keston hiura recalled from class aaa nashville

[Brewcrew82]

8 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

Because one supports their argument and the other doesn't. 

Again, even his mean K% from the last three seasons is 40%. That's unsustainable. Unless you can show me an example of a player who maintained a K% that high and was still a productive player. There's no picking and choosing here. Hard contact is good, but it's of little use if you're going to strike out almost half the time. 

[tmwiese55]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

 

Keston is not a "good hitter" right now, nor is he one of our top 2-3 hitters. You cannot strikeout almost half of the time in this league and have sustained success/be considered "good". Nor is the Brewers' offense "terrible". Some of you really need to do a better job of actually looking at the stats. 

I didn't say he was 'good'.  I said the rest of the guys are worse.  Maybe you should look at stats other than K%.   Of regular players Keston has the highest OPS (unless you count Bross/Caratini as regular players).  Same for OBP..    Without Huira they have no regular players over a .256 BA,  No OBP above .345. No OBPs above 774.   Again exception if you include Caratini/Bross as regulars.  Keston is pushing 100 ops better than most regular players on the team, while being used against his splits and in sporadic pt. The team is like 23/24th in BA, Middle of the pack in OBP/OPS.  This is bad, maybe terrible is too far without the qualification of "terrible for contending teams" or something of that nature.     We can't just keep burying our head in the sand, the O has been a consistent problem for 3 years now.   Yeli being OK lately has helped, Keston being good lately has helped.  But still need guys like Adames/Urias to be more like last year. 

[Brewcrew82]

20 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

I didn't say he was 'good'.  I said the rest of the guys are worse.  Maybe you should look at stats other than K%.   Of regular players Keston has the highest OPS (unless you count Bross/Caratini as regular players).  Same for OBP..    Without Huira they have no regular players over a .256 BA,  No OBP above .345. No OBPs above 774.   Again exception if you include Caratini/Bross as regulars.  Keston is pushing 100 ops better than most regular players on the team. The team is like 23/24th in BA, Middle of the pack in OBP/OPS.  This is bad, maybe terrible is too far without the qualification of "terrible for contending teams" or something of that nature.     We can't just keep burying our head in the sand, the O has been a consistent problem for 3 years now.   Yeli being OK lately has helped, Keston being good lately has helped.  But still need guys like Adames/Urias to be more like last year. 

You can't compare Keston to the regular players considering he's not even a regular player himself. Yes, the results-driven stats say he's been good, but, like everything, you have to take it all in context. For example, you point out Adames as a guy that's struggling (though he leads NL shortstops in HRs and is third in OPS), but the expected stats actually say he's been better last year and has been just been extremely unlucky with a .230 BABIP.

Team wise, I would just forget batting average. It's not particularly relevant in today's game. The best thing is to use adjusted stats like OPS+ and WRC+. By WRC+, we're 12th in MLB at 103, just below the Cardinals, but ahead of contenders like the Phillies and Padres. That's average to maybe slightly above average. Far from "terrible". 

The reason why many of us are emphasizing Keston's K% is because the name of the game is to make hard contact. Keston's got the "hard" part figured out, but he doesn't make nearly enough  contact right now for his stats to hold up over the course of the entire season. What he's doing right now is simply unsustainable in the long run, from his 43.8 K% to his .412 BABIP. The Brewers recognized this and is why they chose to send him down for now. If he maintains his "lower" July K% over the next week or two in AAA and continues to rake, they'll likely have no choice but to call him back up. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

19 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

  But still need guys like Adames/Urias to be more like last year. 

That's actually more important than most of the stuff brought up in the last two pages of this thread. That, and find a way to jettison a catcher.

[Brewcrew82]

4 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

That's actually more important than most of the stuff brought up in the last two pages of this thread. That, and find a way to jettison a catcher.

I agree. Fortunately, we have good reason to expect even bigger things from Willy in the second half, considering his .230 BABIP, his reduced K%, and his .560 xSLG. 

[tmwiese55]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

You can't compare Keston to the regular players considering he's not even a regular player himself. Yes, the results-driven stats say he's been good, but, like everything, you have to take it all in context. For example, you point out Adames as a guy that's struggling (though he leads NL shortstops in HRs and is third in OPS), but the expected stats actually say he's been better last year and has been just been extremely unlucky with a .230 BABIP.

Team wise, I would just forget batting average. It's not particularly relevant in today's game. The best thing is to use adjusted stats like OPS+ and WRC+. By WRC+, we're 12th in MLB at 103, just below the Cardinals, but ahead of contenders like the Phillies and Padres. That's average to maybe slightly above average. Far from "terrible". 

