significant infrastructure development to expand rail capacity in the US, and there are lots of hurdles to make that happen. It also gets much tougher for work vehicles that are used for remote jobsites at distance to heavily go towards EV - particularly ones that are set up as diesel engines.

Independent of cost, in the end environmentally it boils down to the question of whether EVs on a global scale are better environmentally than ICE for personal automobiles - and not just in terms of CO2 emissions. I'm removing freight/trucking/construction equipment from the conversation because quite frankly, they need petroleum-based fuels to deliver the power output necessary for effective performance. My reasonably informed opinion is that there is a threshold the EV fleet can reach where that supply chain becomes environmentally worse globally than current conditions, and that threshold is much lower than 50% of the personal vehicle fleet. Personal vehicles account for roughly 40% of global CO2 emissions at present, so turning that fleet from a majority ICE to EV would indeed put a dent into CO2 emissions - but it wouldn't address the remaining 60% of CO2 emissions if that's what someone is dead-set on slashing. As of mid-2022, approximately 1.5% of the global personal vehicle fleet was EV - projections are for that total to triple by 2025, which would bring the worldwide EV share to about 5%. The stick in the mud is, to scale the share of EVs globally to anything close to the level where it would significantly reduce CO2 emissions for personal vehicles, we're talking enormous, sustained increases in mining for battery materials whose extraction/manufacturing processes have a significant carbon footprint of their own and their byproducts generate a much more significant amount of hazardous waste. Unless someone has a dedicated solar array and battery storage unit at their home that their EV charger is powered by, EV vehicles should not be considered powered by renewable energy at present, IMO. They still rely on fossil fuels that provide sustained grid power for energy - particularly during off-peak demand hours when most people may wish to recharge their car at home overnight, and as the amount of these vehicles on the road increase there will be grid capacity issues in certain markets. Also, the batteries themselves are not efficiently recycleable at the moment, so there will be ongoing demand to mine more materials for new/replacement battery generation and increased hazardous waste management issues with spent battery materials as the initial EV fleets in developed countries age out of operating use. Oilfields do have well-documented environmental issues of their own, no doubt - but once a well is established the environmental impact during extraction operations is quite limited, and frankly oilfields can be reclaimed and restored much more efficiently without destroying habitat compared to the type of mining operations needed for EV materials. The advances in ICE emissions control technologies have largely curtailed much more significant air pollution than carbon dioxide concerns across most of the globe over the past 30 years despite an exploding population and dramatic increase in total vehicles on the road. There are also some emerging technologies focused on CO2 capture that could significantly reduce ICE greenhouse gas emissions to keep an eye on - although I think they may wind up being more readily utilized across the industrial manufacturing and freight transport sectors. There is a role EVs can play, particularly in cities/population centers of developed countries that have alot of routine suburb commuters driving 30-60 miles daily - I think improved public transit options, city planning changes, and a general change in how people go about travel/routine schedule all play an even larger role in trying to reduce the amount of all cars on the road.

Minor league system strength, the kind that consistently churns out good MLB players, is all about hitting on draft picks and getting enough bites at the international signing apple every year. Sure, there are organizations that are better than others in terms of "developing" players they bring in and turning them into MLBers, but I think so much of that is the individual player's drive. If organizations draft well (and that includes finding ways to get talented mid-round picks to sign on a consistent basis) to get players with MLB-caliber talent in the fold, it's a huge start. Not having several consecutive years of top 5 draft picks because the MLB squad is awful makes it difficult to pick an ironclad impact talent every draft, but the Brewers seem to have figured out how to find collegiate prospects who turn into MLB regulars after ~2-3 years of minor league experience. What we are also seeing is a dramatic improvement in the Brewers' instructional staffing and offseason development system over the past couple of seasons, which had long been an organizational afterthought in terms of staff and budget before Stearns overhauled it. To me, that should be more important and prioritized than spending in MLB free agency in terms of budgeting, particularly for a small market organization.