Milwaukee Brewers 2011 - 25 in 25 - Rickie Weeks (2 of 25)

When the Brewers signed the Predator Monster 's little brother 2nd baseman Rickie Weeks (the Predator Monster himself Manny Ramirez signed with the Tampa Bay Rays) to a 4-5 year contract extension, I jumped for joy. And then when I realized that at any moment he could activate his cloaking device, turn invisible and seek and destroy me in the stands if I happened to make an unfavorable comment, I got a little worried. But then my mind was put to ease because I have never said anything negative about Rickie Weeks. The only thing that could be construed as negative was when I worried that he could never stay healthy, as evident by the fact that prior to the 2010 season, the most games he played in a year was 129 in 2008. In 2009 he was crushing the ball, which led him to a stat line of .272 AVG, 9 HRs and 24 RBIs before his season ended in mid May. While the majority of Brewers fans finally got a glimpse of the real Rickie Weeks, I believed that he could do it all along. I've been a big supporter of him since he debuted in 2003 and I was at the game when he hit his 1st major league career homerun off of Johan Santana in 2005. In 2010 when he stayed healthy on the field for an entire year and had what many people consider a "breakout" year, I made some room for all of the new Weeks fans on the bandwagon that I had been driving for the last 5 years.

In 2010 how could you not love Rickie Weeks? He was one of the most productive leadoff hitters in all baseball and posted a stat line of .269 AVG, .366 OBP, 29 HRs, 83 RBIs and 112 runs scored. Sure he still did commit too many errors (3rd most in the National League with 15 behind Dan Uggla's 18 and Skip Schumaker's 16) and had some poor throws turning double plays that don't technically count as errors, but when you have the offensive power that Weeks does you take the good with the bad. But Weeks is improving defensively and if you watch as much Brewers baseball as I do (which is impossible, but try to imagine that you could) you can see that he is putting forth the effort to get better. That is the one part of his game that I bet you he would say that he would most like to improve upon. When I met him at Brewers on Deck 2011 I was all giggly to be standing next to him. He's only like 5'10" on a good day, but he's fucking ripped. It's hard to see it in jeans and the loose jersey, but I could tell by his handshake that he could probably kill me if he wanted to. That and the dreadlocks, plus his killer instinct on the field are what makes him one of the elite killing machines in all of the universe. Had he gone toe to toe with Arnold in that movie I'm pretty sure that Dutch wouldn't have survived to become Douglas Quaid, Detective John Kimble, Howard Langston or the Governator of California. No one messes with Rickie Weeks and gets away with it.



Now that you got an idea of how big my man-crush is on Rickie, it's no surprise to you that I am predicting this kind of season for Rickie Weeks:

.275 AVG, .358 OBP, 27 HRs, 93 RBIs, 111 runs scored, millions of new fans (we're gonna need a bigger bandwagon) and no fan deaths despite the fact that he is a highly trained assassin.

Yuniesky Betancourt will be working alongside Weeks all season because he is the new starting shortstop and one third of the 4-6-3 and 6-4-3 double play combination on the field. The two most important defensive positions in the infield (in my opinion anyway) are 2nd base and shortstop because they need to work together to determine who will field the ball and who will cover 2nd base when a ball is hit up the middle. It has already been noted that Weeks is no defensive whiz, and Betancourt comes with a pretty poor rap sheet as well, averaging 19.66 errors over the last 6 seasons. Hopefully like Weeks his offense will make up for his poor defensive skills, But that my friends, is a topic that will be covered tomorrow. Roll out the Barrel! We'll have a Barrel of Fun!

- pookon -

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