2013-05-08 Rangers (Holland) at Brewers (Lohse), 7:10 PM CDT [Brewers lose, 4-1]

[brewcrewdue80]

Frustrating team. To have Gomez/Segura do what they've done so far. Yuni slg off the charts for him. To be 10-11 at home now, No run support for Lohse, just don't know where to place this team. We've played 10more games at home than on the road and sit 2under .500. Unless the team turns out to be Road Warriors, this homestand leaves the impression .500 is going to be tough to accomplish. It's really hard to imagine this team being 5th best in the NL to reach the Playoffs. Even with some turnaround.

[adambr2]

Really annoyed by Roenicke in his presser telling us that a 3-6 homestand isn't good but they played really good teams.

 

That's a mentality of a losing team. Playoff teams have to be able to beat other really good teams. We do aspire to be a really good team, do we not?

[valpocrewsader]

Lucroy is every bit as awful as Weeks this year.

 

Seems like an exaggeration. Isn't Lucroy .35 points higher in BA, .60 points higher in SLG, and .35 higher in OPS? I could probably agree with 'awful', but not every bit as bad as Weeks. (And that's not even factoring in Weeks' little league defense....)

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

Lucroy is every bit as awful as Weeks this year.

 

Seems like an exaggeration. Isn't Lucroy .35 points higher in BA, .60 points higher in SLG, and .35 higher in OPS? I could probably agree with 'awful', but not every bit as bad as Weeks. (And that's not even factoring in Weeks' little league defense....)

 

Lucroy's been bad this year but not Weeks bad. Lucroy will be fine.

[MJLiverock]

Lucroy actually has a lower OBP than Weeks. He has thus far skated under the radar for a lot of criticism because some of the more negative posters on here love him. But Lucroy has been pretty bad this year. People screamed about Weeks hitting in the 4 spot, yet were strangely silent when Lucroy hit .194/.256/.250 in the 4 spot.

[brewcrewdue80]

From off the top of my head memory, Lucroy has had 2 Gamechanging(winning hits) thus far this season. At least showing some small credibility of clutch.

Weeks on the other hand, I can't recall him changing the outcome of a game in our favor.

 

Lucroy is a Catcher and isn't paid like Weeks. I don't expect as I'm sure most baseball fans, a Catcher to be a force at the plate. Lucroy sits at .224BABIP vs. the .300+ he's had the last 2 seasons. Weeks on the other hand is at .263 vs. the .285 last season. So the better likelihood of who's going to turn around sits with Lucroy. He puts more balls in play with less than 12%K rate. So, I'm not worried about him one bit. 16RBI projects to around 70 currently and I'm sure that's well within expectations of him prior to season's start.

[MJLiverock]

Not sure what salary has to do with anything regarding who is producing or who isn't. 2nd baseman are at least on par with C for being the weakest hitters in the lineup so that negates the C excuse for Lucroy. I find it a bit hypocritical for the all the heat about Weeks batting average while Lucroy puts up a terrible batting average and even worse OBP and he rarely gets mentioned as being a problem, needing to be benched, or moved down in the order, in fact quite the opposite. People complain when he gets days off, or think he should be batting 4th or 5th or even higher in some cases. Lucroy may strike out less but he also has plenty of rolled over ground balls and weak hits, he's got the power of a typical 2b and doesn't walk. I don't know that he'll keep hitting sub .230 but Weeks probably won't stay below .200 either. Lucroy is an average catcher at best yet gets accolades from some like he is some All Star and a great hitter. And the fact is he makes more out than even Weeks so far this year.

[saget]

 

Lucroy's been bad this year but not Weeks bad. Lucroy will be fine.

 

I'm not so sure Lucroy will be fine. Lucroy has nowhere near the track record that Weeks has. Lucroy has 850+ ABs of sub-.700 OPS and around 300 ABs(2012) where he's been good. His not-goodness is more of an indication of the type of player he is, imo.

 

Rickie has been stinking it up, but has always been a good OBP guy(Still has a higher OBP than Yuni) and I'd expect him to hit more towards his career norms the rest of the way.

[Roderick]

Son of a ____

 

Why are you running there? Just stupid, stupid base running!

 

I know the play is in front of ARam, but Lucroy was waving him to go and he has an even better view, so I would have went to 3rd too.

 

Lucroy shouldn't signal anything it was too close.

 

To me Lucroy is the main culprit of the night.

[brewcrewdue80]

Not sure what salary has to do with anything regarding who is producing or who isn't. 2nd baseman are at least on par with C for being the weakest hitters in the lineup so that negates the C excuse for Lucroy. I find it a bit hypocritical for the all the heat about Weeks batting average while Lucroy puts up a terrible batting average and even worse OBP and he rarely gets mentioned as being a problem, needing to be benched, or moved down in the order, in fact quite the opposite. People complain when he gets days off, or think he should be batting 4th or 5th or even higher in some cases. Lucroy may strike out less but he also has plenty of rolled over ground balls and weak hits, he's got the power of a typical 2b and doesn't walk. I don't know that he'll keep hitting sub .230 but Weeks probably won't stay below .200 either. Lucroy is an average catcher at best yet gets accolades from some like he is some All Star and a great hitter. And the fact is he makes more out than even Weeks so far this year.

