The Brewers were bumped from the postseason earlier this week, losing their Division Series against the Braves. Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns met with the media (including Will Sammon of the Athletic and Adam McCalvy of MLB.com) this afternoon to review the 2021 campaign and discuss the club’s upcoming offseason.
Keston Hiura will undergo a minor surgery on his right elbow, Stearns said, although there’s no indication the issue could affect his readiness for Spring Training. Milwaukee’s Opening Day first baseman, Hiura struggled all season. He got off to a horrible start, striking out in 32 of his first 89 plate appearances en route to a .152/.247/.266 line through early May. The Brewers optioned Hiura to Triple-A Nashville at that point. Hiura hit well in the minors, but he still couldn’t find much success against big league pitching. In 108 MLB plate appearances from the time of his first demotion on, he continued to slump to a .181/.264/.330 mark.
At this point, the Brew Crew can’t enter 2022 counting on Hiura to assume an everyday role. Still, he’s a former top ten pick who’s not all that far removed from a huge .303/.368/.570 showing as a rookie in 2019. Milwaukee surely doesn’t want to give up on Hiura entirely, and Stearns floated the idea of getting him some work in the outfield next season. Hiura has only played first and second base as a pro (aside from one 3 1/3 inning stint in left field this year), but it’d be a bit easier for manager Craig Counsell to work him into the lineup if the 25-year-old proves capable of covering the grass on a regular basis.
Christian Yelich won’t have any issue getting everyday reps, but he’ll also be looking to recapture his 2019 level of performance. The former MVP’s numbers have hovered right around league average (.234/.360/.392) over the past couple seasons. It’s an alarming drop-off, surely not what Stearns and the front office had in mind when they inked Yelich to an extension over the 2019-20 offseason that paid him $188.5MM in new money.
Between Yelich’s prior accolades and the organization’s enormous financial commitment to him, it’s no surprise that Stearns says getting the 29-year-old back on track is a key focus this winter. Yelich’s strikeout, walk and hard contact rates are still all solid or better, but his power output has disappeared as his ground-ball percentage has spiked from 43.2% in 2019 to 54.8% this past season. Stearns candidly admitted the organization hasn’t yet diagnosed a root cause of Yelich’s downturn in performance, but he expressed optimism in the potential for a turnaround and noted that Yelich wasn’t being hampered by any health problems.
Stearns’ own status with the franchise has been something of a talking point in recent weeks. The Mets are reportedly interested in speaking with the Manhattan native as part of their search for a new president of baseball operations. Stearns landing in Flushing has never seemed especially likely, though, primarily because he’s under contract with the Brewers through the end of next season. Thus, Milwaukee owner Mark Attanasio would need to grant the Mets permission to interview Stearns. Attanasio hasn’t definitely said whether he’d do so, although he rather coyly responded to the rumors last month (via Sports Illustrated) when he opined that Stearns is “a great executive. … He’s also under contract with us.”
For his part, Stearns mostly deflected attention away from his future, although he didn’t sound like someone anxious to leave Milwaukee. “I think I’ll shy away from any media or external speculation other than to say I’m happy here; my family is happy here. And we’ve got work to do here,” Stearns told reporters today when asked about the chances he makes the jump to the Big Apple.
Brewers fans: What, in your opinion, is to account for Yelich’s struggles over the past 2 seasons?
Not a Brewer fan, but I wanted to say that this happens more often than not. A player does really well to get the fat contract and then he gets fat because he is financially set the rest of his career and the rest of his life. Say what you will, your opinion means nothing until 2022 is done. It will be up to Yelich to prove me wrong. Let’s see if he can or will do anything in 2022. I’m saying probably not.
If he’s loafing now that he’s got his money, why would his strikeout, walk, and hard hit rates be where they always have been? That doesn’t make any sense.
