What Are The Brewers To Do With Keston Hiura?

Keston Hiura has been a key part of the Brewers organizational plans ever since he was drafted with the 9th overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft. Five years later, things haven’t gone entirely according to those plans.

It didn’t take long for Hiura to push his way to the major leagues, raking throughout the minors and earning a promotion after the offensive struggles of a previously strong performer in Travis Shaw. Hiura seized the job from Shaw and hit .303 with 19 home runs and a .938 OPS in 84 games his rookie season.

It was everything the Brewers were expecting of him. The future was bright.

Then in 2020, Hiura regressed in the contact and batting average departments. He led the team in homers in the shortened season, but he regressed 91 points in batting average down to .212 and 231 points in OPS down to .707. Hiura also led the league in strikeouts with 85.

That could just be attributed to an odd, short season, right? Sure, but then in 2021, the regressive trend continued. Hiura hit just .168 on the year with a .557 OPS and a paltry 49 OPS+. He was demoted several times and went from the starting first baseman after the signing of Kolten Wong, to a bench player at most.

Keston Hiura shows signs of progress but enough struggles the Brewers can’t trust him. What are their options?

This season, Hiura has already been demoted once and just can’t seem to get into a full groove at the plate. We see glimpses of the 2019 version, where Hiura makes hard contact and drives the ball in the air. But those glimpses are maybe once every other game or so and it’s surrounded by a lot of strikeouts and poor ABs.

His .245 average and .768 OPS are improvements, but his 42.8% strikeout rate shows the problems are very much still there.

So, really, what are the Brewers to do with Keston Hiura at this point? They’ve invested a lot in him, he was a big part of their plans for the future, and he’s just not getting it done.

Option #2: Keep him in a part-time role/back and forth with Nashville

The second option the Brewers have with Hiura is to continue doing what they have been doing. That would be keeping him in more of a part-time role in the big leagues with perhaps the occasional option to Triple-A Nashville to get him some more ABs.

But what does this really do for Hiura? It’s what’s best for the Brewers to win on a day-by-day basis, but Hiura’s potential growth out of this slump is stunted. He’s relegated to trying to get hot again and find his swing at the big league level with only a small handful of ABs a week. How can he get back to that “future All Star” level that was expected of him only playing two or three days a week?

The Brewers had bigger hopes for Hiura, especially based on his draft position. A top 10 player in the draft should be more than a part-timer at the big league level. Plus, with his poor defense and lack of versatility, what does he bring the team as a part-timer if his bat doesn’t perform?

Whenever he goes down to Triple-A he dominates. He continues to prove he’s better than Triple-A but he isn’t performing in MLB. So where does he belong? He belongs above Triple-A, but doesn’t seem to belong in MLB.

This is Hiura’s last option year. Next season, if he struggles or needs ABs, they cannot send him down to Triple-A. Then, their hands will really be tied.

Milwaukee knows Hiura CAN be better than this and be an everyday player, but he’s just not showing it for whatever reasons.

Option #3: Give Hiura a change of scenery

This is the option the Brewers likely do not want to take, but it may be the best one for both them and Hiura in the long run. I think Keston Hiura needs a change of scenery.

We’re going on three seasons since Hiura has been a productive bat at the big league level. He provides almost nothing defensively and his profile is driven entirely by his bat. The Brewers don’t have the ability to give him the leash necessary anymore to find it again. But some other team probably does.

There are a couple of reasons that making this move would be a tough pill to swallow. If they sell Hiura now, they’re selling low, at the absolute basement of his value. The return he would’ve garnered had they moved him in 2018 or 2019 or 2020, or even in 2021 is miles ahead what he’s worth now. Hiura would be little more than a throw in to a trade at this point.

The Brewers also invested a ton in Hiura, drafting him early, pushing him to the bigs quickly, making plans around him being a .300 hitter with 30 home runs in the middle of their lineup. The belief was so high. Giving up on him so quickly after getting just a taste of that potential in 2019 is so tough to do.

Plus, if he figures it out elsewhere, it’ll feel like the Brewers did all that work for nothing. They saw the talent, they knew it was there, but he just couldn’t figure it out. And then to see him figure it out for someone else? That hurts.

So for the Brewers to give Hiura a change of scenery would mean getting only pennies on the dollar on their investment, and then potentially seeing that investment pay off in a big way for someone else, who then look like geniuses and the Brewers look like fools.

I think the Brewers want to ensure that if Keston Hiura does figure it out at the big league level, it’s with the Milwaukee Brewers. They are going to want to be absolutely sure that he cannot get it done against MLB pitching before they move on from him. They will not look the fool here.

These are the options the organization has with Keston Hiura, and none of them are great. If Hiura was a 10th round pick or a 5th round pick or even a 2nd round pick, they’d just cut their losses and move on. But a Top 10 overall selection? Not so fast.

Obviously the best thing that could happen is Hiura finding his 2019 form and hitting the snot out of the ball again and proving he’s worthy of being an everyday player. That would be nice. We just haven’t seen it in three years and we may not see it again.