More photos » by Jim Prisching - AP

Rickie Weeks tosses his bat to one of the five other Brewers to play his position in 2009. The bat was later stolen by Prince Fielder, who used it to win the Home Run Derby, if I recall correctly.

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Ok, after a day off for The Thinker, let's jump back into this with a look at second basemen:

Take a moment to think, once again, about what happened at second base for the Brewers, and the somewhat miraculous results. Early in the season, Rickie Weeks went down for the year and the Brewers were left with turmoil at the top of the order and at second base. Six players played second at one point or another for the Brewers, yet somehow the position was one of the team's most productive.

Projections:

Rickie Weeks
Projected: .257/.362/.425
Actual: .272/.340/.517

Craig Counsell
Projected: .231/.322/.332
Actual: .285/.357/.408

Casey McGehee
Projected: ..279/.334/.393
Actual: .301/.360/.499

TheJay, while refusing to predict exactly who would end up playing in Weeks' place, nearly nailed a 2009 prediction for Weeks, saying: "Hey, someone has to figure he’ll both bash up his wrist again and hit about what he’s done so far in his career." Wekks was ahead of his career numbers at the time, but sure enough, a wrist injury ended his season significantly early.

Craig Counsell's playing time projection at this and the other infield positions will probably seem low, but keep in mind, Counsell wasn't actually re-signed for 2009 yet when we made these projections.

Finally, there's probably not a single player at any position we missed on more than Casey McGehee. Back in January, we collectively projected him to get roughly two and a half percent of the plate appearances at second base, and didn't project him to play third at all.

Playing time:

Wow, look at that mess. I didn't even know how to sort this table to appropriately display the chaos. And yet somehow, it worked.

At this point in January, Jason Bourgeois had just wrapped up a long hitting streak in Mexico, and if you had told me the Brewers would use six second basemen in 2009 and he wouldn't be one of them, I would have been shocked. In a world where Craig Counsell had yet to re-sign, Bourgeois projected to be Weeks' top backup. Instead, he spent most of the season patrolling the outfield in Nashville.

Overall:

More photos » by Jeff Curry - AP

Prince Fielder's 2009 numbers look even better when compared to what we expected.

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Projections:

Prince Fielder
Projected: .284/.380/.547
Actual: .299/.412/.602

Obviously, we all got significantly more than we bargained for from Fielder this season. Not only did he start all 162 games and pick every Brewer at bat at first base, he slugged over .600, a full 25 points above the most optimistic of the 13 projections, and surpassed our OBP expectations by 32 points as well.

Playing time:

I'd say this is pretty self-explanatory. While all of us expected Fielder to play close to full time, none of us expected him to take every plate appearance by a Brewer first baseman this season. Brad Nelson was off the roster early, Mike Lamb didn't even make the team out of spring training and Mike Rivera never saw time at first. Casey McGehee was the only other Brewer to play there this season: He played four innings defensively and did not bat.

Overall:

by Darren Hauck - AP

Jason Kendall is very proficient at getting hit by pitches, but that's about the only thing Brewer catchers did really well in 2009.

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Now seems like as good a time as any to start a series looking back at our expectations for 2009, who met or exceeded them, and who fell short. We'll start today with a look at catchers, to get them out of the way.

Performance:

Jason Kendall
Projected: .251/.333/.324
Actual: .241/.331/.305

Mike Rivera:
Projected: .260/.315/.406
Actual: .228/.326/.342

Surprisingly enough, we as a community were a little optimistic on Kendall, at least as optimistic as one can be while projecting a .659 OPS. While it was a narrow underperformance, Kendall underperformed our expectations in all three slash stats.

Sadly, Mike Rivera also fell short of our expectations. A year after performing exceptionally well in limited opportunities, Rivera was still used sparingly (although slightly more often), but failed to recapture 2008's magic.

Playing time:

It looks like most of us expected the Brewers to try out some other options at catcher this season. Both Kendall and Mike Rivera gained playing time over our expectations, mainly at the expense of Angel Salome, who some of us projected to play as much as 40% of the time.

Two of sixteen projectors thought Vinny Rottino would sneak in some plate appearances this season, and one reader, before Brett Lawrie's move to second base, projected perhaps the most ambitious promotion in Brewer history. Neither of those happened, of course.

We also completely failed to project the possibility that Carlos Corporan would see fill in duty this season. His one plate appearance resulted in a hit, but his overall contribution is pretty negligible.

Overall:

More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

Can Rickie Weeks bounce back and have a strong 2010?

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Earlier this week, ACTA Sports sent me a preview of the hitter projections from 2010's Bill James Handbook. Obviously, it's still really early, but I found some of the projections interesting, so I thought I'd pass them along to you.

Let's start with your likely leadoff hitter for the 2010 Brewers:

It's probably worth noting that even Bill James, who tends to be relatively optimistic, doesn't project Weeks to play a full season in 2009 (he has him at 114 games). Even so, these numbers are probably a little optimistic. The .259 average is a slight drop from 2009, but the .357 OBP is actually 17 points higher. Weeks was off to a hot start slugging in 2009, posting a .517 slugging percentage, but this .449 projection would be easily the second highest of his career.

Other potential second basemen:

While James has Lopez playing a full season, he projects to be less productive, losing 55 OPS points to Weeks. This line for Counsell looks fair, although the Brewers are likely in trouble if they actually need him for 342 ABs.

Follow the jump for lots more projections!

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Looking for some idle speculation on the first Brewer-free Sunday afternoon since February? Here's something to play with.