Yelich seriously injured his knee at the end of his last MVP caliber season. I think he fractured his knee cap or something. The Brewers were still confident enough to give him the extension but he really never got back to his old self after that. At this point I’d have to guess the injury has something to do with it. Maybe it didn’t heal right. Or maybe it was just worse than everyone initially thought it would be. Usually when a guy is a spectacular player at Yelich’s age and has a sudden drop off that coincides directly with an injury, that injury is a root cause. Of course some of these guys could be right about him starting to loaf once he got all that guaranteed money. I haven’t heard anything about that from a credible source though. More than anything it seems like the injury may have forced him to alter his approach at the plate and his ability to hit for power has greatly declined. I wouldn’t have thought a knee injury would drain a guys power like that. I remember Troy Glaus hitting bombs right before he had to retire. He literally retired because both his knees were so bad he could barely run to 1st base. He still crushed the ball though. Maybe Yelich got most of his power from his legs? He’s actually hitting pretty similar to his Marlins days. No one ever thought he would hit for the power he did at the beginning of his Brewers career. It could just be that those years were the outlier. Dare I bring up the possibility that “the S-word” could have maybe been involved when he first became a Brewer? I haven’t heard anything too substantiate that either but some guys are still getting caught for it. Logic would suggest some other guys probably got away with it. Some players do it just long enough to get that big contract and then stop before they get caught. Javy Lopez did it during his contract season and then stopped. Who knows though? My guess is it’s still somehow related to that fractured kneecap he suffered a couple seasons back. The timing of his decline just lines up way too perfectly with that injury for it to not at least be a contributing factor in my opinion.
I didn’t even know Yelich had back problems. Did that occur before or after the knee injury? That could very well be it. That’s a big reason Heyward stats have been so inconsistent his entire career. He had a serious back injury I’m highschool. During the seasons the pain cropped up in Atlanta he wasn’t very good. That was the main reason I was shocked when the Cubs gave him such a long contract. I was thinking “Man do these guys not realize his numbers in St. Louis were the exception and not his norm?” I guess they thought he had turned a corner or something. Pretty much everyone in Atlanta knew though that it must have just been one of the few and far between seasons his back wasn’t acting up as usual. Even then he didn’t hit .300 or hit 30 home runs or steal 30 bases or play good enough defense to really be considered a center fielder. He wasn’t truly exceptional at anything. $180 million for THAT was a serious reach in the first place. Tie in the bad back and it was just a really bad deal.
Kneecap and lack of ‘roids sounds right. Add in a sprinkling of fat wallet to complete.
He got the big extension BEFORE the injury.
An injury that has absolutely no impact on a ball player (as do most broken bones, unless they are of the type Tiger Woods just received).
His bad back is more of an issue.
He’s not loafing.
He’s just bad and has lost all confidence and ability to swing at the right pitches.
He’s probably done as a player.
(PS–I had the same knee cap fracture on a chase down block and pin to the backboard when the knee went at full speed into the basket’s metal pole; I had a tiny bit of swelling and there is still a small crater in the knee cap some 35 years later, but my 25 year old body recovered easily and I was playing and dunking at 6′ 1″ again in just 2 weeks)
And even a moron would know that ALL power in ALL sports comes from the drive from the legs and the engagement of core muscles.
He didn’t get fat or lazy.
He’s MENTALLY out of it and probably won’t recover.
Stop It!
Back issues will always slow down the power in any bat. Yelich gets that figured out, then we will see what happens.
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Honestly the back is what I feel was the issue. Now in the end it may have finally been feeling a lot better but he definitely lost a lot of upper body. He looked smaller. The contract I don’t believe has anything to do with it. This is a kid that takes pride in what he does. All we can do is hope he has a good off-season to get back to 2019 form.
Has his swing or launch angle changed?
He’s super talented. I still think he should bounce back.
Bad back
I’m not a brewers fan but it seems a combination of injuries, covid, and a lack of confidence resulting from no results. I got covid 6 months ago and I finally feel like I can breath the same while exercising. It seems like a lot of athletes have been affected by this. JaysonTatum of the Celtics has spoken about this in press conferences.
During the NLDS, didn’t Frenchy say Yelich has had back troubles? That’s what sapped Markakis’s power. Yelich can continue to be a high OBP singles-doubles guy, but if his back is a problem, he may never have huge HR power again.
