No Weeks? No Problem.
The Brewers suffered a blow yesterday when it was announced that Rickie Weeks would need season ending surgery on his wrist. Weeks was off to a strong start to the ’09 season, racking up a +1.5 win value in 162 plate appearances. He was showing significant power, and more importantly for a heavily right-handed Brewers line-up, he was lighting up right-handed pitching, helping Milwaukee compensate for a lack of left-handed bats in the line-up. Replacing Weeks’ production will be near impossible for the Brewers.
They do have options, though. Craig Counsell continues to defy the aging curve, showing surprising bat speed for a 38-year-old and playing his usual excellent defense. Counsell has been a league average major leaguer for each of the last three years, making him one of baseball’s best part-time players. He’s capable of stepping into a full time role at second and not creating a hole.
If the Brewers wanted to get a more offensive arrangement, they could slide Bill Hall over to second base and let Mat Gamel play third. However, with a pitch to contact staff and a defense that is one of the main reasons the surging Brewers are in first place, the team is understandably wary of downgrading significantly at two infield spots and forcing their starting pitchers to overcome the gloves behind them rather than be empowered by them.
The Brewers have options. This is one of the reasons teams have become reluctant to move “blocked” players, as injuries inevitably pile up and allow the team to avoid panicking when they are forced to deviate from their original plan. Milwaukee fans should be grateful that they have a management staff who gave them a roster that could handle the loss of one of their better players. Rather than having to ship off a prospect to bring in a stop gap replacement, the Brewers can patch the hole at second base for the rest of 2009 internally, and then give Weeks his job back next spring.
Losing Weeks will hurt the Brewers, but it won’t cripple them, thanks to good planning and resource allocation by the front office.
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I think this is a bit more of a problem than it would seem at first. The issue here is who is going to get on base in front of Braun and Fielder? As it stands now, pitchers have basically decided not to pitch to either of them (Fielder walked an insane 4 times last night), and without Weeks on base putting some pressure on the opposing team I wonder if either one of them sees a good pitch for the rest of the year.
Well, then Braun and Fielder get on base at a .450 – .500 clip and score a s*** ton of runs. It’s not as if that line-up is say…the Mariners’ line-up, after those two.
Yeah, exactly. I would gladly see Fielder draw 4 walks every night :-p
Counsell gets on base as much as Weeks does vs RH pitching and that team has no problems against LH hitting, that won’t be an issue.
The Brewers also have Iribarren and McGehee who are good defensive players and they are getting Escobar some reps at 2B who is one of the biggest defensive prospects in baseball.
Losing Weeks really stinks but they are losing a position of strength so it won’t cripple them like if an OF or SP went down.
Weeks had a .342 OBP last year and has a .342 OBP this season as well. He also only had four stolen base attempts this season so I’m not sure how much pressure he’s putting on anyone nor do I think it’s his OBP that will be missed the most. The OBP can be replaced, it’s his power numbers that can’t.
Braun and Fielder walked a combined six times last night… and scored five runs. I’m not sure that it’s much of a problem for the Brewers to see Braun walk 15% of the time in front of Fielder or Fielder continue to walk 21% of the time in front of Mike Cameron.
I have heard speculation that they might bring up Escobar and shift him over to 2B as a possible replacement, at least on a part-time basis. At first glance this would seem to be not such a good idea. Escobar’s overall minor league numbers are not all that impressive, really, AND he would be playing out of position, missing everyday at-bats, etc.–but if you look at his minor league numbers he’s really done pretty well against lefties (OPS of about .840, vs. .660 against righties). Seems like he might do well in a platoon situation with Counsel, who has virtually the opposite splits.
As far as trade ideas, what’s wrong with shipping a bat over to the Rays for Akinori Iwamura. The Rays have other guys that could play 2B for the rest of the year and the Brewers would have the option of bringing Aki back for another year. He’s a lefty that can hit lefties, hit at the top or bottom of the order, and plays generally above average defense, but turns a sick DP. Not sure what could come back, but he seems like a good fit.
Anyone else think Ray Durham is worth considering? Last year he was worth trading for, this year he is an unsigned FA.
There was an article over the offseason here about Durham (maybe Dave wrote it?) that put up a good argument for some team picking him up as a stopgap, and cheaply to boot.
Mark Grudzielanek would be a much better choice. Not only is he a Milwaukee native, but he plays much better defense than Durham.
Another element to consider in the Brewers’ decision making process in the coaching presence of Willie Randolph. Randolph has been a very positive influence on the team so far. Included in Ricky’s hot start to the season has been his defense, where hes posted a 5.4 UZR (his first positive UZR in his entire career), much of which can be attributed to his one-on-one work with the former Mets manager.
While it may be tempting for the Brewers to play Counsell or another older vetran, their long-term interest might be to let the young kids take the opportunity to work with Randolph. Randolph won’t be in Milwaukee forever, maybe not even past this year.
Can Rickie Weeks catch a freaking break for once? He in the midst of a breakout year with power and average and what happens? Hes out for the season less then a quarter of the way through. Tough break Rickie, I’d love to see what you can do with a full season some day
The real losers here are fantasy players all over America.
They will not have the opportunity to see Weeks’s Hr and BA output regress over the rest of the season.
They will go into next year with the false hope about weeks, who is decent but not this good.
Maybe him always getting hurt is a sign that you will never see him play a full season. He swings way too hard for his small body and eventually, in this case every year, that body breaks down. The same is said about Pedroia.
I love Weeks, but his numbers perhaps were going to drop. Either way 9 HRs are 9 HRs, and that is not easy to replace no matter what 2B guy you throw out there. This definitely hurts the lineup, especially if you don’t think that Counsell can sustain his .BA avg and .OBP like I do. Defensively though they will get better whoever they throw out there, but saving an error once and a while doesn’t make up for his SLG%. I will say having a contact guy in the lineup might help it a little since every one else in the lineup already adds his shares of Ks.