LUKE23 wrote:Kerb Hohl wrote:I understand the thought process behind the Hiura thing.
Guys that strike out 35+% of the time are on very thin ice to succeed. Hiura has been there basically his whole career.
You need elite power to provide value consistently.
Of guys that have even been able to stick all season, here are the names at 30+%:
Patrick Wisdom at 33.5%. .217/.311/.438 with 22 HR
Eugenio Suarez at 32.3%. Having a renaissance year at .226/.332/.442 with 24 HR
Luke Voit at 32.0% .226/.318/.414 with 17 HR
Kyle Schwarber at 30.9% .214/.313/.492 with 36 HR
Jared Walsh at 30.4% .215/.269/.374 with 15 HR
Hiura has so far struck out at 41.9% of his PAs.
He is closer to 35% for his career and will probably land back there.
But even back at 35%, you look at this collection of players and throw in Joey Gallo, they will either get some BABIP or ISO luck and the ball will find green or get over the fence more often in a season and they will be an All Star, or they will be the most hated bat in the lineup every night.
Suarez's K% went up after he used to be a .270 hitter and he struggled to find .200 for 2+ years after.
Schwarber hit .188 in the 60 game season.
Most of the other guys on this list used to be at 25%.
Here's a guy that has consistently been in the 35-40% in his career but doesn't have enough ABs to qualify this year. Note the variance in averages.
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/joey-gallo/14128/stats?position=OF
;tldr - They should be playing Hiura. He is earning it and he can have value even striking out a ton. But if he hits .150 the rest of the way, don't let Counsell and Stearns be the first to tell you, "I told you so."
This doesn't really apply to someone that has the drastic splits Hiura does. For his career, Hiura is .873 OPS verses RHP with a HR every 16 PA. In 2022, he's 1.100 OPS verses RHP with a HR every 9.5 PA. Again, this is a nearly 700 PA sample now for his career mashing RHP. Hell, he leads the team in OVERALL OPS this year. We can't be nitpicking about K rate when half of this team can't get on base and the other half can't hit for power.
He shouldn't play every day. He SHOULD play every day against RHP especially factoring in the roster alternatives.
I do get that split. That may be something to play forever. I’m saying it’s also predictive that he’s going to be terrible for stretches if he keeps up this contact rate. He should be playing but the reason they were so reluctant to keep him in there is he is not likely to succeed with this K%.
