Posts tagged RickieWeeks at FanHouse

When the Brewers traded for Ray Durham yesterday, the move was widely seen as the team's attempt to replace the weakest link in their offense and gear up for a playoff dogfight with the Cubs, Cardinals, Mets, and Phillies. The message sent to Rickie Weeks seemed to be along the lines of, "You're a great guy and our second baseman of the future and everything, but your .685 OPS just isn't going to cut it." Well, Ned Yost doesn't see it that way. From the Journal-Sentinel's Brewers Blog:

"Rickie's doing fine," said Yost. "I'll play Ray a couple of days a week, maybe. We'll just see how it goes. I'm not setting anything in stone. We'll take it day by day. Veteran, quality depth is what it gives us."

[...]

Yost, who routinely defends his players, whether they are producing or not, said it was unfair to have expectations too lofty for Weeks.

"I wouldn't say he has underachieved," said Yost. "He has never been a .300 hitter (in the majors), so who says he is underachieving?"

First off, Durham plays second base kind of like a poorly oiled robot while Weeks is a pretty decent fielder at second. So there's plenty of reason to keep giving Weeks time. Second off, if Ned Yost won't say Weeks is underachieving, I can find 100 people that will. Dude's hitting .216/.326/.365 after killing the ball at almost every level of the minors. If that's not underachieving, Mario Mendoza was an all-star.

We've already discussed the implications of the C.C. Sabathia and Rich Harden trades here on Fantasy FanHouse, but what about the other names that recently found new homes?

Joe Blanton
Much like Harden, Blanton's going to go through a whole new experience when he pitches in front of a boisterous packed house tonight. He's going to get a nice trial by fire as the Phillies face the Mets and Braves this week -- Blanton's a two-start pitcher. Look for the change of league to ignite Blanton. He was too good a pitcher to keep scuffling along with such a poor record (5-12) and ERA (4.96) anyway. Now is the time to trade for him, because his stock will never be lower. The ERA was a full run lower last season, and he had a nice 140/40 K/BB. This season he's partially having issues because of his control. He's only sporting a 62/35 K/BB in a little more than half the innings as last year. As I said, the change of league will help ... facing a whole batch of new hitters is always advantageous to the pitcher. His turn-around starts tonight.

Second baseman Ray Durham spent the last five and a half seasons playing for the San Francisco Giants. I say spent because as of this morning, Ray was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. Of course, considering that the Brewers are about to finish up a three-game set in San Francisco, Ray won't have very far to go to join his new team.

Talks for Durham between the Giants and Brewers were first reported last night, and the deal was finalized this morning with the Brewers sending prospects Steve Hammond and Darren Ford to the Giants. As for what the Brewers plans are with Durham at the moment, they aren't saying.

Durham will probably start off as a utility reserve for the Brewers, but considering that he's hitting .293/.385/.414 it's very likely the 36-year old may replace Rickie Weeks at second base. Weeks is only hitting .218/.322/.367 on the season, and if he wasn't struggling so much, the Brewers would have never pursued this deal in the first place.

Also, the deal has not been officially announced because the Brewers still have to make a roster move to accommodate Durham's place on the roster. So, no, he will not be suiting up in a Brewers jersey today against his former team.

Obviously the fantasy season is past the halfway point, but you gotta work with me here. There aren't any games that count for the next few days, so it's the perfect time to formulate these teams. Unlike the actual All-Star game, there are different parameters for judging who makes the fantasy All-Star team. Value matters. For example, Hanley Ramirez is obviously the best fantasy player in baseball. He was a high first round pick in every draft, though, so he's not really exceeding expectations.

There's a reason you make the fantasy All-Star team this way ... owners don't win leagues by drafting Hanley Ramirez first overall. You do, however, win your league by loading up on value picks like Josh Hamilton and Geovany Soto ... while you lose your league by taking some of the big names I'm going to list on the "bad" team.

I've named each team after their backstop. Why? I felt like it.

Let's have fun.

TEAM GEO (these are the fantasy All-Stars)

C - Geovany Soto -- You can convince me that you thought Geo was a top ten catcher and that he'd hit 20 home runs coming into the season. You can't convince me that you had him top three and on pace for almost 30.

Just this week there were two enormous injuries in the world of fantasy baseball: Alfonso Soriano and Albert Pujols. There were also significant returns in Jake Peavy and Matt Holliday. Those are four elite echelon players changing places in the span of only a three days.

They weren't alone. All around the league players are dropping like flies while also returning. It's been an onslaught. For the value machine, it actually makes sense at this point in the season. Sure, players are bound to get hot and cold, but for the most part we are approaching the dog days of summer ... most movement in fantasy leagues will be triggered by injuries.

We've covered Pujols, Soriano, Holliday, and Peavy already this week here on Fantasy FanHouse. Obviously the former two would have an evil next to their respective names while the latter two would have the nice, reassuring residing next to theirs. Here are the most notable of the rest:

Vernon Wells -- Returned Saturday to the Jays' lineup and announced his presence with authority on Sunday (3-4, HR). He stormed out of the gates this year, but he is a pretty inconsistent performer. Studly in 2003 and 2006 while disappointing owners in the other seasons of his career. Sell high time, as far as I'm concerned.

The Brewers have their share of problems. They've lost Yovani Gallardo for the year to a knee injury and the rest of Ben Sheets' supporting crew hasn't been very good, Eric Gagne's been bad, Bill Hall's been worse, Prince Fielder's power has dried up, Ned Yost is managing, and Rickie Weeks can't find his way to first base with a flashlight. The last one is no longer a problem, but only because the Brewers are putting Weeks on the disabled list with a sprained knee.

