The entire Wisconsin internet seemed wildly displeased with the Brewers' decision to demote top prospect Keston Hiura and activate rehabbing third baseman Travis Shaw on Monday, sending Hiura back to Class AAA despite a strong two-plus weeks to open his big league career.

There are many potential reasons for making the move, and one that will get thrown around is the idea of manipulating the service clock and keeping Keston Hiura out of "Super-2" status. Those things aren't exactly the same, but here's what it all means.

The free-agency 'clock'

A Major Leaguer enters free agency after he accrues six big-league seasons of service time.

If a player is on the active roster or injured list and racks up 172 days (in one season or over the course of several seasons), he hits an official year of service time. The season is 184 days long, but the most days a player can pile up from 2019 (or any year) is 172.

Years 4, 5 and 6 will involve arbitration -- and we'll get to that in a minute -- but as a means of making sure they can maximize a player, teams will call up top prospects after the first month of the season to guarantee he won't hit 172 that first year.

Whether or not that was a motivation with Hiura's mid-May callup, that ship has already sailed in 2019. Hiura can spend the rest of the season on the big-league team and he won't hit 172 days of service in 2019, so this won't count as his first full year of service time (this is different from "rookie" status, by the way). It means he's not going to enter free agency for another six years after that -- after the 2025 season. If he had broken camp with the Brewers and stayed up for 172 of the 184 days, he'd be free to sign elsewhere after 2024.

Recent example: Toronto was unwilling to call up Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who mashed his way through the minor leagues as a teenager from 2016-19. The club seemingly could have called him up in 2018 or at the start of 2019. By waiting, the Blue Jays preserved his stay in Toronto as long as possible, and since the Blue Jays weren't a factor in the 2018 pennant race, it made sense from their perspective to wait and not burn a year of Guerrero's six years before free agency. By waiting a month into the 2019 season, they also ensure he's around for this season plus six more.

Here's where 'Super 2' comes in

With arbitration in play, a player's salary can increase dramatically from Year 4 to Year 5 to Year 6.

But a handful of players are eligible for arbitration before reaching a full three years of service time. The "Super-2" rule stipulates that all the players between two and three years of service time are lined up at the end of the year, and the top 22 percent ranked by most service time are granted arbitration. Those guys ultimately get four years of arby before free agency -- Years 3, 4, 5 and 6.

So if a player has two years of service time and 170 days at the end of the season, he'll certainly be in Super-2 status. Two years and 150, probably likewise. Last year, the cutoff was 134 days. In recent years, it's been as few as 122 days (2010 and 2013) and as many as 146 (2011).

Here's the trickiest part. Since it involves ranking all the players between two and three years each season, there's no way to accurately say what the cutoff will be each season. That's why it jumps around.

Recent example: Colorado's Nolan Arenado earned Super-2 status in Year 3 (2016) and made $5 million, and his salaries escalated to the point that he earned a record-setting arbitration salary of $26 million in 2019 before inking a long-term deal.

If he hadn't been Super 2, he would have made $524,000 in Year 3, and his salary would have probably escalated just beyond $5 million in Year 4 instead. It's possible the ultimate cost was tens of millions of dollars for the Rockies.

That's an extreme case because Arenado is a star, worthy of a high arbitration settlement. Most "Super-2" players won't command anything approaching that. But that's why teams are mindful of trying to keep a star prospect out of Super-2 status as best they can, avoiding a massive payday in Year 3 that compounds through Year 6.

This mechanism was put in place so teams couldn't delay arbitration by a year simply by starting a player in the minors for just one day. But the same logic isn't applied to the free-agency clock.

Is that what the Brewers are doing, keeping Hiura out of Super-2 status?

David Stearns says no. It should be pointed out that answering 'yes' to that question would probably result in some sort of grievance from the players' union, since that action isn't the best-faith labor practice. However, in this case, it's defensible that he's being truthful.

But the nature of MLB's collective bargaining agreement at least creates the perception that service time is a consideration in play. Hiura has collected 21 days of MLB service time this season, and there are 118 possible days left this season. If he'd stayed the rest of the year, he'd have 139 -- firmly in the dangerous Super-2 cutoff territory (but potentially below the threshold already) if we assume he'll be a big-leaguer for full seasons each of the next two years. Every day he spends in the minors obviously moves him closer to the "safety" below the cutoff.

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.