Because of Jeff's brilliant work over at Minor League Splits, we can take any Brewer above rookie ball's minor league stats and get their MLE (major league equivalent), a baseline estimate of how they would have performed in the major leagues this season.

So without further adieu, here's a look at how Brewer minor leaguers might have performed in the majors in 2009, and how it compares to the players the Brewers actually used in their place.

Catcher

Brewers used: Jason Kendall, who hit .241/.331/.305 (.636 OPS), and Mike Rivera, who hit .228/.326/.342 (.668 OPS)

This is likely the most obvious position where you can make a solid argument that one of the minor leaguers should have played over the guy the Brewers trotted out there. Kendall had a nice finish to 2009, batting .271/.370/.391 after August 7, but still only out OPS'ed the hypothetical performance of Jonathan Lucroy by two points, with Angel Salome not far behind him.

Beyond Lucroy and Salome, it's a long way down to the next level, though. Corey Kemp's 2009 performance was pretty impressive in Wisconsin, but he's easily the third best catcher in the system above rookie ball right now, and he's still a long way away.

Follow the jump for the other positions!

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More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

J.J. Hardy is congratulated by Ken Macha and teammates after hitting a home run back in July. He'll return to the team tomorrow, but did the Brewers make the right decision by sending him down?

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Sometime before tomorrow's game, J.J. Hardy will be recalled from Nashville and added to the Brewers' active roster. At the time of his demotion, he was hitting .229/.300/.367, and the Brewers had a prospect at shortstop, Alcides Escobar, who was big league ready or close, hitting .298/.353/.409 for Nashville with 42 stolen bases.

The move, though, came at a very interesting time. Before the move, it was assumed Hardy would be eligible for free agency following the 2010 season. The demotion to AAA came just in time to allow Hardy to accumulate 20+ days in AAA before September 1, and that loss of service time means he'll be arbitration eligible for two more seasons, and won't become a free agent until the end of 2011. If the Brewers had waited two extra days, Hardy's stay in AAA would not have been long enough to impact his service time.

Did the Brewers make the right decision by sending Hardy to Nashville when they did? Vote in the poll below, and follow the jump for more on the four arguments.

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Last time we checked in with Andy Seiler, he had the Brewers projected to pick 12th in the 2010 June Draft. They've gone 1-3 since then to fall to 61-66, giving them a firmer grip on that spot. At present, they're still two games better than Toronto, who has the 11th spot, and a game worse than Houston, who holds pick #13.

With 35 games left to play, now seems like as good a time as any to take a look at how the Brewers can change their draft standing in the remaining month of the 2009 season. Follow the jump for the full table, but first, a few notes and disclaimers:

• For the purpose of projections, I assumed every major league team except the Brewers would continue on their current pace. This obviously won't happen but it gives us a basic starting point.
• Assuming teams continue on their current pace, the Brewers cannot finish with baseball's best or worst record. Going 35-0 the rest of the way would leave them at 96-66, five games back of the Yankees, who project to win 101 games. Going 0-35 would leave them at 61-101, three games better than the Nationals, who project to go 58-104. All other outcomes are possible, at least mathematically.
  
• 2010 draft order will be determined by 2009 record, with 2008 record being used as a tiebreaker. Because the Brewers had baseball's sixth best record in 2008, they only have a tiebreaker advantage over five teams.
• The Rangers (#15) and Rays (#31) will receive compensation picks in next year's draft for failing to sign this year's first round picks, so the final pick in the first round will be #32.

Follow the jump for more, and the table of outcomes.

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More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

For the next 48 hours, we'll probably spend a fair amount of time talking about Trevor Hoffman and potential trades. Here are some things to keep in mind during the discussion.

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As Adam McCalvy noted during the game, Trevor Hoffman was claimed off of trade waivers by an unknown team, and could be dealt if said team can work out a deal with Doug Melvin and the Brewers. Here are three things to keep in mind while rumors will fly over the next few days:

A deal is unlikely to happen. For a deal to happen, the Brewers and the team that claimed Hoffman would have to go from nowhere to a done deal in under 48 hours. Working out a deal that works for both sides that quickly isn't easy, especially when one GM (Doug Melvin in this case) doesn't particularly need to unload the player changing hands. There won't be much negative reaction if nothing comes of this, so whoever claimed Hoffman will almost certainly have to overpay for him to complete a deal.

Any team acquiring Hoffman is getting more than a five week rental. Hoffman will be a Type A free agent this offseason. Any team acquiring him will get:

• Hoffman for the remainder of 2009, obviously.
• The opportunity to offer him arbitration for the 2010 season.
• Two picks in the top 60 or so of next year's draft if he declines arbitration and signs elsewhere.

So, any acquiring team would likely be operating based on the possibility that they're either acquiring Hoffman for the rest of this year and 2010, or acquiring Hoffman and two prospects. But, with that said...

Holding onto Hoffman because you want the compensation picks is not a surefire bet. Hoffman has said publicly he'd like to play one more season, but I'm not sure what the market will be for his services this offseason, for two reasons:

• Any team that signs Hoffman will have to give their first or second round draft pick to his former team, meaning Hoffman's new team would be spending significant money (probably $6-8 million) and also losing an early draft pick.
• Hoffman will turn 42 in October.

Obviously, Hoffman has performed very well, better than many of us expected at 41 years old, but any team that signs him will be giving up significant money and a prospect based on the theory that he'll still be just as good at 42. It's a risky bet. If no one is willing to take that bet and offer the money he feels he deserves, Hoffman may decide to retire, and his former team won't get anything in return.

So, speculate away.