When is it time to try and move Weeks?

[HiAndTight]

I'm sorry, the guy has been my favorite player...since he was drafted. I've constantly been convinced that once he got past THIS...the wrist injuries, the ankle injuries, the terrible starts...and then each year he does. He this great stretch, you put it all together and he ends up putting up very good numbers for a 2nd basemen and you're fooled into thinking he's a solid defensive 2nd basemen.

 

I don't want to sound like I'm hyper reactive and I see a guy off to a slow start after a month and want him gone. I've just seen him disappear for too long for too many years and NOT make too many plays that a 2nd basemen should make that I think I'm finally off the Weeks bandwagon.

 

He's an ideal team player, hard worker, everything about him as a person you love and want in your clubhouse and you can never quantify his impact on young players as a leader, how his toughness rubs off on people.

 

But provided he ends up having the season I expect him to have, a .240-.250/.340/.460-ish line(which might even be high) and hit 20-25 HR's by the end of the season.

 

Anyone else ready to move on and go with Scooter Gennett, or are we going to sit back and look at his cumulative OPS the last 5-6 years, see that he's in a group of probably 5-6 2nd basemen with a .800+ OPS and just deal with his progressively worse hot/cold streaks?

 

 

Again, nobody has been a bigger Weeks fan than I, but Gennett has consistently proven he can rise to the level despite people constantly saying, "he'll struggle at the next level...he'll struggle when he sees more off-speed stuff...he won't hit for as much power once he hits this level," and yet he just consistently goes out and performs very well every year.

 

 

 

When all is said and done, I think that Weeks will have the numbers and teams will look as his career and salary and be willing to give up a solid B prospect. He's going to be 31 years old, he'll have two more years on his contract and I just think it's time to move on.

 

Thoughts?

[PrinceEatMeat]

Not when his value is at the lowest it'll ever be, I can tell you that.

[brettac1]

Not when there's not an in-house replacement, either.

[recte44]

Gennett?

[RWeeksFan23]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. He's always been my favorite player as well. At this point though, the guy's an automatic out at the plate. Looks just awful. I don't care what anyone says about small sample size, this or that, the guy flat out sucks. I don't see how anyone can say Weeks would outperform Gennett at this point.

[TooLiveBrew]

Rickie needs to sit for a day or two. Roenicke can talk all he wants about 'you never know when he'll snap out of it,' but dude needs to warm some pine for a while. Just re-set the mind & hopefully come back fresh.

[MNBrew]

I'm with TLB on this. Sometimes "playing your way out of it" works. But now is yet another time it seems so obvious that Rickie needs a break, however brief -- a sort of mental sorbet (palate cleansing), as it were -- to hopefully jump-start the process of "getting right."

 

It just seems to me that "playing your way through it" can be as useless & unproductive as "trying really hard to relax" -- where all you need to do it relax, but you can't actually relax when you're trying so hard non-stop.

[jerichoholicninja]

There no longer is a time to try and move Weeks. He has very little value after his frigid start and subpar season last year. He would have to have a monster finish to the season to get anything worthwhile in a trade this offseason. You just have to ride out the rest of his contract.

[brewcrewdue80]

I've bashed Weeks hard since I've joined BFnet. He's already at a -.7WAR on the season You get in to the splits on BRef and he's .048 1 hit in 24PAs in high leverage situations. 4rbis now in 99PAs. It's just we're at where the only justification you can argue in defending him is he has a high BB rate. That is all he is bringing to the team.

 

It's the first month of the season we're seeing his worst roughly. Small sample size all that good stuff.

 

Take away Rickie's best OPS month last season (July) His numbers then avg out to:

.221/.308/.375 .683OPS 16HRs 48RBI 26%K 11%BB rate. in 496ABs/558PAs.

 

This to me is what is expected out of Weeks and I don't know how all of you feel on these numbers for a 2b and say whether he's an asset at 2b in MLB.

 

Here's the thing. As I recall last season, the team kept shuffling out the players that were struggling all way up to the deadline I believe in hopes to find someone who sees a reason to pick up the phone and inquire on them for a trade. K-Rod/Wolf/Morgan off the top of my head as I recall. And all it seemed to do was lower their value/opinion.

Moving forward, this will continue with Weeks IMO no matter his struggles on through til next season's trade deadline.

 

I question this/ Let's say he plays to that line above or worse now through next deadline. Nobody works a trade with the team. Can the club release at that point? Which would be giving him no chance of being able to avoid the club voiding out his 2015?