The reason why many of us are emphasizing Keston's K% is because the name of the game is to make hard contact. Keston's got the "hard" part figured out, but he doesn't make nearly enough  contact right now for his stats to hold up over the course of the entire season. What he's doing right now is simply unsustainable in the long run, from his 43.8 K% to his .412 BABIP. The Brewers recognized this and is why they chose to send him down for now. If he maintains his "lower" July K% over the next week or two in AAA and continues to rake, they'll likely have no choice but to call him back up. 

It was pointing out the regulars have not been good., those numbers are poor for a team that's supposed to be a contender.  Yea it's debatable if he, Bross, Caratini count as regulars, as I mentioned.  But he's been better than pretty much all of them.  He takes his walks, when he hits the ball he hits it hard. That's more than most guys on this team.

Yea as I said you can take it down to 'terrible for supposed contending team' if you want to make it more technically accurate.  But we've been sitting here for 3 years making all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince ourselves our offense isn't a problem and is better than it seems. Reality is that the O is not good.   And we sent down a guy who's been misused and is still doing better than the rest of these guys. That's not to say he's good, it's to say the rest are not doing well.  I get this was mostly a roster rules/number crunch thing and chances are he'll back in two-ish weeks so it's probably much ado about nothing.  But the reality is he should've been playing more the last two months and it's odd to send down a guy with over 800 ops, who's current hot, on a team littered with guys in the low 700s who are completely unimpressive.

We can pick out his flaws and bash him. But lets apply to that Adames then too as he's all back leg and pulling for HRs now.

[Brewcrew82]

Adames has been one of the best shortstops in the NL this season and even then, he's been extremely unlucky with a .230 BABIP and .560 xSLG. I don't quite get where you're going there... He also has cut down on his strikeout rate the last three seasons whereas Hiura's has increased over the last three seasons to an astronomical 45%.

I'm not trying to "bash the guy". I actually still have hopes for him as he possesses a lot of natural hitting talent. But a 45% strikeout rate is not sustainable and never will be. 

[tmwiese55]

If I start seeing Adames hit a ball to the opposite filed again I'll be convinced his 260/330 type line from last year is coming back.  He's turned himself into a boom/bust type with his back leg pull swing approach this year.    Oddly, going for the launch angle upper cut type HR swing is also what torpedoed Keston's swing, hopefully it doesn't happen to Adames too. 

[Brewcrew82]

10 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

If I start seeing Adames hit a ball to the opposite filed again I'll be convinced his 260/330 type line from last year is coming back.  He's turned himself into a boom/bust type with his back leg pull swing approach this year.    Oddly, going for the launch angle upper cut type HR swing is also what torpedoed Keston's swing, hopefully it doesn't happen to Adames too. 

Did you not see his double last Sunday? 

[tmwiese55]

45 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Did you not see his double last Sunday? 

Jeez man, do I really have to say "on a consistent basis" 

[Brewcrew82]

1 hour ago, tmwiese55 said:

Jeez man, do I really have to say "on a consistent basis" 

But you literally didn't lol. Your exact words were, "If I see Adames hit a ball to the opposite field again..." I can only respond to what you say...

[Brewcrew82]

Keston Hiura is in the Brewers' dugout...

[sveumrules]

13 hours ago, Robocaller said:

Why are people predicting regression to the mean for his HR rate, but not for SO rate?

K rate stabilizes much faster than HR/FB does.

Hiura’s K rate this season (43.8%) is much closer to his career K rate (35.5%) than his HR/FB rate is, 36.4% this year vs 23.0% career.

[djoctagone]

9 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Keston Hiura is in the Brewers' dugout...

likely put on the taxi squad because there was a chance that christian yelich wouldn't improve, and they could backdate his injured list placement by three days, ensuring eligibility to be activated the first game after the all-star break.

[Jopal78]

16 hours ago, NBBrewFan said:

Because one supports their argument and the other doesn't. 

Be salty about it if you want, it's all mathematical probabilities. They can be wrong, but its not often. 

As for why Hiura was optioned, look no further than last night's game. Davis made contact with the ball and ended up driving in the winning run. Hiura can't be relied upon to even make consistent contact. 

And don't forget the Brewers can control Severino next year, and Narvaez is an impending free agent, they're being prudent sending down a player with an option as opposed to cutting a player who could potentially help them next year as well. 

[tmwiese55]

12 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

But you literally didn't lol. Your exact words were, "If I see Adames hit a ball to the opposite field again..." I can only respond to what you say...

