Jake McKibbin

Since May 7, Hoby Milner has rebounded incredibly strongly, giving up 20 hits, four walks, and just three earned runs across 23 2/3 innings pitched, with 26 strikeouts to boot. This isn’t success due to batted-ball luck (a BABIP of .311 is more than reasonable), and his xFIP of 3.07 is brilliant for a pitcher who doesn’t strike out large numbers of hitters. Craig Counsell has used him in a mop-up role, helping when starters can’t get through the sixth inning or when the ‘A’ relievers are struggling on a particular day. As a result, he gets a lot of innings with men on base, but has left a whopping 93.2% of these base runners stranded. Primarily put into favorable situations for his handedness and stuff, he actually has a better wOBA against right-handers, due to his curveball being effective against both kinds of hitters, but especially righties with an xBA of .108. That’s absurd. So how does a player with the lowest curveball spin rate in the league and who is in the 3rd percentile for fastball velocity and 2nd percentile for fastball spin rate manage to be so successful? For starters, as shown below, hitters have become pull-happy against him this season (rising from 32% of batted balls last year to 41.5%), and after the early troubles, he’s changed his approach and is pitching a lot more on the outer stripe of the plate, resulting in more weak contact. I mentioned earlier his facility with right-handed hitters, and this is partly down to his usage and effectiveness of his changeup in the last two months, culminating in a 42.9% whiff rate in July so far, to go along with a 44.4% whiff rate on his curveball. These are less down to the movement profiles and more to do with the incredibly accurate usage of them, with the changeup darting just down or off the outer edge of the zone, with late movement out of the zone. His curveball has worked well in the zone too, and he has shown a lot of command keeping it in the shadow zone around the plate, sequencing very well with the high fastball. The fastball itself has been effective against all hitters, and again has been kept up in the shadow area around the top of the strike zone, creating a 47.1% whiff rate in June, and a 50% fly -ball rate, leading to an xwOBA of just .048 in the month. Since April, he has steadily started using the four-seamer more, instead of his sinker, and it’s a massive reason for the increased effectiveness. When he comes in with men on base, or with a double play opportunity, he has several places he can go to for a ground ball. He had an 80% ground ball rate on the changeup in May, and a 100% ground ball rate in June with it. It was hit very hard earlier in the season, but its emergence as a plus pitch has really boosted his arsenal. He also has a curveball recording a 75% ground ball rate in May, and 66.7% ground ball rate in June, as well as a sinker with a 50%+ ground ball rate in both months. He has been a ground ball machine, in part because hitters are trying to pull him when they really shouldn’t, but also because of the change in his pitch mix, and how the changeup and curveball seem to play better behind the four-seam fastball. At his velocity, Milner is a control-based pitcher, trying to miss barrels, but his arm slot can make him tough to hit, and create some swing-and-miss when he does locate. Below is a chart showing how often he’s pitched to the edges of the strike zone this season, demonstrating an improvement most noticeably with his two most improved pitches, the changeup and the four-seamer. He’s been able to attack the zone efficiently and effectively as a result, which is why he walks so few hitters. His ability to defuse high-stress situations has been invaluable to the Brewers over the last two months, and has played a big role in what seems to be squeaking through tight game after tight game, resulting in more high-leverage situations and more usage against right-handed hitters. With the additions to come in the bullpen (more to come later this week), the Brewers could quite possibly have the best relief corps in the majors over the second half of the season.

