In Defense of Rickie Weeks

Anyone who regularly visits the Brewers Blog provided by the Milwauke Journal Sentinel knows that the blog is characterized by two traits:

1. The insane, impractical, and inexplicable tendency for everyone who reads the blog to try to be the first person to comment on any given blog. Rather than aspiring to be the first person to say something reasonable or insightful, they all prefer to write nothing more than "FIRST!".

AND

2. Any and every discussion about anything, even ticket prices at Miller Park, will somehow devolve into a completely absurd damnation of Rickie Weeks. Tom Haudricourt, the regular blogger, and the readers, who I can't believe are literate, look for any and every opportunity to take a shot at Weeks.  

You can imagine my delight when I saw a post today, written by Anthony Witrado, that actually portrayed Rickie Weeks in a positive light. I looked back into the annals of the Brewers Blog and discovered that nothing good has been said about Rickie Weeks since 2003 (okay, so maybe I didn't do any research and just made something up). Also, though the alternative message written was awful, I was not subjected to a "first!". Needless to say, this was one of the greatest moments of my life. 

Now I know you're sitting there asking yourself "But KP, you're being so complimentary. Where is your usual bitterness and vulgarity? I hope you haven't matured since your reconciliation with Michael Hunt.".  Fear not, there has been no posititive progress with my maturity, and you can be assured that I will resume my bitter ways in the near future. 

Well, it's the near future and here I am, ready to get excessively acerbic. Despite the fact that the statistics provided clearly indicate that Rickie Weeks is at least an adeqaute option at second base and maybe people should lay off of him, many readers of the Brewer Blog decided that they will still continue to irrationally hate Rickie Weeks. What follows below are some of the most noteworthy comments:

oh baseball. you can make any numbers say what you want them to say.

Are you fucking serious right now? You cannot make the numbers say anything at all, dickhead, that's the beauty of the numbers. They say EXACTLY what occurred and provide a great way to compare players. Statistics are not puppets, they are very straightforward. 

wheres avg... ha. plus the K's are crazy. but actually surprised to see the numbers. but you also have to remember the offense that is behind weeks. If you put roberts or hudson batting first in our lineup, they would be at about 350 runs.

If I had to guess, I would say that batting average is probably vacationing in Irrelevantville, along with RBI's, Ruben Studdard, Gallagher, Rafael Araujo, and Lew Ford. Seriously, what kind of person actually still looks at batting average? My theory is that the direct descendants of Henry Chadwick have formed a coalition in order to keep batting average relevant in daily baseball discussion despite it's obvious shortcomings. Even the Illuminati pale in comparison to the power, political clout, and prominence of the Chadwick Commonwealth. 

Can he even bunt?

Do I even care? I can't believe someone with such an antiquated notion of baseball even knows how to use a computer. This guy probably goes on NASCAR message boards writing things like "But can Jeff Gordon drive a horsedrawn carriage?"(Please note: I despise NASCAR and regret terribly having to reference it). 

I don't think you can really make an arguement without posting the defensive stats.

Just when I was losing complete faith in the ability of Brewers fans to be logical, coherent, and reasonable, this person comes along and actually makes a good point. Thank you, dear stranger, for restoring my faith in Brewmanity. Anyways, let's look at some defensive stats. I decided to only look at 2008 rather than his career totals as I feel they are the best indication of his abilities right now.  

Fielding Percentage: .975

League Fielding Percentage: .982

Range Factor: 4.91

League Range Factor: 4.04

Range Factor/9: 5.02

League Range Factor/9: 4.83

As you may be able to tell, Rickie Weeks is actually not that bad at defense. Yes he does make errors. His fielding percentage is below the league average. These are irrefutable points. But please, for once, be reasonable. His range is exceptional and he puts himself in position to make plays on a more consistent basis than almost any other second basemen.  Would you rather have someone at second base who can get to 9 out of 10 balls hit in his direction and throw one away or have someone who can only get to 7 out of 10 and throw none away? 

It's time for everyone to realize that, at worst, Rickie Weeks is a league average second basemen. And it's time for me to realize that the Chadwick Commonwealth is probably going to murder me in my sleep tonight. Thanks for the memories, guys. It's been great. 