LOL yea because I thought it was common sense and didn't need to be said, but feel free to be petty all you want. 

[Brewcrew82]

3 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

LOL yea because I thought it was common sense and didn't need to be said, but feel free to be petty all you want. 

I don’t see how getting angry at me for responding to your exact words is appropriate here. Not trying to be petty at all.

[monty57]

19 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

You can't compare Keston to the regular players considering he's not even a regular player himself. Yes, the results-driven stats say he's been good, but, like everything, you have to take it all in context. For example, you point out Adames as a guy that's struggling (though he leads NL shortstops in HRs and is third in OPS), but the expected stats actually say he's been better last year and has been just been extremely unlucky with a .230 BABIP.

Team wise, I would just forget batting average. It's not particularly relevant in today's game. The best thing is to use adjusted stats like OPS+ and WRC+. By WRC+, we're 12th in MLB at 103, just below the Cardinals, but ahead of contenders like the Phillies and Padres. That's average to maybe slightly above average. Far from "terrible". 

The reason why many of us are emphasizing Keston's K% is because the name of the game is to make hard contact. Keston's got the "hard" part figured out, but he doesn't make nearly enough  contact right now for his stats to hold up over the course of the entire season. What he's doing right now is simply unsustainable in the long run, from his 43.8 K% to his .412 BABIP. The Brewers recognized this and is why they chose to send him down for now. If he maintains his "lower" July K% over the next week or two in AAA and continues to rake, they'll likely have no choice but to call him back up. 

The Keston Hiura debate has been going on all season. I've repeatedly said that he wasn't 2x better than the average player vs RHP, not is he 100% worse than the average player against LHP, but since he has been hitting RHP better than any other Brewer this season, I thought that they should give him regular PAs against righties to see if the changes he made during the offseason worked. He could sink or he could swim, but I thought he deserved the shot. To use your words, play him while he's doing the "unsustainable," then sit him down when/if he starts to falter. Instead, he was continually sat on the bench every game a righty started and only saw the field when a lefty was on the mound. The only time he saw righties was against bullpen arms, often set-up guys and closers. It's hard for any player to succeed in that scenario. 

After half a season, Counsell must have recognized something, because Hiura finally started getting some starts against RHP and not surprisingly his numbers improved. Unfortunately, that didn't last long because due to a roster crunch he had to get sent down. I'm not surprised that he got sent down, I'm just disappointed that he wasn't used differently while he was here. Who knows, if the Brewers had given him more of a shot he might have proven himself to be positive player for the Brewers, not only this year but for several years to come. 

[wntrtxn21]

7 minutes ago, monty57 said:

The Keston Hiura debate has been going on all season. I've repeatedly said that he wasn't 2x better than the average player vs RHP, not is he 100% worse than the average player against LHP, but since he has been hitting RHP better than any other Brewer this season, I thought that they should give him regular PAs against righties to see if the changes he made during the offseason worked. He could sink or he could swim, but I thought he deserved the shot. To use your words, play him while he's doing the "unsustainable," then sit him down when/if he starts to falter. Instead, he was continually sat on the bench every game a righty started and only saw the field when a lefty was on the mound. The only time he saw righties was against bullpen arms, often set-up guys and closers. It's hard for any player to succeed in that scenario. 

After half a season, Counsell must have recognized something, because Hiura finally started getting some starts against RHP and not surprisingly his numbers improved. Unfortunately, that didn't last long because due to a roster crunch he had to get sent down. I'm not surprised that he got sent down, I'm just disappointed that he wasn't used differently while he was here. Who knows, if the Brewers had given him more of a shot he might have proven himself to be positive player for the Brewers, not only this year but for several years to come. 

Hiura sat the bench because he can't be relied on to make contact. He strukout 43% of the time against RH pitchers. He is terrible with the glove in the infield. His best position appears to be LF where they have Yelich. Cutch is the DH. 

[Jopal78]

19 minutes ago, monty57 said:

The Keston Hiura debate has been going on all season. I've repeatedly said that he wasn't 2x better than the average player vs RHP, not is he 100% worse than the average player against LHP, but since he has been hitting RHP better than any other Brewer this season, I thought that they should give him regular PAs against righties to see if the changes he made during the offseason worked. He could sink or he could swim, but I thought he deserved the shot. To use your words, play him while he's doing the "unsustainable," then sit him down when/if he starts to falter. Instead, he was continually sat on the bench every game a righty started and only saw the field when a lefty was on the mound. The only time he saw righties was against bullpen arms, often set-up guys and closers. It's hard for any player to succeed in that scenario. 

