Article: The Brewers Are Mishandling Keston Hiura

[Cole McCormack]

After a disappointing 2021 season, Keston Hiura is trying to get back to his 2019 self but it would seem that his biggest obstacle is the Brewers coaching staff and manager Craig Counsell.

 

Keston Hiura is an anomaly and the Milwaukee Brewers are failing him. Coming off a very poor performance during the 2021 season, there has been a lot of uncertainty regarding his role within the organization. So far, he has been a designated hitter, a first baseman, a second baseman, and even a left fielder. Regardless, he is far from being a utility player among the likes of Jace Peterson and Pablo Reyes.

Hiura’s fielding numbers are quite poor. In only nine games at second base, Hiura has committed two errors with 11 putouts and 9 assists. Hiura’s hitting numbers aren’t much better, currently slashing .207/.324/.413 with 6 home runs and 14 RBIs. The question isn’t, what should Milwaukee do with Keston Hiura, but rather, how can Milwaukee play towards Hiura’s strengths rather than his weaknesses?

To understand why Hiura has such a reputation with the Brewers among both the front office and the fanbase, it is essential to take a look back at his fantastic 2019 rookie season. At the age of 22, Hiura hit 19 home runs, 49 RBIs and slashed .303/.368/.570 with an OPS of .938. His average exit velocity in that season was 91.4 mph, the 30th best in all of Major League Baseball.

Hiura’s fielding numbers were still atrocious during his rookie season, committing 16 errors at second base. Regardless, he made up for it at the plate. This season proved that Hiura is a player with a lot of potential, as long as the coaching staff understood his strengths at the plate and weaknesses while fielding. 

He also performed fairly well during the pandemic shortened season in 2020. He played 59 games and slashed .212/.297/.410 with 13 home runs and 32 RBIs. But there were some causes for concern. Hiura ended the season with 85 strikeouts, the most out of any batter in the National League that year. He also led the league in errors by a second baseman. His batting average, OBP, and slugging had a noticeable decline from his rookie season but many looked past this as a result of the uncertainty as to whether there would even be a 2020 season. 

During the offseason, the Brewers signed 2x Gold Glove winner Kolten Wong as the everyday second baseman. After news of this signing broke, many were wondering where Hiura would play. After all, he was the everyday second baseman for two seasons prior to 2021. He ended up spending a fair amount of time at first base, sharing the position with the likes of Travis Shaw, Daniel Vogelbach, Rowdy Tellez, and Eduardo Escobar.

His defensive numbers were even worse at first base and Hiura had his worst season yet. He slashed .168/.256/.301 and hit 4 home runs in 61 games. Striking out 39.1% of the time, he was extremely unreliable. As a result, he ended up spending most of the 2021 season in Nashville. 

There was a lot of optimism coming into the 2022 season. He had a standout performance in Spring Training where he slashed .393/.485/.929, hitting 4 home runs in only 12 games. However, he was sent down to Nashville on May 6 after a rather poor performance at the plate. While in Triple-A, Hiura played only five games during the 2022 season and during that time, he bashed 3 home runs and slashed .421/.522/.895 with 10 RBIs.

So what gives? Why is it that Hiura is able to excel in Triple-A and spring training but falters at the plate when the Brewers need him most? 

The most clear-cut answer is that the pitchers Hiura faced during spring training and in Nashville were minor league pitchers. They are not as skilled as a major league pitcher. That’s obvious. However, Hiura has proved himself to be more than capable against major league pitchers, look no further than his rookie season. 

A major aspect of Hiura’s struggles at the plate has to do with a few factors that can easily be fixed by manager Craig Counsell and the Brewers coaching staff. Looking back at his five-game stint in Nashville this season, Hiura performed exceptionally well at the plate. When looking at his splits between righties and lefties, the reason for his standout performance becomes clear. All three of his home runs during that stint were against right-handed pitchers. He had 11 at-bats against righties and maintained a .545 batting average.

His numbers against left-handed pitchers, however, are night and day. He struck out four times in only 8 at-bats with a .250 batting average when facing southpaws. Now this was only Triple-A. Let's take a look at how Keston Hiura performs at the major league level against right-handed pitchers.

As of June 22, Keston Hiura has a total of 48 at-bats against left-handed pitchers and 45 at-bats against right-handed pitchers. He’s also slashing a very impressive .289/.439/.644 with an insane 1.083 OPS against righties. It should also be mentioned that five of Hiura’s six home runs have been hit off of right-handed pitchers.

When facing a left-handed pitcher, the right-handed hitting Hiura's numbers are quite poor. He slashes .146/.241/.208 and a .449 OPS. He strikes out more frequently against southpaws and is nearly half as efficient at the plate. Strikeouts and plate discipline are still an issue regardless of the pitcher’s handedness. Regardless, this has always been Hiura’s MO at the plate. In 2019, Hiura only hit 1 out of his 19 home runs off a leftie. It seems that Counsell and the Brewers coaching staff were well aware of this back then, as Hiura has 164 more at-bats against righties than lefties. 

So what changed? Why are the Brewers now playing Hiura against lefties more than righties?

The answer is unknown. It seems the Brewers don’t even know the answer as they continue to put him in the lineup against lefties. There is some uncertainty as to what position h should even play. So far, Hiura has played fourteen games at first base, filling in for slugger Rowdy Tellez when needed. He has played only ten games at second base and has already committed two errors this season.

Interestingly, Hiura has played eight games as the designated hitter, a probable answer to his poor fielding. However, Andrew McCutchen has been spending the majority of the season as the de facto designated hitter with Christian Yelich occasionally spending time in the role. 

I propose a simple solution to this matter: Hiura becomes the everyday designated hitter against right-handed pitchers, while Andrew McCutchen continues playing as a DH against lefties. Hiura is an extremely valuable asset offensively when facing righties. His defense is extremely poor and is a liability that the Brewers cannot afford right now as they make a push for the playoffs. Fans have been clamoring for the team to acquire a big bat in order to help their struggling offense, but it seems that Hiura may be an unlikely solution to this problem if the organization handles him correctly.

 

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[damuelle]

Thank you for the article. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine his situation will get better with Brousseau, Severino and Wong coming back to the majors soon.

[Jopal78]

The same manager who used matchups and analytics to steer his team to the playoffs in '18 and '19 is somehow blind to those same matchups/analytics with Keston Hiura? That doesn't seem logical.  

Second, Hiura's splits against RHP look amazing this year because 5 of his 13 hits against RHP went over the fence. In other words, 38% of his hits have gone for homeruns. He would be a first ballot Hall of Famer if he could somehow keep that rate up, because not even Babe Ruth had that percentage of his hits go for homeruns (24.8%). 

Hiura's splits against RHP in 2020 and 2021 can be described as below average (.203/.284/.429 in '20) and awful (.184/.279/.345 in '21).

In reality, Hiura's numbers are driven by an excellent 2019 season, and he's been a below average to awful hitter ever since. It is not because the manager or GM overlook obvious statistical tendencies; rather it is because opponents learned how to attack him at the plate, and he has been  unable to find a counter adjustment.

 

 

 

[Caswell]

Keston is quite the interesting player and I have been musing over what to do with him for awhile. I've definitely noticed how much better he hits against righties, but there is such a small sample size, as Jopal78 said. He definitely needs consistent at bats, and he's not getting them here. I want him to succeed, but I don't think it'll be in the bigs with Milwaukee this year.