Hiram Burgos

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Hiram Alexis Burgos

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Biographical Information[edit]

Hiram Burgos made 6 big league starts in 2013.

Burgos was 0-1, 7.65 as a college freshman at Bethune-Cookman University. His sophomore year, he improved to 6-7, 3.40, making second-team All-MEAC. As a junior in 2008, Hiram was the top MEAC pitcher, going 9-1 (tying for the MEAC victory lead) with a save and a MEAC-leading 1.58 ERA. Burgos won Pitcher of the Year honors but was somehow left off the All-Conference team. Nationally, he was 4th in NCAA Division I in ERA, .01 behind #3 Stephen Strasburg. Burgos fell to 6-3, 3.74 as a senior, but led the conference with 94 strikeouts and was third in ERA. The Milwaukee Brewers took Burgos in the 6th round of the 2009 amateur draft; the scout was Tim McIlvaine. Burgos had an unimpressive rookie year with the Helena Brewers, going 3-5 with a 5.62 ERA and .309 opponent average. He pitched for the Indios de Mayaguez that winter. In 2010, Burgos pitched for Helena (3-0, 2.37) and the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (5-7, 4.48), showing progress. He joined the Puerto Rican national team for the 2010 Pan American Games and Baseball World Cup Qualifiers, going 1-1 with a 4.91 ERA for the event, losing to Team USA and beating Nicaragua. Puerto Rico won both spots in both the 2011 Pan American Games and 2011 Baseball World Cup, but Burgos would not play in either event. He then had a 3-2, 2.27 winter for Mayaguez, finishing third in the Puerto Rican League in ERA behind Levale Speigner and Brian Lawrence.

Burgos was unimpressive with the 2011 Brevard County Manatees (6-8, 4.89). He was 1-3 with a 7.43 ERA and 2.09 WHIP for the Indios in winter ball, the worst ERA of any of their hurlers with more than two games and tied for second in the Puerto Rican League in defeats. He turned things around in 2012, winning the Brewers' Minor League Pitcher of the Year with a 10-4, 1.95 and .210 opponent average between the Manatees (2-1, 0.87 in 7 games), Huntsville Stars (6-1, 1.94 in 13 games) and Nashville Sounds (2-2, 2.91 in 8 games). He led Brewers farmhands in ERA and strikeouts (153, 10 more than Wily Peralta) while tying for fourth in wins. He was third in the affiliated minors in ERA behind Tony Cingrani and Jose Fernandez. He excelled for Puerto Rico in the 2013 WBC, when they finished second, going 1-0 with a 0.69 ERA and 12 strikeouts in 13 innings. He tossed 3 2/3 shutout innings to get a 4-3 relief win over Italy. He finished among the Classic leaders in strikeouts (tied for third with Masahiro Tanaka and Jose de la Torre, behind Kenta Maeda and Sam Deduno), hits allowed (12, trailing Diegomar Markwell), innings (tied for third with Deduno) and ERA (tied with Deduno for 4th among hurlers with 10+ innings, trailing Dany Betancourt, Chien-Ming Wang and Maeda).

Hiram began 2013 with an 0-1, 2.70 record for Nashville. He was called up to replace Mike Fiers and made his big league debut with a start against the Chicago Cubs on April 20, 2013. He pitched 5 innings, giving up a run on five hits while walking none and striking out one to pick up his first win, 5-1, over Edwin Jackson. He was yanked for pinch-hitter Blake Lalli. Hiram made four more solid starts with one rough one, allowing 10 earned runs in 3 innings against the Cincinnati Reds on May 11. Ten days later, he made his final appearance, finishing his big league tenure with a 1-2, 6.44 record. He hung around in the Brewers minor league system for the next five years.

During Burgos' final season (2018), he also served as a pitching coach for the AZL Brewers. In 2019 he moved into a full-time coaching role as the AZL Brewers Gold pitching coach. He was scheduled for a similar position in 2020 when the minor league season was cancelled due to COVID-19. Burgos was pitching coach for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers in 2021, ACL Brewers Blue in 2022, and ACL Brewers in 2023.

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