Ned Yost Still Considers Rickie Weeks His Starting Second Baseman

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.