How big a backlash would the Brewers get with statline that low or worse?

I'm going to assume if Rickie were to be traded that his clause travels with him. Then another team would have to worry about an 11.5mil 2b with under .700OPS and -WAR numbers?

This would have to already reduce Rickie's value by an added amount. That's a pretty big downside if you ask me to take on a player who's showing ever declining numbers and he may force you to take another year of his play at 11.5mil cost to your team's payroll.

 

This leads me to the conclusion that the team cannot move Weeks until he's gone on the DL to start the season next season and he's not projecting to reach the 600PAs or 1200 combined to have to take on his 2015contract.

 

As bad as he's been you would think a team wouldn't offer Rickie 11.5mil come 2015 if he were to become a FA. At which point what is Rickie's 2015 FA year worth currently if he were to go on the market? 4-6mil? That's how I'm looking at it for a team to consider Rickie his 2015 price can drop by a lot once avoiding his PA requirement.

 

Just sit back enjoy the Rickie show at least another 220games are in store.

[Outlander]

The time to trade Weeks has already passed, maybe last trading deadline when he was on a hot streak. They are pretty much forced to play him this year, I don't see them taking the risk of starting a rookie second baseman this year unless Weeks gets hurt. Even if a team offered a fringe prospect and were willing to pay his contract I still don't think the Brewers would trade him this year because they want that veteran presence during the playoff stretch run. Next year is a different story though, they may start Gennett and I don't think the Brewers would get too much backlash if they released him in the middle of next season and he was having another poor season, that is what you do with bad players, you release them.

[JohnBriggs12]

I was once a big Weeks booster. On pure talent I thought he was as good as anyone including Braun and Fielder. But even his best years didn't seem to me up to his talent as even in those seasons there were slumps. Now his slumps are more prolonged and deeper and he no longer is needed to lead off on this team.

 

With his contract, he's got very little trade value now if any. As long as Gennett is hitting over .400 at AAA, the heat on Weeks isn't going away any time soon. Maybe a hot month could bring some interest, and if it does, I think the Brewers should move him even if they have to eat part of the contract.

[monty57]

This offseason, I got slammed for being too negative about the future, but unless we make some trades we are pretty much guaranteed to have a $100-110MM+ payroll next season and will still be too reliant on mid-tier prospects getting too much playing time. One of the things I hoped for was for Weeks to have a good season so that he could possibly be traded to ease the 2014 financial burden. Unfortunately, all of the guys who made sense to trade are pretty much eliminating any trade value they may have had.

 

Weeks (the subject of this thread) is probably untradeable unless we eat most of his contract. Ramirez is now an injury concern and will be owed $20MM for one year. Axford will probably get $7-8MM next year... we could cut him to avoid the cost, but probably won't be able to trade him.

 

So, we could look at it this way: Because we have to pay Weeks and Ramirez, we may have to trade someone we don't want to (Gallardo, Lohse, Gomez and Braun are the high-priced guys who will probably have value). Or, we will have to have some significant roles played by guys who probably shouldn't be playing significant roles because we don't have the money to "fill the holes."

 

So yeah, I'd like to be able to trade Weeks, and hoped that we could get someone to pay his salary and give us a good prospect in return. Now we're treading into that territory that we'd have to pay most of his salary and still get little in return. Since we don't really have a great option to replace him, we're probably just going to trot him out there hoping his "hot streak" outweighs his "cold streak" and he provides positive value to the team. At some point he may be "shut down" to avoid the automatic option from exercising, and then we just hope the Brewers win the greivance hearing.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

No one is stupid enough to trade for Weeks. He's an awful player with a bad contract. We are stuck with him until his contract is up or he retires. I think he's done. He's checked out mentally. Just look at his face and his mannerisms. He looks scared every time he goes up to hit. Failure after failure after failure destroys your confidence. The best thing to do would be send him down to Triple A. Put the guy out of his misery. If the team keeps him on the MLB roster he's going to keep failing. His defense is bad. His approach at the plate is bad. His once fast swing is now very slow. The wrist injuries have ruined his bat speed. I can't remember the last time he caught up to a fastball. I'm a big Weeks fan, but the time has come to send him away to AAA. It's sad because this guy was a top 3 2B in all of baseball 2009. He was crushing it in the 1st halves of 2010 and 2011 until injuries slowed down his season.

[endaround]

People do realize that Genett had an OPS below what what Weeks had last year while Gennet was in AA? Gennett has one skill, to hit for average. But unless you somehow think a .483 BABIP in AAA with no power means something, Gennett is a 1 WAR player at best.