Injuries never really come at good times, but this is an especially poorly timed one for the Brewers because they've been playing a little better lately and because the Cubs are absolutely dominating the National League Central right now. It's still early, but the Brewers probably need to regroup and think abou the Wild Card unless something rather dramatic happens in the next couple weeks.

Maybe the spark will come in the form of Weeks' injury. As I mentioned, he's been terrible this year. Then again, Craig Counsell (his likely replacement in the starting lineup) has actually been worse. The guy they're calling up, Hernan Iribarren, actually has about the same line as Weeks this year, only in AAA. Maybe the Brewers should be looking elsewhere for their spark.

Now that the exciting action of MLB's amateur draft has completed it's first round, it's time to take a look at our country's next millionaires. Here's a quick glance at the first round selections by the teams of the AL West.

Texas Rangers (11) Justin Smoak, 1B, South Carolina: After trading Mark Teixeira to the Braves last season, the Rangers were left with an opening in the power-hitting first baseman that can hit from both sides of the plate department, and it looks like they filled the position with Justin Smoak. This kid can really Smoak (I know...boooo) the ball all over the field, and was projected in a lot of mock drafts as being a top ten, possibly top five, pick. Instead he went 11th to the Rangers, and though Rangers fans will probably compare him more to Teixeira, or even Chipper Jones, since he's a switch-hitter he's more of an Adrian Gonzalez type. Whether that means the Rangers will trade him to the Padres and he'll be their only position player worth a damn in a few years, I don't know.

Oakland Athletics (12) Jemile Weeks, 2B, Miami (Fla.): Brewers fans are already familiar with Jemile's older brother, Rickie, and now Oakland fans will get a chance to meet the second member of the Weeks family to get drafted. A lot of people who know more about this stuff than I do are saying that this pick was a bit of a stretch by the Athletics, since Weeks can only play one position, and will have to make a change in his approach at the plate to succeed in the Majors. That said, the kid has wheels, and he's a better defender than his brother. Plus, Billy Beane has had a lot of success in this draft thing, so if he thinks the kid is good enough, I'll just have to take his word for it.

These days, most people involved in professional sports have mastered the art of saying something without actually saying something. With these annoying internets, every little thing gets blown way out of proportion, but athletes and coaches are used to it and it's increasingly rare that something blindingly stupid slips through the cracks. The exception to this seems to be baseball managers, who constantly say things that just boggle the mind.

Consider the following story as an example. Rickie Weeks is off to an awful start, with just a .324 OBP to this point. Still, he's managed to score a bunch of runs, to the point he's actually fourth in the league. This is nothing more than an early season anomaly, but it doesn't really make it any less weird. Still, when asked about it here's how Ned Yost responded: "Rickie's a run scorer. There's nothing weird about it."

It is, of course, insane to suggest that somehow, Rickie Weeks has a better method of getting around the bases than the other 700 or so major leaguers, but that's what Ned Yost seems to be suggesting. I mean, Weeks is pretty fast and I'll buy that he's a good base runner, but it's damn near impossible to score runs from the dugout. The stat is even weirder when you consider that Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, and Corey Hart have been almost powerless at the plate this year. Maybe Weeks just cuts from second base straight to home when everyone's back is turned. He is, after all, a run scorer.

The small-market cycle in baseball can be a vicious one. Teams raise their young players, they make it to the majors, become stars, and they become expensive. At that point, if often becomes a juggling act for teams to decide how to proceed. The Brewers have a load of young talent in Milwaukee right now and owner Frank Attanasio has promised to find a way to keep his players in Milwaukee:

"I'm rooting for Prince to hit 60 home runs this year," said Attanasio, who gave his annual "state of the team" address to players before the first official full-squad workout at Maryvale Baseball Park.

"We'll figure out a way to pay him."

As the article notes, Ryan Howard's massive arbitration award (he won $10 million from the Phillies in his first eligible year this year) is going to set quite a precedent for Prince Fielder, who will be eligible for arbitration before the 2009 season. In fact, Attanasio goes on to say that he's going to try and keep the entire young core of his team together.

Given the star quality of Fielder, Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, and Yovani Gallardo, that seems highly unlikely. Luckily for Brewers fans, they've got at least three years before Fielder and Weeks hit the open market, which means this core will be around to make a few runs before things start getting pricey.

Although the Mets' late-season free-fall in the standings was by far more impressive (in a bad way), the Brewers suffered a collapse of their own after leading the NL Central for much of the year. Ned Yost has drawn some criticism from upset fans, but for now GM Doug Melvin isn't holding Yost responsible. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"Ned did an admirable job," Melvin said. "Ned's got his strengths and weaknesses, like any individual has in his job. When it comes to game management, we're all managers. We're all the biggest second-guessers in the world.

"There are areas Ned needs to improve at. He knows that. I had dinner with him (Tuesday night) and Ned will admit to a number of places where he made mistakes with his management of the bullpen.

"This is the first legitimate year we contended to the point where we really had a shot. So Ned is experiencing this for the first time, too. You can get better. If he doesn't, sometimes you suffer the consequences."

Melvin is 100% correct: the Brewers are a young team, and an eight-game improvement from 2006 to 2007 is commendable. Next year, things should be even better, what with a full season of Ryan Braun, a likely rebound year from Rickie Weeks and young guns like Manny Parra and Yovani Gallardo pushing Ben Sheets for the title of "staff ace." Yes, they'll have to patch up their bullpen this winter, but this wasn't a veteran squad hastily thrown together to compete for one season; no, this was a contender built from the ground-up, and the foundation is here for the Brewers to have a long and successful run.