Melvin will work his magic in Aug

[LouisEly]

The problem is, it's not simple to decide when a player is TOO hurt to justify playing him. Players play hurt all the time and it hurts their production, to a certain degree. They are allowed to continue to play if their lowered production is still better than the alternative and/or their health is expected to improve.

 

OK Russ, then you tell us - what is the threshold for Weeks at which it justifies benching him? What stats do you need to see to say that he is not the best option right now? .600 OPS since May 1st... what do you need to see? .550OPS? .500OPS? At what point, Russ, is Graffy the better option for right now? You are the stats guru - please be specific with what stats you need to see to justify benching Weeks for the time being.

[rluzinski]

I only have stats for information. Melvin and Yost have a much better idea than me if injuries are hampering Weeks' performance. If we assume that he isn't hurt (which is a huge assumption), I'd be more comfortable with letting Weeks play over Graffy. Is that decision a statistical truth? Of course not. It's simply my opinion, based on what I know about Weeks and his potential replacements.

 

The reason why my opinion is probably not shared by many is that I am not swayed as much by slumps and hot streaks as the next guy. I know that the majority of streaks are not a product of a hitter changing his expected performance level for a short period of time. They are a result of the same phenomena that let's you flip 5 heads on occasion. Dumb luck. Do I miss real trends? I'm sure I do. Sometimes, players get hurt or a random slump messes with the players' psyche, or maybe his mechanics get messed up. I recognize that sometimes short terms trends have predictive value but since I don't know which ones do and I feel they are in the minority, I am forced to assume they are most likely a random occurrence.

 

Look at Graffy's season so far, by month:

 

April: .530 OPS

May: 476 OPS

June: 1.169 OPS

July: .679 OPS

 

You might try and gauge Graffy's current expected performance based on the last month or 6 weeks but I generally look at the last 3 years, weighing the current year more and taking the age of the player into consideration. My guess for Graffy for the rest of the year might be something like a .720 OPS. That's the baseline I use to decide if Weeks should continue to get significant playing time. I can understand that some think Weeks has no chance to get anything near that but I feel like he can. A reasonable person could come to the opposite conclusion and I wouldn't call him a wrong. It's just my opinion.

[brewerphandog]

rluzinski do you make up arguments? No one seems to clamor for a permanent benching...? THat would be easy to argue against, what he needs is what he got a chance to play every day and restore his swing. As I said he comes back in a few weeks and in a sense it is lightning in a bottle almost like getting someone in a trade.

[brewerphandog]

Bottom line RL is that Rickie Weeks with his current situation, injury or otherwise is not contributing to winning baseball--the coaches correctly diagnosed this and realized that he may contribute in August sent him away to get right.

 

I expect him to go down, suck it up, rake and be back in 2-3 weeks at which point Joe Dillon will be history.

 

Should he go down and hit .230 with no gap power and more pop ups than a bad web browser than we've got major problems.

[Lil Dummy]

Back on topic, Olney was on Mike & Mike this morning, and said there will be virtually no pitching available via trade in August. Said that teams will be able to add offensive role players (his example was Conine from the Reds), that's about it.

 

Assuming that's the case, then barring injury, I actually hope the Crew stands pat.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

I'm with Rluz on this issue. Weeks will be a great player in baseball. He's close to getting it back too. It's all in timing for Weeks. When he waits back on pitches, he is so tough because of his quick bat. He will fix this in the minors and come back with avengance. I don't think they should have sent down Weeks, but maybe this will help him.

[Lil Dummy]

"I'm with Rluz on this issue. Weeks will be a great player in baseball."

 

Re-read the entire thread, there's not a single post that says he won't be a good to great second baseman when all is said and done. Way to knock down that straw man!!

 

"He's close to getting it back too."

 

This is the kind of crucial information that Melvin needs to have. I'm sure he wouldn't have sent Weeks down if he would have known that he was close to getting it back. You and Doug need to talk more, Rillo.

[brewerphandog]

How is he supposed to fix his swing playing 2-3 days a week and obliterating his self esteem in the process.

 

If you can answer, you'll have given away your identity--a miracle worker, holy figure, soothsayer, etc...