Scooter Gennett’s starting role

Scooter Gennett could become the next biggest Brewer. Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports

By now, it’s no secret that Scooter Gennett will get the start at second base in 2014 for the Milwaukee Brewers. After his impressive rookie season, the ceiling looks high for the 23-year-old who may have just started to make a name for himself.

How will Gennett fare heading into next season is a question entirely on its own that many people have been wondering. With the hot and mostly cold stretches from Rickie Weeks, the Brewers felt that Gennett’s presence not only in the infield, but in the line-up, helped secure him a definitive spot on the roster. Now Gennett will more than likely be starting at second base to help round out a pretty young, but solid, middle infield in Milwaukee.

This past season, Gennett was one of the Brewers’ better contact hitters, holding a slash line of .324/.356/.479 in 69 games, or 230 plate appearances. He’s not exactly a long ball hitter with only six homers, but he did manage an ISO of .155 and drove in 21 runs. However, with the good, there is the bad, which makes Gennett solid, but not the best he can be just yet.

The one glaring obvious problem Gennett had was against left-handed pitching as he hit a measly .154. Granted, that was only in 41 appearances so it’s not that huge of a sample size. The next biggest thing he struggled with was walking as he only drew them 4.3 percent of the time. As the Brewers look for a lead-off hitter, something tells me these two areas won’t win him that.

Defensively Gennett isn’t too bad, only committing five errors in 487.2 innings. As a rookie, more mistakes are expected to happen and if Gennett had been called up sooner, perhaps that number would have been expanded, but he still has a rather decent glove at a very active position. He also makes some pretty nice dives to make outs too.

It’s hard to exactly say where we can rank Gennett going forward since we only saw him for a couple months this past year. I don’t know that he can keep up the same level of offensive production due to the struggles against lefties, but his .380 BABIP may say otherwise. Still, Gennett is going to be a center piece in the line-up and he may not do it with power like everyone else, but he’ll find a way.

Gennett is clearly one of the cornerstones for the Brewers’ future and 2013 may have just been a taste of what we’ll get from him in the future. I have no doubts that Gennett will take over the starting role at second base, which is something by and far he’s earned. He may want to improve on his approach against lefties though if he doesn’t want to be platooned with say Weeks or even Jeff Bianchi. That said, Gennett is a fun player to watch and someone who may be the next best Brewer.