The Brewers were always one of the teams who were at least suspected of doing something in terms of sign stealing. The league crackdown on the Astros happened at the same time as his struggles, so you could at least theorize they scrapped sign stealing if they actually were and that’s why he’s struggled. But that’s just one possibility, they might not have been stealing signs at all.
The only place I have ever heard the Brewers were suspected of stealing signs was on these chat boards. Is there a more credible source?
There isn’t.
Just made up BS by jealous losers who hate that a small market team has success.
I like the Brewers lol. This is not it. To colonel, I remember one of the big insiders said that they were long suspected to be doing something, along with the Rangers, back when the Astros/Red Sox/Yankees were investigated. It happened all across baseball anyways to various degrees. There’s no reason to get defensive about it Spike
The problem with that theory is his OBP and hard hit % are still where they were pre-investigation. His back problems seem to be a much more plausible explanation
Also not a Brewers fan, but looking at Huira and Yelich, I would say the juiced ball of 2019 probably played a part. I feel bad for Brewers fans but not for owners who were complicit in a scheme to manipulate the game for better TV ratings. I’m not saying Annatasio was directly involved but Manfred doesn’t do anything without owners sanction. Any of those same owners who gave out huge contracts based on juiced ball statistics look like fools.
Guaranteed money!
Yeli just needs to bulk up 20-25lbs, then shorten his swing. He had some injuries and is a little older. Time to mature physically and focus on mechanics. He’ll be .300/35hr again
Yup, easy as that! Nothing else to it going into your age 30 season, when everyone reaches their peak physical shape.
If they can get the offense on track to match the spectacular starting pitching and shutdown back of the bullpen this team will be scary good
I doubt they can afford to beef up the offense to any great extent. Hader is going to start costing serious bucks.
Add they have something like 14 arbitration eligible players this offseason, if I recall correctly. That would mean $$$$
Why would Stearns want to involve himself with Cohen and Sandy? Meddling owner and incompetent president. And an organization with a huge set of abuse problems. I get why Friedman went to LA. Great ownership and great president.
Other than being from Manhattan & having a bigger payroll? New York or Wisconsin, tough choice….
What makes you think Cohen is a meddling owner? Not that he wouldn’t have the right to as it’s his money that bought the franchise, but I haven’t heard word one that he’s pulling the strings here.
Alderson you may have point with though….
dodger19587 hours ago
Meddling owner and incompetent president.
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Why do y’all feel the need to make stuff up? You have no idea if Cohen meddles, or if he is 100% uninvolved. And no one in here believes you when you make the accusation.
So why lie?
That seems like a comment made due to Cohen’s twitter fingers, might not mean he meddles in the front office but it’s not a good look.
True enough. Owners should supply the budget, and then speak to the press in March and October. That’s about it. But I doubt Cohen is telling the GM which players to go after. For some reason, that seems more like a football owner thing.
It’s actually more of a basketball owner thing.
Those guys truly ruin a GM because the owners always think that a sport with only 5 guys on the court can be fixed easily by spending money on one big player, when in fact that game is THE most subtle involving team work and chemistry than any other sport (only the O Line really needs to be in sync to function, and baseball is basically an individual sport pretending to be a team sport).
The job of the FO is to deal, in a non public setting, with issues. When an owner decides to assume the responsibility of the FO, in this case publicly, that is meddling.
Brewers need to focus on making sure Yelich and Huira are ready to go, and produce effectively. Imagine going into a season with your 3 and 4 hitters basically non existent for a full year, and still getting to the postseason. Shows how dominant that pitching truly is. Woodruff, Burnes, Ashby, Peralta, Houser, Lauer is about as good as it gets right there. Focus on signing quality hitters and getting a new hitting coach. Haines sucks!
Bauer is a woman beater11 mins ago
Brewers need to focus on making sure Yelich and Huira are ready to go, and produce effectively.
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You might not get that with Hiura. His K/W is awful.