 

If you pay a player AS money at his position and get AA replacement level player numbers from him you deserve the bashing. Lucroy meanwhile is paid below League minimum this year and the next 2 and likely just minimum the 3rd from now. He's tradeable/replaceable without taking a big loss. Lucroy can be average like he is doing now and clearly earn his keep. Or, he can be resembling what he was last season and the Brewers have such an asset to value.

This isn't the case for Rickie. You can't move him without paying money for him or getting zero in return for a player just to save the money.

As for suggesting Lucroy bat 4th/5th his performance to date with the players available at the time to use, warranted such. ARam being back removes any 4th in lineup. 5th? why not? ML average BABIP resides above .280 and Lucroy has been over .300 the last two seasons. At .224BABIP he's more than likely to find a groove and turn it up.

 

The accolades/admiration towards him is that who at Catcher have the Brewers had that put up the potential numbers Lucroy is capable of? I haven't been excited about a Catcher since Dave Nilsson.

 

"The fact is he makes more outs than Weeks right now"

No one approaches the thought process of Lucroy really Not making less outs than Weeks. The team knows Lucroy doesn't walk as often as Weeks. What the team doesn't know is how well Lucroy will produce in the clutch and he's doing farely well. Weeks on the other hand is god awful in the clutch. Less than .100 avg with a runner on any base. .034 1/29 in high leverage situations. 0-15 with RISP and 2outs. You take all the outcomes of Weeks approaching 30%Krate with 10+% BBrate, it's not a good sign to me of him being able to turn it around and provide clutch hits. If he cant do any of that what's the point of him being on the team at 11mil cost?

[MJLiverock]

So Lucroy batting .083 with RISP and 2 outs or .244 with runners on base is clutch? I'd say that is just about as God Awful as Weeks. Lucroy is 1/12 with RISP and 2 outs, not exactly blowing Weeks away at 0-15. Also Lucroy has grounded into double plays 25% of the time when the chance is presented, Weeks 20%. I'd rather Rickie K than hit a weak roller to SS. But even in the productive outs category Weeks is at 21% to 17% for Lucroy so the K's aren't hurting there either. All of these are incredibly small samples but if just used as a comparison,neither are clutch, both have bad batting averages but Weeks does get on base more, advances the runners more, and avoids the double play better. I agree Weeks is in a terrible funk but find it hard to ignore the funk that Lucroy is in as well.

 

It doesn't matter one bit about salary or tradability, no one worries about that in regards to wins or losses, those are just excuses to get on a guy or prop up some equally poor performing player. Sending Weeks to the minors or benching him or even DFA'ing doesn't change his pay. Also Lucroy doesn't get paid below league minimum, no one gets paid below the minimum by definition. He makes $750,000 vs. minimum of $490,000. He gets a bump to $2MM next year regardless of how he does this year and then $3MM, and $4MM and $5MM after that all regardless of how he does, good or bad. The contracts are a sunk cost and just an extension of how baseball works and don't matter a whit to me about how a player is performing. I doubt you were clamoring to give Weeks or Braun or anyone more money when they have years outperforming their deals.

 

At lunch I hear a radio blurb where Lucroy was asked about the struggling Weeks, he gave the usual cliches about wanting him the lineup, fastest bat speed he's ever seen, and added, - - something about both grinding along and said we are in the same boat. Even he realizes he is struggling mightily.

[brewcrewdue80]

Your right, I meant League average not minimum in Lucroy's pay.

 

I seen the RISP with 2 outs for Lucroy but again, Low BABIP will correct some of that. He's over .300 overall with RISP. Weeks has no line whatsoever that indicates being unlucky in a certain situation. They all suck. It just sucks more the higher leverage the situation. Weeks BABIP while should improve, it's not far from average and this is with a decent FlyBall avg thus far. Something Lucroy has 0 hits on if they don't end as HRs. So that is lucky on Weeks part adding to the less likely of him drastically turning it around.

 

Looking deeper in to Weeks career and how bleak it is to suggest he will turn it around:

He's had 1 Calendar month batting above .300 since August of 2007. Which was June 2010 at .311. This isn't some white hot streaky hitter we're looking at.

Meanwhile Lucroy batted a robust .388 in May last season and had a 2+month stretch batting .300+ August/Sept. He's still putting the ball in play. It's clear he's way more capable of turning things around than Weeks. The same could be said about Aoki who after being mentioned is struggling alongside of Weeks and sitting a game has responded going 10-23. Lucroy will correct back to a norm. If he doesn't so be it. Weeks suffered a season worth of struggles last year and is off to a worse start. Lucroy's struggles are new and way off from what he accomplished last season. So it's easy to remain on board with Lucroy especially when the typical struggles for batters are a result of striking out more often, something Lucroy isn't experiencing.