Brewers: Reacting To David Stearns’ End Of Season Press Conference

Omar Narvaez

Of the big disappointments the Brewers had this year, Omar Narvaez might have been the biggest. Guys like Justin Smoak and Brock Holt may have struggled, but they didn’t have the expectations that Narvaez had coming into this season.

After four seasons in the AL, where Narvaez thrived with a .276/.361/.411 slash line and a 111 OPS+, he struggled immediately after coming to the Brewers.

In 40 games, his slash line plummeted to .176/.294/.269 with a 53 OPS+. After hitting 22 home runs last year, he was down to just two long balls in 2020.

The catching position was an absolute disaster offensively for the Brewers as Jacob Nottingham also struggled after being called up when Manny Pina went down with a knee injury.

This is what Stearns had to say about Narvaez and the catching position.

In GM-speak, this is code for “I’m going to look for something better and hopefully I can find it”.  If Narvaez returns for 2021 and isn’t DFA’ed or traded after his miserable, albeit only 40 game, season, then that’s most likely because Stearns couldn’t find an upgrade for a decent price.

Narvaez has a history of being a solid hitter at the plate, consistently hitting above .270 over full seasons. But even in just a quarter of a regular season, there was nothing from Narvaez that even looked close to that kind of hitter. There wasn’t even two or three day spurts where he looked like his 2017-19 self at the plate.

At least with guys like Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura they had games where they looked like their normal selves. Narvaez never got there. We can talk about small sample sizes and the oddities of the season all we want, but the bottom line is Narvaez’s job is not secure heading into 2021.

Jacob Nottingham played well defensively, but was just as bad on offense as Narvaez was. The only catcher who hit well this year was Pina, and he’s likely to return next year, but will the Brewers give him the starting job?

One potential free agent option is James McCann of the White Sox. With Yasmani Grandal now signed there for the next several years, McCann is a free agent this winter with no starting job awaiting him with his current team. He’s performed well offensively the past two years and is just 30 years old.

J.T. Realmuto is also a free agent this winter but he’s at the top of the market and most of the teams chasing a catcher will be after him. That could allow the Brewers to sneak in some more time with McCann and sign him while everyone is distracted by Realmuto.

Budget, Staff, Injuries

There’s some good news and bad news in this section. The good news is, no players are currently scheduled to undergo any offseason surgery.

With Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams missing the end of the year after suffering injuries, there might have been some concern from fans but they both will be able to recover with some rest and rehab. No one will have to go under the knife this offseason.

Another point that Stearns addresses nearly every end-of-season press conference is whether or not the whole coaching staff will return for next year. Well, that’s up in the air as of right now.

Pay close attention to the end of that sentence. The “at this point” means they’re still considering changes and one of those changes under consideration is most likely the hitting coach position.

It’s no secret that the Brewers offense struggled in 2020. How much of that is to blame on hitting coach Andy Haines? How much is to blame on the hitters? Did Haines suggest adjustments that the players didn’t listen to or were the adjustments implemented and simply backfired?

The Brewers are going to take some time to figure that out at least. They don’t want to make any rash decisions, especially off a shortened season, but they may decide they need a change.

However, Haines is still close with superstar Christian Yelich and their relationship may prove to be extremely important going forward.

The bad news in this section is regarding the budget.

Will the budget be tighter? “Oh yeah” is essentially Stearns’ response. He’s not going to publicly say that, but it’s incredibly likely.

The Brewers lost money, even with fans, in 2019. Without fans in 2020, the Brewers lost even more. After two straight years of losing money, it’s doubtful that the Brewers are going to be big money spenders and jack up the payroll going into 2021.

At the very least, Braun’s contract is up and that frees up a lot more money off the books heading into next year, whether Braun returns or not. If Braun does come back, it’ll be on a much smaller deal that’ll be more equivalent to what he’s worth on the field at this point in his career.

That will leave a few more million dollars to work with. However, a bunch of those dollars will have to go to raises for guys like Josh Hader and Brandon Woodruff in arbitration.

Stearns might end up having to move some money off the books this winter in order to gain some more flexibility in the payroll and in the roster. It might not be very eventful with big signings and instead simply looking for the current hitters to turn things around in a full season next year.

Keston Hiura, Prospects

Without a minor league season, it’s hard to fully gauge how the Brewers’ top prospects performed this year. Did they grow? Did they progress on a normal level? Did they regress?

The Brewers didn’t release much in terms of information from their alternate training site, and all those intrasquad scrimmages makes statistics hard to keep track of and determine how valuable those numbers really are.

So instead, Stearns tells us who stood out among the crowd in Appleton among the prospects that were there.

Stearns points out that top shortstop prospect Brice Turang and LHP prospect Antoine Kelly both performed well in Appleton and made the most of their opportunity. That doesn’t mean they were the only prospects who performed at a high level, but they stood out among the rest.

That could push Turang to be ready for Double-A ball next year when there’s hopefully a minor league season and perhaps this means Kelly’s development is going well enough he can stick as a starting pitcher going forward. There were questions about his ability to do so when he was drafted, but he might end up on a starter’s track still.

Stearns also talked about Keston Hiura and his struggles this year, both at the plate and in the field. While the Brewers still believe in Hiura’s hitting ability, his glove has always been a question mark. Throughout 2020, Hiura struggled throwing the ball to first base, even from only 40-50 feet away.

On short, routine throws Hiura was constantly wild and making Jedd Gyorko or whoever was at first base to make an amazing catch just to get the out. While there was some talk after the Justin Smoak DFA that Hiura could see some time at first base, the Brewers aren’t going to be pushing that going into 2021.

Hiura’s focus will still be on trying to play the field everyday at second base and getting back to his slugging ways. A possible role as a DH could be in Hiura’s future, but with Daniel Vogelbach under contract and the possible return of Braun, if there is a DH in 2021, those two will be the primary guys. Hiura will still need to play the field to be in the lineup.

After all, Hiura is just 24 years old. He’s a little too young to move to a full time DH from the middle infield.

The Brewers are going to make some changes heading into 2021, but based off these comments from Stearns, it may not be the quality or the quantity of changes that some fans are desiring. The offseason is just getting started.