Bold Predictions

As I was watching the postgame show of the Big Ten Basketball Tournament, Hubert Davis declared something to the effect of "Michigan State is the kind of team that could make it to the Final Four. But they could also lose in the first or second round". In the spirit of Hubert's bold analysis and risky claims, I am going to declare the following prediction about the Brewers:

The Brewers could win the World Series, or maybe be National League Champions, or possibly win the National League Division Series. They are also the kind of team that could win the wildcard, and they could possibly also win 34 games.

Showdown with Michael Hunt

If you explore world history in any meaningful fashion, you are probably already aware of the recurring importance of one day ever year, March 6th. Year after year, without fail, monumental and life-changing events occur on this very day.

For the skeptical readers out there who do not study world history, I provide the following list of major events which happened on the sixth of March: Mega Millions gives away their highest jackpot ever, $370 million(2007), Bubba Sparxxx is born (1977), the Second Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (1996), Aravinda De Silva smashes 145 vs. Kenya in cricket World Cup (1996), the birth of Greg Ostertag (1973), the Yankees defeated the New York Mets 6-4 in an exhibition game which doubled as their first meeting in over four years (1989), Walter Cronkite ends his reign as anchor of CBS Evening news (1981), Larry Hisle becomes the first designated hitter ever in an exhibition against the Pittsburgh Pirates (1973), Shaquille O' Neal is born (1972), Treaty of Paris (1323), KP successfully eats an entire Papa Johns Pizza in under ten minutes (2008), Jack Nicklaus passes Arnold Palmer as golf's all-time money winner (1972), and of course, Mike Tyson TKO's Hector Mercedes in the very first round of his very first professional fight (1985). So it should come as very little surprise that March 6th was the date that the most historical moment in Just a Bit Outside history occurred; a Michael Hunt live chat featuring yours truly.

I've often thought about what I might say to Mr. Hunt if given the chance, and when the opportunity presented itself, I fought back any urges to swear or call him a dick and decided to go with:

Mr. Hunt, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited about the upcoming baseball season, and especially the Brewers. One thing that I have found as I have gotten older is that there is a greater emphasis on statistics in baseball than ever before. Alot of people cite statistics like OPS and VORP, but how accurately can they truly predict the success of an individual or a team? What statistics do you use when evaluating a baseball player/team and which ones could you do without? Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I'm amazed at the politeness too, you're not alone. Anyways, my reason for asking this question isn't because I care at all about what statistics Michael Hunt is interested in, because I can't think of anything that I care about less. Instead, I was hoping that this question might bait our beloved Michael Hunt into saying something totally absurd like "I think the only way you can evaluate a player is to just look at him, you can just tell", or "batting average", "whatever Steve Phillips says" or "RBIs". To his credit, Michael Hunt did not say anything outlandish and even provided a mostly coherent and logical answer:


Michael Hunt - Good morning everyone, and thanks for stopping by. Upfront I need to mention that I'm feeling a little under the weather, so if the answers are short I hope you understand. Anyway, we'll endeavor to persevere on such a beautiful day - I can look out the window and see just about all the snow in the yard has melted - and get to as many of your questions as we can. We'll start with KP because it's starting to feel like baseball weather. KP, as a baseball traditionalist I nevertheless enjoy the modern stats, especially OPS. It's a good way of measuring a hitter's overall effectiveness. But some, like VORP, just makes my head hurt worse than it does at the moment. For me, on-base percentage is still the best stat. If you're getting on base, you're not using up any of your outs. For pitchers, I always look at strikeouts to walks. As cliche as it sounds, you can't win without throwing strikes.

I appreciate Michael Hunt showing some basic knowledge of baseball statistics. In fact, I am so impressed with the fact that he at least has a fundamental sense of what to look for that I am not going to make fun of him for not understanding VORP. March 6th, 2009 is truly a day that shall go down in history, as A)Michael Hunt was coherent for an entire chat, B)I was given the opportunity to make fun of Michael Hunt and passed on it, and C)my level of appreciation for Michael Hunt is no longer a negative number. I look forward to our next encounter, Michael.