Milwaukee Brewers: Defensive Miscues from Luis Urias Piling Up
By Paul Bretl
When the Milwaukee Brewers acquired Luis Urias from the San Diego Padres, it was fairly clear that Orlando Arcia’s time with the team was now limited. Exactly when they’d move on from him, we didn’t know, but the intention was to have Urias be the shortstop of the future.
Well, to the surprise of many, that move came early on this season with Milwaukee trading Arcia to Atlanta—going all-in on Urias and pushing their chips to the center of the table.
Offensively, Urias has had a few big hits this season but overall he has struggled at the plate like most of this Brewers team has, batting .205 with a .676 OPS and an OPS+ of 86. Honestly, this sounds a bit like what Milwaukee got from Arcia in recent years. But the big difference between the two has come defensively.
Arcia’s defense had regressed during the 2019 and 2020 seasons by Baseball Savant’s Outs Above Average (OAA) metric after he was very good in 2017 and 2018, finishing +8 and +12, respectively. However, even with taking a step back, he still largely provided consistency—but that hasn’t been the case with Urias.
While in many of the games this season Urias has been fine, when things are going bad, they are really going bad. He has played in 38 games defensively, and has been error free in 33 of them, but even with that being the case, Urias still has nine errors on the year. This is tied for the most among shortstops with Chicago’s Javy Baez, and four have come in the Crew’s last two games against Atlanta and Kansas City. He also had a three error game back on April 17th against Pittsburgh.
"“I think Luis has had a rough two-game stretch, there’s no question,” manager Craig Counsell said via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think he’s played pretty solidly. But the bad games have been bad games, unfortunately, and they’ve cost us.”"
Urias is a well below league average defender by OAA at -7 and he is -3 in Defensive Runs Saved, according to Fangraphs—again, below average.
The issue for Urias isn’t in fielding the ball but rather the ensuing throw. His throws to first are errant and pulling the first baseman off the bag, and he’s even began struggling with flipping the ball to second base—something that should be simple and routine.
Is it a physical issue? Is the core of the problem taking place between the ears? I’m not sure anyone knows at this point.
For a Milwaukee Brewers team that is struggling at the plate, every additional run allowed due to an error makes winning all that more challenging. Perhaps Urias would benefit from a change of scenery and some time in Triple-A, similarly to what the Brewers are doing with Keston Hiura, who is finding success in Nashville.
If the Brewers do decide to go this route, minor league options at shortstop include Dee Strange-Gordon, Daniel Robertson, and Hernan Perez.
At only 23-years-old, at this point, there’s really no reason to think that this is more than a bump in the road for Urias. With that said, this is a Milwaukee Brewers ball club with playoff aspirations; they can’t afford for these struggles to continue throughout the season.