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

At the end of every season, Brewers GM David Stearns has a press conference with reporters about the results from the year and the upcoming offseason.

Brewers GM David Stearns normally keeps things pretty close to the vest. He doesn’t show his hand and has everyone thinking he’s got nothing until all of a sudden he lays down a straight flush. He never directly answers questions about possible player personnel moves until they happen. B

But his yearly end-of-season press conference is where we can build a framework of what he might be thinking heading into the offseason and get an idea of what might happen to the roster over the next few months.

Let’s take a look at some of his comments from Monday and try to make some sense out of it.

Stearns on Ryan Braun

Naturally, with Ryan Braun‘s contract status and desire to play next year up in the air, Stearns was questioned about when the Brewers can expect a decision from Braun and what that decision might be.

By the looks of it, Braun is going to take some time to make his decision and will wait perhaps even three months before he makes the final call. His mutual option will have to be declined by that point and he would be due a $4MM buyout.

Braun is going to spend the next few months at home with his wife and three kids. If his back and everything holds up, there’s a chance he’ll want to play again, but we’ll have to wait a while for that decision.

This may end up causing the Brewers to wait on certain moves this winter. With current uncertainty around the DH’s future in the NL for 2021, perhaps Braun is waiting for that news, whenever it comes down. Either way, if Braun decides to return, the Brewers might not need to grab another outfielder, but if he doesn’t return, they may look to get someone off the market.

The longer Braun waits, the greater the chance that whatever target the Brewers may have in mind could get signed by somebody else. This will be a case to keep an eye on for sure.

As Stearns also mentioned, there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty this offseason that even he is going to deal with. After a shortened season and no real minor leagues to work off of, trades and free agent signings will be hard to complete and truly know if it’s a good deal. Just like the trade deadline this year, teams are going to be fairly cautious, especially with top prospects.

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.