Keys to Weeks' new gig: Listen and learn

This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

MILWAUKEE -- Rickie Weeks’ New Year’s resolution is rather straightforward: Listen.

Over breakfast at the Winter Meetings in December, Weeks talked about his transition from full-time dad and part-time Brewers player development assistant to the rigorous job ahead as associate manager under 65-year-old skipper Pat Murphy. The future is wide open for Weeks, 41, if he finds he enjoys the gig.

“The thing I’ve learned, and I’ve kind of always had this: Just listen,” Weeks said. “Listen first, because when you speak, it should be something of substance. I really hold that close to my chest.

“A lot of times, if you’re quick to speak, quick to have an answer, you come across as somebody who has all the answers. Nobody has all the answers. When you listen in order to process everything, now we can get stuff moving in the right direction. So for me, it’s sitting back and taking it all in.”

The Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tenn., offered an opportunity to do that. Over five days, Weeks sat in on brainstorming sessions and trade talks, witnessed negotiations with player agents and continued an ongoing conversation with Murphy, who said Weeks was his first choice to be his right-hand man when the Brewers promoted Murphy from bench coach after eight seasons with the club.

It took some convincing, since Weeks was happy at home with his wife and two children, who are 6 and 7 years old. But once he decided to take on the challenge, Weeks said, it was like flipping a switch.

“There comes a point where all of the play stops,” Weeks said. “Now it’s business.”

Weeks was all business during a 14-year Major League career spent mostly with Milwaukee, a track record Murphy and Brewers general manager Matt Arnold believe will work in Weeks’ favor in his new role. After Weeks’ record-setting career at Southern University -- his .465 batting average and .927 slugging percentage remain NCAA Division 1 records -- the Brewers picked him second overall in the 2003 MLB Draft, and Weeks made his big league debut that Sept. 15. It was the first of his 11 seasons with Milwaukee.

Weeks ranks 12th in franchise history in home runs (148), 10th in doubles (203) and eighth in triples (32). Only five players -- Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Ryan Braun, Cecil Cooper and Jim Gantner -- have scored more runs (684) for the Brewers. Only Yount, Molitor, Braun, Prince Fielder and Gorman Thomas have worked more walks (492).

Weeks was also hit by 125 pitches, the most in club history by a wide margin. It was always his toughness that teammates mentioned first.

“I'm trying to encourage Rickie, like, ‘Rickie, you're impactful, man,’” Murphy said. “‘People trust you and believe in you. So let's use that gift.’”

To use his gifts, Weeks will have to learn the landscape. That’s a significant challenge in today’s game, as Weeks learned in 2022, when he came out of retirement to join Milwaukee’s front office as a special assistant in player development.

Weeks prepared for the role by pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sports management from Florida International University. When the Brewers hired him that February, Weeks was three months shy of graduation. He juggled his new coaching duties with his studies, spending as much time or more at American Family Fields of Phoenix as the team’s hard-working clubhouse personnel.

“That Spring Training was tough for me, to be honest,” Weeks said. “It was long. I’d be there from 5:30 a.m. until probably 10 o’clock at night the whole Spring Training. It’s what I wanted.

“Did I really need it to get this position? Maybe not. But it’s something I wanted to do.”

All along, Weeks had coaching in mind.

“This was the track I wanted to be on, to be very honest,” Weeks said.

Weeks realized right away how much things had changed since his playing days with the Brewers, even though it had been just eight years since his last Spring Training with the team. The first challenge was learning everyone’s name.

“They hand you a sheet of names, and let’s say it’s 15 years ago -- you’re talking about 30 people,” Weeks said. “Now it’s literally 200 people. I’m looking at the paper and I’m like, ‘Is this real?’”

The answer: “Yes, this is real.”

So Weeks sat down and started learning names. That has always been important to him.

“To this day, I don’t know every name at all of the affiliates, but I keep the piece of paper on me. So whenever I went to a city, I would study everyone’s name,” Weeks said. “That’s the first time I felt like baseball really exploded in terms of the [size of the] front office and player development. Now I understand.”

Weeks is ready for a new challenge.

“The biggest thing for me was to understand how blessed I am and how much the city of Milwaukee means to me,” Weeks said. “From being drafted to going through the ups and downs of a season and going to the playoffs, I really grew up in Milwaukee.”