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.

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.

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.