Rickie Weeks added as player development assistant

[markedman5]

Welcome home Rickie!

[homer]

That's cool! Welcome back!

[clancyphile]

Wow... I remember the calls from when he hit his first home run in `05 and being excited.

 

Still think he was the best 2B the Crew ever had. Just an offensive force... and that was with the injuries that limited him.

[sveumrules]

Wow... I remember the calls from when he hit his first home run in `05 and being excited.

 

Still think he was the best 2B the Crew ever had. Just an offensive force... and that was with the injuries that limited him.

 

Weeks had a nice five year stretch from 2007-11 where he posted 12.8 WAR over 2,497 PAs. Problem was in his other six seasons he put up -0.4 WAR over 2,203 PAs, with the main thing holding his value back being his abysmal defense, -115 DRS. The next worst DRS among 2B since they started tracking it is Daniel Murphy at -68.

 

For his Brewer career BRef has Rickie at +57 BAT | +26 BSR | -115 FLD | +28 POS. Even with the positive positional adjustment for playing 2B, Weeks still gave back all his offensive value when he was in the field.

 

Compare that to Gantner who had a five year stretch from 1979-83 where he posted 11.9 WAR over 2,235 PAs. Pretty even peak with Weeks. Difference is Gumby posted another 10.5 WAR over his other twelve seasons & 4,552 PAs, closing any gap & then some.

 

I guess if you want to ignore defense & longevity, sure, Weeks is the best 2B the Crew ever had.

[TURBO]

Weeks was supposed to be our best 2B ever, but that never played out...

[ClosetBrewerFan]

That tweet also mentioned the brewers hired former Pirate 3b/1B Pedro Alvarez as a special assistant. My first thought was whether this is the guy who clubbed a racing sausage. It wasn't (Randall Simon). That would have been an interesting hire otherwise.

[sveumrules]

That tweet also mentioned the brewers hired former Pirate 3b/1B Pedro Alvarez as a special assistant. My first thought was whether this is the guy who clubbed a racing sausage. It wasn't (Randall Simon). That would have been an interesting hire otherwise.

 

Thought the Alvarez hire was kind of interesting as he & Rickie had a lot in common as players.

 

Both were 2nd overall picks. Both walked (PA 116 BB%+ | RW 121 BB%+) & struck out (PA 148 K%+ | RW 133 K%+) at high rates. Both gave back a lot of runs in the field (PA -60 DRS | RW -125 DRS).

[RockCoCougars]

Alvarez is Pat Murhpy's SIL.

[reillymcshane]

I think when Rickie royally messed up his left ankle back in 2011, it really affected him.

 

His mediocre defense just got worse as he could barely move laterally after the injury. He caused him to lose a little speed, a little quickness in his step. He was just never the same. You lose half a step - it can kill.

 

If a player who hits .275 (165 hits) over the course of 600 ABs - loses one hit a week (down to 140 hits), his average drops to .233. Maybe that's being overly dramatic - but Rickie just was never the same.

 

By the way, if you look at Fangraphs defensive numbers for Rickie - it's dramatic how bad he got.

 

He had four straight positive defensive numbers - and just fell off the tracks defensively after that.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/rickie-weeks-jr/1849/stats?position=2B