2013-04-14 Brewers (Estrada) at Cardinals (Garcia), 1:15 PM CDT [Brewers score, come back, go ahead, save and win, 4-3, 10 innings]

[rluzinski]

Weeks looked great in his first 10 plate appearances but now there is something so mechanically wrong with his swing that he may need to go to the minors lol.

 

Can't we just dig up the thread from last year, when some suggested he was done? It would save us all a bunch of time.

[PrinceFielderx1]

The book is out on Rickie Weeks, and it didn't take long for them to figure it out. Just throw heaters down the middle of the plate to him for the first 2 strikes and then throw breaking pitches down and away and he will be lucky to make contact the entire AB. Rickie Week's bat is too slow to catch up. Look at the footage of his last 25 AB's and look at the pitches he's swinging at and missing. Remember the Rickie Weeks that could catch up to any fastball that was thrown to him, because of his excellent bat speed? That Weeks is gone.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

@baldkin

 

I'm not basing this off of this season. I'm basing this off of everything since hins injury in 2011. Since the 2nd half of 2011, Weeks has not been very good. You can throw all of the stats you want at me, but they don't tell the whole story. Weeks has consistently been coming up short in clutch and scoring situations.

[brewmann04]

very nice win today and hope it turns things around. Loshe and Marco had very nice starts vs the cards.

[rluzinski]

The book is out on Rickie Weeks, and it didn't take long for them to figure it out. Just throw heaters down the middle of the plate to him for the first 2 strikes and then throw breaking pitches down and away and he will be lucky to make contact the entire AB. Rickie Week's bat is too slow to catch up. Look at the footage of his last 25 AB's and look at the pitches he's swinging at and missing. Remember the Rickie Weeks that could catch up to any fastball that was thrown to him, because of his excellent bat speed? That Weeks is gone.

 

I agree that if you take out the period of time that he's done well this year, he's done very bad. Of course, it's April 14th, so...

 

I am not expecting to see 26 year old Weeks anymore but who was the Weeks that was playing the last 100 games of last year? I am fine with whomever that was. ZiPS has him at about .250/.340/.440 for the rest of the year. That seems reasonable to me.

[SoupTown]

What worries me, as a fan, is that I am happy we managed to win one game in the series. I will almost be 'satisfied' if we can go 1-2 every series and say 'good one, we did not get swept'. Looking at the four man rotation and the potential offense, that is a silly thing to feel. But the mojo on this team is no hope. Most crap teams have a bunch of young, new guys and you hope they will improve. Our current hope is a bunch of old, never been good, guys. It is depressing.

[logan82]

I won't be satisfied with 1-2 every series. On the road against a tough team, not bad. We should have pulled out at least one of the hoe series this year and not been swept.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

I won't be satisfied with 1-2 every series. On the road against a tough team, not bad. We should have pulled out at least one of the hoe series this year and not been swept.

 

Yeah it does suck that we feel like avoiding the sweep is a good result. We just need to survive until Aramis and Hart are back. I feel like the Lohse game was the one we should have won. Lohse shut them down. Miller throwing heater after heater. Our guys should have shelled him.

[Gobias Industries]

.700 OPS guy since when exactly?

He's at about a 720 OPS since he folded his ankle in half.

[The stache]

.700 OPS guy since when exactly?

He's at about a 720 OPS since he folded his ankle in half.

 

His serious ankle injury carried over into 2012. It took a while to heal, but once it did, he was the Rickie Weeks of old.

 

From July 25th until the end of the season (65 games), Rickie had an .850 OPS. During that span, he batted .282 with 47 runs scored, 12 home runs, 30 RBI, and was successful in 10 out of 13 stolen base tries. He had a .360 OBP and a .488 SLG.

 

So, no, he's not been a .700 OPS guy since his injury.

 

A lot of our guys are in a slump right now, and they will work their way out of it. Rickie included.

[TURBO]

slump or no slump, as long as we have to hit guys like Yuni, Gonzalez, and Lali in our line-up, we just have no chance to mount any kind of threat in the win column. Couple those 3 spots with Weeks and the pitcher, and we are in rough shape.

 

Rickie needs to snap out of this, but hitting him in the 4 spot isn't going to help.

[Gobias Industries]

I have no interest in cherry picking stats from such and such date. As a whole, he's been a bad hitter with terrible defense since the injury. That's all I really care about.

 

I would love to see him bounce back to his career norms and help the team/build his trade value. But we're well over 700 PA's where his ops is in the low 700s.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I have no interest in cherry picking stats from such and such date. As a whole, he's been a bad hitter with terrible defense since the injury. That's all I really care about.

 

I would love to see him bounce back to his career norms and help the team/build his trade value. But we're well over 700 PA's where his ops is in the low 700s.

 

So, you don't want to cherry pick stats from such and such date, then you go ahead and cherry pick stats from such and such date. His career OPS is .777, so to be honest asking him to bounce back to career norms isn't asking much at all, considering a small 700 PA sample size. Hell, he OPS'd .800 post ASB last season for 300 of those plate appearances, that's how awful he was coming off that ankle injury during the 1st 1/2 of last year.

 

The issue with Weeks is that whenever many people are down on him, he'll show flashes for 2-3 weeks where he just tears the cover off the ball and is scoring 2 runs a game. Injuries have derailed his career, yes, but I think his raw talent has never fully translated onto the MLB stage. He is what he his, and the flashes have convinced people he's always on the verge of breaking out to another level...I just don't think he's consistent enough to ever do that. He's still a valuable part of the everyday lineup, but when he slumps it isn't pretty.

[Gobias Industries]

I think cherry picking stats after a major, career altering injury is a lot less arbitrary than a random day in July 2012 when he started to actually hit again.

 

Weeks was a very good player from 2007-2011. I just think with all the injuries he's had there's a pretty decent chance that player isn't coming back.

[rluzinski]

I am struggling to understand why we should accept the theory that an ankle injury would so adversely affect his hitting. It just seems like a convenient way to disregard the bulk of his 2011 season, when he hit well. It would be more logical to blame his last wrist injury but that wouldn't be as convenient either, as he hit well between that injury and the ankle injury.

 

All these injuries and just simply Weeks aging is going to lower our expectations for him. His best days are most likely behind him. That said, I believe people are overreacting to his slow start, EXACTLY like they did last year. You are welcome to stick with your "about .700 OPS" projection for him going forward but I think the .250/.340/.440 line I shared earlier is much more reasonable.