The 20-year-old, however, hit .442 as a DH for UC Irvine
The last time the Milwaukee Brewers picked ninth in the MLB draft, it was Geoff Jenkins that came off the board back in 1995.
Monday, it was UC Irvine’s Keston Hiura, who is listed as a second baseman but played DH this season because of an elbow injury that could require Tommy John surgery.
That injury, however, didn’t stop the 20-year-old from hitting.
“He’s the best college hitter in the country,” Wynn Pelzer, Milwaukee’s area scout for southern California, told MLB.com. “That’s what he showed all through the spring.”
Hiura hit .442 with a 1.260 OPS with eight home runs in 199 at-bats. He struck out just 38 times and nearly doubled that total with 50 walks.
“You know, I got in this position I am because of my bat,” Hiura said. “My goal was to start throwing again, but I didn’t want to potentially hurt myself by rushing back into it and taking away from swinging. I knew my bat would give me the best opportunity to succeed in the Draft.”
The Brewers will now evaluate their prospect and decide his future with the injury and whether to have surgery.
“I wouldn’t say we know for sure either way on that,” Brewers amateur scouting director Tod Johnson said on MLB.com. “We’ve done a lot of work to try and understand that as best we can with what we are allowed to do and talk about with players prior to acquisition. So right now, we’re not 100 percent sure either way. But I don’t know that surgery is the first option, necessarily, either.”
The ninth overall pick carries an assigned value of $4.57 million, part of the Brewers’ pool of $10,447,700 to spend on their selections through the 10th round before incurring penalties. Milwaukee’s spending pool this season is sixth-highest of the 30 clubs.