Oftentimes, when we talk about players being unable to adjust to better pitching and chasing excessively, it’s due to a variety of problems. When extreme power is shown in the lower minors, that can get caught out at higher levels, because of huge, hacking swings at the ball. Hitters accustomed to being able to exploit pitchers with certain deficiencies and attack the ball suddenly haven’t got the time to spot the pitch before they start to swing the bat. This is not Jackson Chourio’s issue. He’s a 19-year-old in Double A, facing a ball that’s moving at MLB levels with less command than usual from the pitchers (if early results are anything to go by), and as such, picking the pitches to hit is an extreme challenge. Chourio has so much power, but it actually comes from an incredibly short swing. Jim Bowden of the Athletic said as much, after observing batting practice before the Futures Game. “His line-drive stroke was the shortest and most direct to the ball of any right-handed hitter who took BP,” Bowden wrote. Keith Law was equally impressed after the game itself. “Jackson Chourio (Milwaukee) was 0-for-4, but you could see the crazy bat speed and how much he can let the ball travel on him before starting his hands,” Law wrote. He’s attempting to work out when to swing, and when not to, and as such, the results are less important than showing improvements in this area. Still, we can enjoy some of the results: Chourio has struck out just three times in his last 50 plate appearances, finishing the first half season on a high with a double and a home run. He has prodigious power, and potentially great contact skills once he fine-tunes his control of the plate, something even Elly De La Cruz struggled with until recently before his call up. Pitch recognition is a skill that requires experience more than any other, and it’s a major reason why Chourio’s age is so important in considering this. If he hasn’t developed plate awareness by this time next season, that’s a bigger issue, but he’s showing definite signs of development. This is still the best prospect in the Brewers system, and he’ll be leaping forwards in no time.

Looking further into his at-bats, there are some reasons to be optimistic that we might see a prime Hiura in the Brewers lineup sooner rather than later. This is his second at bat below, and a slight indicator of his improvement at grinding against the high fastball: Having fallen behind 0-2 with fastballs on each edge of the plate, he stayed patient on some very high ones i tight, took a well-located sweeper just off the outside edge of the plate, and punished the slider left over the middle. Previous iterations of Hiura get antsy, swing at the fifth pitch, and strike out, but this version had a far calmer approach, resulting in a hard-hit single. This approach in his third at-bat is a typical example of how not to pitch to Hiura: a fastball down in the zone, followed by a cutter even lower. This is the AB finishing in the 98 mph “fly out”, and they got away with it, but this would be classified as a barreled-up baseball. His fourth at-bat is, perhaps, my favorite, as it located pitches exactly where you would want to Hiura He swings early in the count at pitches he would probably regard as very hittable, over the middle of the plate and slightly above the knees, whiffing one and fouling off the next to fall behind early. Then he takes a fastball just above the strike zone–again, something he’d previously be very likely to chase. A slider far off the plate and a high changeup evened the count, before a foul ball again on a pitch he would probably like back. And to finish it off, the high fastball, something he has perennially struggled with, slightly off the outside part of the plate. Mashed. A 107-mph double. All in all, here were his exit velocities from the game: 83.9 mph groundout 100.9 mph single 98 mph flyout (19 degree launch angle, so basically a line out) 107.1 mph double 99.9 mph lineout That’s four hard-hit balls consecutively, off a variety of different pitches in different locations. The Issues Let’s face it, a fully firing Jesse Winker is an upgrade on a firing Keston Hiura at the plate, and Winker has begun to show some resurgence in the last week or so, making much better contact, hitting the ball noticeably harder even to the opposite field. He’s hitting .261/.346/.478 over his last seven games, while hitting four doubles and a home run. (Bear in mind that he went over two months without an extra-base hit, beginning in mid-April). The ongoing struggles of Rowdy Tellez at first do, however, present an opportunity for Hiura to try and seize that role against right-handers as well as lefties. Tellez has still shown occasional power, but his lack of home runs (previously his main value to this team) is very concerning, and you can’t help but think even an average Keston Hiura is a substantial upgrade if his hands have improved with the regular playing time at first base. Tellez last hit a home run on May 22nd, and recorded just seven RBIs in the month of June–shocking, from a hitter in the three or four hole, and given how often Christian Yelich got on base ahead of him. Hiura has also played an average left field this season, unexpectedly, with some highlight-reel plays, so there are several ways to get him involved in the line-up should he come up.