Mailbag: What To Do About Rickie Weeks?

Any suggestions for how to replace Rickie Weeks? It's a 12 team league with an MI spot, so needless to say, the 2B and SS options on the wire are pretty Weeks.

I see what you did there at the end.  It's funny because his name is descriptive of the situation.  I get jokes.

Losing Weeks is a tough blow, but you should be able to survive it, especially since it sounds like you had him slotted into your middle infielder slot.  Playing in a league that uses a MI position is a mixed blessing in these situations.  It does thin out the overall player pool, but it also gives you much more flexibility when targeting a replacement.

I'm assuming you are exploring all your trade options and like all owners who lose a guy for the year, you're hairline deep in low-ball offers.  If it's clear you have excess in another category, you should move it to balance to fill your new hole, but only after you negotiate past all the insulting Scutaro-for-Santana type proposed deals and you check-in with Alexei Ramirez's owner to find out just how disgusted he is with the White Sox alleged budding star (you never know, it's possible you could get him with a low-ball offer of your own).  You might even have a power surplus, since you got a surprising number of bombs out of Weeks before his injury (though there was no chance he was going to keep it up and hit 30 plus on the season.  And since there is absolutely no way we'll ever know if that's true, I stand by it 100%). 

Assuming you can't make a trade, I'd look at the following guys who are available in many 12-team leagues.

Akinori Iwamura - He's a career .282 hitter and is batting over .300 so far this year.  He's also stole 8 bases this year as the Rays continue to be extremely aggressive on the basepaths.  He replaces Weeks speed in your lineup and doesn't hurt you anywhere but in homers.  He also has a sweet name which makes him sound like a villain in "Heroes."  You could do worse.

Christian Guzman - How a guy hitting .377 at the top of the lineup for a team that scores over five runs a game can be owned in fewer than half of all leagues is a mystery to me.  He won't contribute much to your power numbers, but he'll give you A+++ production in batting average and runs.  At MI, I'd rather have a guy who puts up huge numbers in two categories than a player who puts up slightly better than mediocre numbers in all five.

Alberto Callaspo - Another guy who isn't getting enough pub.  He's been trending upwards over the last several seasons and is now batting .338 with 16 ribbies and runs scored.  He's batting second in the Royals lineup, and while his RBI pace may slow down a little, he's still going to provide similar overall value to a dozen guys who have much higher ownership numbers.

If all those players are owned, send me an email and we can try to come up with another approach.  Thanks for reading.