The post-gazette, as well as just about every other Pittsburgh sports media outlet, is reporting that the Pirates have called up Virgil Vasquez and Neil Walker. A few weeks ago, I spent some time ruminating on guys I expected to get September Call-ups. I didn’t mention either of the two guys called up today in that piece, but I still expect Diaz and Clement to get called up when Indy’s season ends next week (Bixler may or may get called up, given that he was here and was sent back down due to sucking). Since we already know about The Virg (2-5, 6+ ERA in a stint with the team earlier this season) lets take a look at Neil Walker.
A little background before I get into Neil Walker’s prospects as a major leaguer. Neil Walker is the first Pirates’ draft pick that I’ve followed all the way through the system. When he was drafted in 2004, I was 20 years old. Going to college in Dayton, Ohio at the time, that’s when I really began to follow the Pirates closely. Walker was a local product out of Pine-Richland HS who played at a premium position. I remember reading the analysis at the time saying he could be a player who could help turn the Pirates’ around. You never really get over your first, so no matter what, even if he ends up with another team, I’m always going to root for Walker. With that bias out of the way, lets take a look at Walker’s trek through the minors to see what that says about his prospects in the show.
Walker was drafted as a catcher, but was moved to 3B in 2007. I don’t really remember why the move was made. Minor league players change positions all the time for any number of reasons. In Walker’s case, we can assume it for one of the following two reasons. Either a) his defense behind the plate was sub-par or b) he was blocked by other players in the system. The second one seems ludicrous now, but don’t forget that we had Ryan Doumit and Ronny Paulino at the time, not to mention that Dave Littlefield was an idiot. Either way though, its irrelevant. Moving Walker back to catcher now would make little sense, unless its an attempt to increase his value as trade bait. And even though in 2007 he wasn’t really blocked at catcher, in 2009 he is. Ryan Doumit and Jason Jaramillo are both in Pittsburgh ahead of him, and 2009 #1 pick Tony Sanchez is behind him making his way quickly up through the system. With that being said, his bat is going to have to play at third base in order for him to succeed in the bigs. What he does have going for him is that his defense at the hot corner is seen as very good. I remember reading that he was the International League defensive 3B of the year for 2008, but I can’t find documentation of that anywhere on the internet, so I might be crazy about that one.
That leaves a very simple question, can his bat be good enough to make him a major league third baseman? In order to answer that, we need a baseline to compare to. According to fangraphs.com(and some math I did), the average “qualified” NL 3B in 2009 has slash-stats of .279/.351/.455 for an OPS of .806. Now lets have a look at Walker’s minor-league numbers:
- 2004: .276/.316/.422 (OPS: .758)
- 2005: .298/.325/.444 (OPS: .769)
- 2006: .271/.329/.403 (OPS: .732)
- 2007: .277/.348/.434 (OPS: .782 )
- 2008: .242/.280/.414 (OPS: .694)
- 2009: .256/.304/.469 (OPS: .773)
He never once exceeded the average for NL 3B in the minors. The closest he came was in 2007, playing mostly at AA, but even then he was 20 points off. At 23, he is still young enough that the bat could develop more, but based solely on the minor league track record, there is no reason to believe his bat plays at third base.
As I said in the open, I’m always going to root for him, and really hope I’m wrong, because the other options aren’t very attractive. He is athletic enough that he could make a switch to second base, ala Freddy Sanchez, a position where offensive isn’t at as much of a premium. The problem there is that learning second is going to take some time, and if I’ve learned anything from the Delwyn Young experiment at second base, it’s that Neal Huntington would very much like to have a plus offensive player there and is willing to sacrifice some defense to do so.
The other option, and the one I see as most likely is that he becomes a super utility player, think Ben Zobrist of the Tampa Bay Rays. Obviously walker isn’t nearly the hitter Zobrist is, but defensively, I think the comp works. We already know he can play 3B and C. He could probably learn to play 2B as well as some corner outfield. He may even be able to play 1B in a pinch. If he can do this, he’s a nice bench player. The defensive versatility would give you the ability to carry either an extra bullpen arm or an extra bat on the bench who never has to play defense. But the number of at bats he would see in a role like this is pretty limited, and certainly you want #1 picks to work out to be much more than super utility players. As with a lot of things with the Pirates these days, all we can do as fans is watch, wait, and hope for the best.
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