2013 was an injury plagued season, going on the DL twice with injuries to his left knee. He basically missed the end of the year with knee surgery, which he suffered during a bench clearing brawl created by his teammate Carlos Gomez (on September 25, if you want to see the fight with your MLB.tv account).

Let’s get to actual analysis. He is expected to be ready for spring training and should bat in the middle of the Brewers order, probably between Ryan Braun and Gomez or Jonathan Lucroy, which will allow him an opportunity to increase his baseball card stats if he can stay healthy the entire year. In last year’s guide I said, “I have doubts whether he can stay healthy for the entire year; previous to 2012, he’s only averaged 126 games played the past four years.” Like I said last year, that’s a big “if”. From everything I’ve read suggests his left knee was bothering him all year and it’s difficult to estimate how much it affected him, but his ISO was the lowest since 2003 and he hit the most ground balls ever in his career (since 2002). The table below (from BrooksBaseball.net) shows the ISO broken out by pitch category.

Any time I see declines in contact rates or isolated powers from players in their mid-30s all I see are major red flags. In general, players in their mid-30s are well past their prime and have begun (or began) to lose a tick or two of bat speed, which means their upside is limited if even they’re fully healthy to begin the year. Depending where he falls in drafts, he could be value, but in general I’m avoiding him.

If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.