After half a season, Counsell must have recognized something, because Hiura finally started getting some starts against RHP and not surprisingly his numbers improved. Unfortunately, that didn't last long because due to a roster crunch he had to get sent down. I'm not surprised that he got sent down, I'm just disappointed that he wasn't used differently while he was here. Who knows, if the Brewers had given him more of a shot he might have proven himself to be positive player for the Brewers, not only this year but for several years to come. 

The Brewers are one of the biggest teams for "playing the match-ups".

There is no chance they were unaware of Hiura's splits and are "mis-using" him.  They have access to much more video and data than fans do, and there's likely a reason why Hiura played and when he didn't.

As for "giving him more of a shot,"  since Opening Day 202 they've given him 587 plate appearances on playoff contending teams, and he's put up a .203/.297/.383 slash line, and is a defensive liability. It is more accurate to say, they've been quite patient with Hiura all things considered.  

[NBBrewFan]

When Keston was putting up lines of 0.200 OPS and wRC+ of 4, I was all over the Brewers for continuing to have him work out his issues at the Major League level.  They decided it was fun for the fans and the rest of the team to see him struggle. Now he's actually putting up decent numbers and they decide to send him to the minors.  Yep that makes a ton of sense.  

Who cares if he K's 45-50% of the time if he's giving you wRC+ of 128.  Do we need to have a discussion of how strikeouts are so similar to any other out in overall value that they can be treated the same? Sure k% can be a predictor of future success, but they have nothing to do with current production.  And while stats can be predictors, there is nothing that is accurate enough that they don't have plenty of exceptions. I'm sure the Brewers are looking at Keston's splits and they are thinking it doesn't make any sense.  Which is simply the trend when looking at tons of historical data.  There just isn't any reason he should have reverse splits that are sustainable so they continue to use him counter to his splits.  Fine, but if a trend continue why buck the trend simply because you don't believe it?  

Quote

They have access to much more video and data than fans do, and there's likely a reason why Hiura played and when he didn't.

Yes they do and forums like this exist where we debate the moves the team makes.  Simply to cop out with "the team has more info" indicates that maybe there's no need to have these forums because why should anyone ever comment on what the team has done when the team will always have more data.  Like the Brewers success in the MLB draft.  Here we are 10 years into the Stearns tenure and we still have a farm system in the bottom third.  Yep they CLEARLY know so much more than other teams and us.  They are just dunking in everyone's face.  Oops.  Forgot the unwritten rule that we shouldn't ever question management.  Brock, turn off the lights and shut the door.

Quote

As for "giving him more of a shot,"  since Opening Day 202 they've given him 587 plate appearances on playoff contending teams, and he's put up a .203/.297/.383 slash line, and is a defensive liability. It is more accurate to say, they've been quite patient with Hiura all things considered.  

That's rich from someone who said I was salty with my previous comment.  Why don't you use his career stats?  Why do you parse out a subset?  Because it supports your argument while all his numbers weakens your point?  Is that you being sweet to my salty?

[brewers888]

If the argument against Hiura is that his success is unsustainable doesn't he deserve the chance to prove that he can and will continue to hit. If the team was going on pure merit Hiura would be the DH against all righties and McCutchen would sit. 

[tmwiese55]

10 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I don’t see how getting angry at me for responding to your exact words is appropriate here. Not trying to be petty at all.

You know full well that I did not mean hit one single ball to the opposite field.  So, yes it is to pick a technicality/phrasing and now repeat on it like 3 times to prove you're right.     Petty definition is something along the lines of: trivial, minor, of little importance. I'd say focusing on that qualifies. 

 

[Brewcrew82]

3 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

You know full well that I did not mean hit one single ball to the opposite field.  So, yes it is to pick a technicality/phrasing and now repeat on it like 3 times to prove you're right.     Petty definition is something along the lines of: trivial, minor, of little importance. I'd say focusing on that qualifies. 

 

Got it. Next time, I'll ignore your actual words and instead respond to something you didn't say. My apologies. 

[tmwiese55]

8 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Got it. Next time, I'll ignore your actual words and instead respond to something you didn't say. My apologies. 

Yes, you're definitely not focusing on something small here at all of a nitpick on phrasing    But yea, I suppose I understand how on a baseball nerd site it's understandable someone definitely meant hit one solitary ball to the opposite field and that means your swing/approach is fixed.  No way that person likely meant start 'hitting the ball' rather than 'hit a ball'

He did hit another last night, sure it was a lazy fly but hey it was another. Creeping towards consistent basis