With all the analysis and camera angles available, how could they not have diagnosed Yelich’s problems? Maybe because it’s between his ears?
I dunno. I hope we get DH in NL now because I dont want our pitcher to be better option than Hiura or gasp, even Yelich because they should and can be the better option.
What MLB pitcher has had an OBP above .350 let alone most pitchers. Cmon bro, stop trolling.
Brewer pitchers had fewer ABs than Yelich–and we might note he also had less than a half season’s worth–and they had a lot of HRs.
We’ve got some great hitters in Lauer, Burnes, Woody and even Peralta.
Hiura seems like a lost cause at this point, he needs a change of scenery. Yelich on the other hand is much more of a bounce back candidate. I think his GB% is due to changing his swing to avoid further back issues, and hopefully that can get fixed this off-season
As far as the Brewers approach this off-season, current estimates between arbitration, options and guys currently under contract, puts them at around 120M. With needs at RF, and corner IF. Thats not a lot of open money for a small market team. The biggest issue is 29M locked up between Cain and JBJ. Its possible that they could float the idea of trading them with prospects to relieve cap room. Although with the depth that they have at SP right now, I think Woodruff/Burnes could be on the move to get a controlable cheap pos player to help with the offense. They still would have Burnes or Woodruff/Peralta/Lauer/Ashby with an emerging Ethan Small.
Either way, the FO is going to have to get creative, because at it currently stands there is not any money for a top 10 FA to sill their current holes. This team is only a few pieces away from being a WS contender, but its going to be tough to acquire those pieces.
Small is not MLB talent and is the most overrated player in their system.
Burnes needs to be locked up long term (he WILL win the Cy Young). Woody too.
The player they will/should trade is Houser. He’s just a ground ball guy but would be effective for many teams. Hader could be traded for a superstar at either LF or 1B, and Houser could be traded for a very good player at the position they don’t get a superstar (Urias will start at 3B, so no need there).
JBJ needs to go, but you are forgetting an emerging star in Tyrone Taylor. He can handle RF and back up in CF.
That would allow the team to do something creative, like trade Hader AND Cain for a superstar CF. There has to be a team with a need so great at the closer position that they’d swap out a young CF star for an aging one for a run.
What makes you say Small is overrated and not ML talent. Because he got hit around at the prospects game? If so, thats a lot of judgment on one game where he was coming back from an injured finger on his throwing hand. Small is far from a lock, but shows great movement/command with his fastball with solid change and slider.
Idk about emerging star… he’s going to be 28 next season. He could be a solid 2 WAR player, but emerging star is a stretch, and he profiles better as a corner OF than a CF.
I agree Hader is the other option, but teams will not send a ton for Houser. We need an impact bat, and Houser is not going to get that in return. I think Hader’s value has gone down now that he only has 2 years of control and is expensive. He could get a haul in development prospects, but I dont think we can get a stud young MLB ready player for him (could be wrong though)
I’ve seen him pitch a fair amount, both on tape and in person.
He doesn’t have great stuff and doesn’t have a presence.
We like who we like when we see them.
Sometimes we are wrong.
I don’t think I am here.
Yelich is killing the Brewers. All of you out there that think small market teams can spend like big market teams is false. Covid prolly didn’t help this year but last year was the same thing. Bad back and tall guys are not a good mix. His knee injury from two years ago has had no effect. He still runs as fast as he ever has. I would trade him in a heartbeat, if there was an offer…I have zero confidence in Hiura. Pitchers have exploited his weaknesses. If you can’t hit those pitches, doom. Jacky Bradley was a mistake signing in hindsight. One more pricey year left. In order for the Brewers to complete, they need to sign Castellanos or someone like that. Or Tyrod Taylor needs to breakout and start. I would be shocked if they traded one of their big three starters. Might need to do something to get offense though.
My unmedical unqualified thought is Yelich has the yips on his knee cap he broke. He recovered physically but mentally is another story.. He does not look even close to the hitter he has been.
If this continues 2022 is going to be another mess for the Brewers OF. Lots of money tied up in Yelich, Cain, and JBJ. UGLY !!!