[Outlander]

One is greater than a negative number though.

[sheetskout]

I'm also "out" on Weeks. We just can't have this anymore. The money would be better spent elsewhere.

 

We can wait for an in-house replacement all we want, but an average replacement with that money allocated towards a pitching upgrade seems like more wins to me in the future. He's just that bad right now.

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

I'm also "out" on Weeks. We just can't have this anymore. The money would be better spent elsewhere.

 

We can wait for an in-house replacement all we want, but an average replacement with that money allocated towards a pitching upgrade seems like more wins to me in the future. He's just that bad right now.

 

Weeks right now is an expensive bad player. If Gennett ends up being bad, at least it will not cost the Crew a lot of money. The Brewers can take Weeks' salary and use that to bolster the pen or pick up another starter if necessary. Weeks is getting paid too much money for that kind of production.

[monty57]

The Brewers can take Weeks' salary and use that to bolster the pen or pick up another starter if necessary.

 

No they can't. They owe him that money, even if they cut him. The only ways for them to get out of paying him are either to trade him or for him to retire. I don't see any other team relieving them of that obligation in trade, and he's not going to retire.

 

The Brewers are not very likely to get out of paying Weeks, so they're either going to (A) play him, hoping he "finds it" and they get some value from him, (B) sit him down and pay him to be a bench player, or © cut him and pay him to not play. I think they're going to give option A as much chance as possible to work before they move on to options B or C. Weeks still has talent. Maybe he won't be an .800 OPS guy anymore, but he's better than he's playing, and he's not going to end the season with his current .527 OPS.

[brewcrewdue80]

Yep, should be common sense in that Weeks is owed what the Brewers gave him in his contract no matter what they do with him. Only way out is really by trade and another team taking it on. The Brewers could send along some cash to make a trade a little more appealing to a suitor but then it's money spent on sending Weeks away and depending on the amount how much the team really has left to use on picking up some other player.

 

It's great Weeks had a great game today, but so did near every Brewer batter. Hopefully, it's a sign of better things to come, but I'm not going to hold my breath on today's success being the turning point for Weeks.

[brettac1]

Gennett?

Yeah, that's what I meant by there not being an in-house replacement.

[JohnBriggs12]

Whether one big night signals the end of his slump or not, it's likely now that they'll go with him. Mentally it probably did a lot for him. In the long run though I think he's what he is, a very talented but very streaky player, who probably has his best years behind him and it would be in the Brewers interest to listen to trade offers should teams like Baltimore who are desperate for a 2B come calling.

[sheetskout]

The Brewers can take Weeks' salary and use that to bolster the pen or pick up another starter if necessary.

 

No they can't. They owe him that money, even if they cut him. The only ways for them to get out of paying him are either to trade him or for him to retire. I don't see any other team relieving them of that obligation in trade, and he's not going to retire.

 

The Brewers are not very likely to get out of paying Weeks, so they're either going to (A) play him, hoping he "finds it" and they get some value from him, (B) sit him down and pay him to be a bench player, or © cut him and pay him to not play. I think they're going to give option A as much chance as possible to work before they move on to options B or C. Weeks still has talent. Maybe he won't be an .800 OPS guy anymore, but he's better than he's playing, and he's not going to end the season with his current .527 OPS.

 

We obviously owe him the remainder of his contract. I, for one, was not speaking about the next season and a half. I was speaking longer-term. It's time to start planning on how to move on. And if we can somehow package him and ditch that last year, so be it.

 

(Somehow, secretly, I think we'll try to move him to New York when Cano shocks the world and goes elsewhere - but it's a far-fetched guess)

[SoupTown]

I think when Hart is back you move Weeks to number 8 in the lineup. You bring up Gennett and do a platoon-of-sorts. Yuni is on the bench to fill in - in all spots. Alex G is Gone. And I guess Lalli is back to AAA.

[JohnBriggs12]

I think when Hart is back you move Weeks to number 8 in the lineup. You bring up Gennett and do a platoon-of-sorts. Yuni is on the bench to fill in - in all spots. Alex G is Gone. And I guess Lalli is back to AAA.

 

Ideally Gennett probably could use more time at AAA. As bad as Weeks has been, his splits against lefties are significantly better though in a very small sample and career-wise he's been better too. I like the thinking. Ultimately I believe this is the solution.

[sheetskout]

I just don't see the Brewers letting Weeks sit or platoon unless they're a game or a half-game out of first and he's still struggling. Especially before July 31st.