Former Brewers top prospect Keston Hiura is heading to the Dodgers on a minor league deal, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The agreement includes an invitation to MLB Spring Training. The 29-year-old first baseman is represented by CAA Sports.
Hiura spent last season in the Rockies organization. He was up with the big-league club for a couple of weeks in June, but mostly spent the year at Triple-A. Hiura put together a solid season with Albuquerque. He hit .272 with 21 home runs across 100 games. Hiura went 3-for-18 in his brief stint in Colorado.
Milwaukee selected Hiura with the ninth overall pick in the 2017 draft. He immediately began obliterating minor league pitching and found himself atop the Brewers’ prospect ranks by the end of 2018.
Hiura didn’t break camp with the team in 2019, but earned his first callup in May. He put together a tremendous rookie season. Hiura posted a 139 wRC+ with 19 home runs in 84 games as a 22-year-old. He appeared to be a fixture in Milwaukee’s lineup for years to come.
Hiura’s profile at the plate began to show cracks in the shortened 2020 campaign. His already-high 30.7% strikeout rate jumped to 34.6%. He led the league in punchouts. Hiura still delivered solid power numbers (13 home runs, .410 SLG), but the swing-and-miss was becoming a problem.
The bottom dropped out in 2021. Hiura’s strikeout rate ballooned to 39.1%. He hit .168 while spending most of the season bouncing between Milwaukee and Triple-A Nashville. It was more of the same the following season. Hiura delivered a 115 wRC+ with 14 home runs over 80 games, but it came with an untenable 41.7% strikeout rate. He spent all of 2023 with the Sounds.
The Tigers, Angels, and Rockies have all taken fliers on Hiura in recent years. He’s performed well in the minors during the stretch, and really at all times in his career, but he hasn’t stuck as a big leaguer. Hiura has more than twice as many strikeouts (17) as hits (8) over the 18 MLB games he’s played the past two years.
The Dodgers will be Hiura’s latest stop. He’s likely a long shot to contribute in the majors given the depth of L.A.’s roster, but maybe the organization has an answer for his contact issues.
Photos courtesy of Rhona Wise and Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images
WHY???
Because.
You’ve heard of AAA yes?
He’s a dodgers fan he wants Zac Gallen to be the AAA ace.
You guys making the post season this year or nah ?
Because he offers more value than Castellanos.
They just had to have that 99th guy in camp.
Exactly! Dude has been terrible.
With their history he’s gonna become the next Muncy
Nope
Dodgers should pick up Casty and trade Teoscar Hernandez to some team for a future 3B.
No
Nope
Teoscar is fine.
I would rather play both Edman and Hyeseong Kim than to add Castellanos. Or have Rushing take reps in LF.
There are several other teams who should consider Castellanos at the league minimum.
As a Sox fan I’d take Teoscar if you take Yoshida.
No deal
“ Teoscar has no real value.”
What a silly comment.
Dude mashed 25 HR in a bad year last season. There are plenty of teams that would plug him in at DH and some which would suffer the defense for the bat.
But Castellanos…no way.
Rickey
Obviously Teoscar has a lot of value. I assume the poster meant no surplus value beyond the dollar amount if the contract. They were not clear though.
Contracts are a negotiable piece of any deal. Teo is a valuable asset, contract notwithstanding. He’s the Dodgers 6th or 7th hitter. On another team he could hit cleanup.
Look. Ya’ll are using BTV.
I always pull for him. I gave him a ride to the airport when he was promoted to AA 7 or 8 years ago..
What a rookie season he had, but once scouts caught up to him it was over for him. Dodgers are just kicking tires see if they can modify swing or something to see if he has any more traction to the ball
has to be a pretty major hole in that swing to carry around a 40% strikeout rate yikes. beyond the mechanical it has to become a major mental mind f. good luck w this reclamation Dodgers.
You aren’t wrong. Longenhagen published this just yesterday:
While he ended up being a good enough defender to play second in the big leagues, the load-bearing Jenga block in Hiura’s profile was actually a hole in his swing created by the path his hands took back to the baseball. Hiura’s hands are powerful but take too long to get on plane with fastballs. After a productive rookie year during which he K’d a concerning 30.7% of the time, the book was out on this guy, and Kiura (sic) managed just a 57% contact rate against pitches 93 mph and above from 2020 through 2023.
Anybody remember Hee-Seop Choi? Back in 2006, he hit seven home runs in the space of four consecutive games in June. Then, the pitchers dialed into the holes in his swing, and he hit a total of two more over the entire rest of the season. He was done in MLB, and played out the rest of his career in Korea. Baseball can be such a brutal game.
Joey Meneses, Greg Bird, Orestes Destrade, Kevin Maas,Renato Nunez to pile on some 1B. The game can humble. Before Choi maybe Hollandsworth the big one hit wonder for the dogers?
Hollandsworth had a couple of years of above-average SLG that he couldn’t sustain, but he also managed to string together a lengthy MLB career. Another Dodger who flashed in the pan: James Outman. Lots of examples of players who came out of the gate hot, were totally figured out, and could not make the adjustments. There’s no mercy in baseball.
Oatman. How could I forget. The name caught up to him. I was hoping the Angels would take a chance on him since they need a CF
Due to be released on or about March 25th.
If the Dodgers can’t fix him, his career has come to a permanent halt.
Hope he’s given the information to adjust and figure things out.
They’ll prolly just send him to the optometrist. Boom, problem solved…..
RUINING BASEBALL
Sadly just seems like can’t adjust to MLB pitching. Teams figured out his flaws and that’s a wrap
Welcome to the Angels-Dodgers club.
Rarifed air.
He’ll likely be an All Star by next season now
hOw MuCh DeFeRreD?!?!?
So much
always wanted this guy. let’s fix him.
I saw him come up with and get sent down by the Brewers. Never saw a player who seemed to have been trained to generate maximum torque with his shoulders at the expense of basic eye-hand coordination.
They are planning to defer his strikeouts over the next ten years.
Another unoriginal repetitive wit. Exactly what we all needed.
LoL Rickey. When you find your sense of humor let us all know.
Exactly the point. Humor is welcome. If you think Bucks comment was funny you’re as dumb as he is. For an example of what is funny see Another Dodger’s comment below.
Wow! I guess your knowledge of Keston Huira outmatches mine therefore you are the authority when it comes to what we all need when it comes to Keston’s swing and miss tendencies. Calling me dumb for finding humor in a light comment about a former Brewer is classic. Sorry you either took offense to the first comment, enough to reply to it, or you are the humor police and felt like responding. Stay salty.
And you miss the point again. It’s not about Huira’s ability, my initial response was to the tired beaten-into the -ground attempt at deferral humor. That’s all. You make one valid point: humor is always in the ear of the listener. Now we’ve both spent more time on this than it deserves so let’s move on.
Just glad the Dodgers finally did something.
It’s been hours.
He has 0 walks in his last 47 major league at bats.
Classic bust
Shades of Bartolo Colon. In over 300 PAs, he walked exactly once. He would swing at a pickoff play.