Taijuan Walker Is Ready to Go
Where is Sweet Lou when you need him

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I/O:  Baseball America, BaseballHQ, Baseball Prospectus, and Fangraphs all push Taijuan solidly into the #1 spot within Seattle's packed crowd of glamor arms.  

This despite Walker being a teenager.

CRUNCH:  When James Paxton first signed with the Mariners, Dr. D told you that he'd give you three Taijuans for one Paxton.  Those days are long gone.

........

In principle this is still valid, and will be valid, for decades if not centuries to come.  It takes a lot of teenaged, high-school Victor Sanchezes to match the worth of one really elite college ace.  Even if the teenager is of equal talent, he has 3-4 years' worth of injury filters to pass.  Most, that is much more than half of, teenagers don't pass those tests.

But it was a long time ago, in prospect terms, that Paxton signed with the M's.  He and Hultzen have hit minor, we say again minor, hiccups in their marches to American League impact.  Meanwhile, Taijuan Walker has passed several tests with flying colors.

........

Here is an SSI breakdown of Taijuan's motion from August 2011.  He was compact and comfortable.  However, his dynamic acceleration down the centerline was just awful, and his movements were naive.  He looked like a clay golem, putting body parts in about the right positions, but with no leveraging to speak of.

Those days are long gone.  Buckle your seat belt and get a load of Taijuan's leveraging now.  You hear the phrase, "Doesn't Look Like the Same Pitcher" tossed around a lot ... 

18 months on, Taijuan has got all the leverage he needs.  100% of it and then some.  How he was ever throwing 96 MPH before, without leverage, is anybody guess.  But now he's throwing 96 in repeatable fashion, doing it with authority. He's not leaning back and screaming as he throws, not pulling a Troy Percival.  But he grabs the center fielder with the back shoulder, he dips the back knee, and gets just a picture-perfect, starter's-rhythm worth of "gather" on the backstroke.

Here he was in June 2012, about six weeks earlier than the first vid, with his "gather" project about 80% complete.  Some hilarious yakkers on this vid, too.

The body language is completely, totally dominant.  You've got the hooded eyelids, the loose-and-jangly shoulders, the little lean of the head in as the ball flies into the mitt, the staredown and the "whattaya gonna do about it" press toward the batter's area as the strike is called.  His shoulders are hunched like a Mafia enforcer's.

The body language reminds you of Bob Gibson's, back in the day.  Not sure that isn't becoming the early comp for Taijuan.

Felix' body language, at 18-19, was carefree and confident.  Taijuan's is airily confrontational.  The kid owns the stadium.

Dr. D signs off, with gusto, on Taijuan's MLB(TM) motion.  As compared to Felix Hernandez when Felix came up, Taijuan looks more ready.

.........

It's not good enough to just roll with Taijuan's K/BB from 2012 ... "Okay, we're done.  See you later."  (Especially since he tired in the second half last season.)

Taijuan has been a SCOUT'S call from the early days, when they slammed him the #1 prospect in the MWL over James Paxton.  And the scouts have nailed it.

Looking at him with a scout's eye, the motion, the finish, and where that leaves his developing command ... he's ready to go.  Anything from here can be learned on the fly.

.........

Zduriencik said that the names were not accurately reported on the Upton deal.  Man, let's hope not...

.........

What the Mariners will choose to do, that is an entirely separate discussion.  You'll always hear, with any kid, that he could stand to work on this or that.  As with Capps, they'll talk about throwing the curveball "consistently" for strikes (as if Hector Noesi and Blake Beavan do that).

We're telling you here and now, the kid would be fine, Safeco on Opening Day.  If Lou Piniella were here, that is exactly where Taijuan would be. 

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Comments

1

SSI has been targeted for termination lately by the 'bots ... some comments recently got nuked in the Armageddon... doing a DefCon 3 on all of it...
Stay cool homies.  I recommend a Devo nuclear-biological-chemical suit for a few hours.

2

Thanks for the update. Was wondering what happened.
On Walker...looks like if Lou were here, Gillick got too many veterans for him to squeeze him in easily anyway. There is a ton of competition for those 5 spots now so it's really going to be hard for Walker or the other older arms to squeeze in. My sense was that Lou would bring them along until they did something wrong then send them back down.
I am surprised to see a "Walker Now"voice with the older 3 considered by most to be closer. If he looks dominating this spring, I'll be waving that flag too. I hope in a couple weeks the decision on which of the 10 (not counting Noesi) looks very tough and they start wanting to bring one or 2 rookies for the rotation. Walker would be a huge surprise to most, but it sounds like not all.

3

We remember he was on Chris Snelling about two full years before anybody else gave Yoda even a second thought.
Lou would definitely look at the big three, see Taijuan's in-yo-face presence, Taijuan's tempo in grabbing the catcher's throw back out of the air, and move him to the head of the line.  "Let him learn in the big leagues," he'd be going.  Not saying Lou was right, but it says here that Taijuan would be in the 5 slot.  Then KPax and Hultzen, the "thoroughbreds," would be in there as soon as they were reliably ahead in the count.
Not saying that SSI is moving Taijuan to the head of the line -- I have an inkling for getting KPax in there, as soon as he bends that front knee a little, but there's a strong case for Taijuan IMHO.

6
Lonnie of MC's picture

I had like a 1600 word dissertation that was pure elegance, and now it is gone...
**Sniff**

9

I'm sorry i don't get to read them too. Hopefully that's over and done with. It was funny with the BJOL post there was 18 comments one time then 10 the next time I checked. Sorry for the mods too, I'm sure none of us blame you for the failures of technology...
I watched the videos of Walker and compared to Gibson and Drysdale. I'm a layman here and don't pretend to have any expertise, but this is what I saw. Seems like the most recent Walker vid has him floating his front foot with a slight hitch to step a bit further than previously. Drysdale actually seems like a better mechanical comp to me than Gibson though both look very close. Looks like a good call on that to me, Moe. Gibson would actually show the ball quite a bit behind him as he spread his arms wide in the load. Walker does barely approach the same position but not at as much of a diagonal, consequently hiding the ball a bit better.
I lost this post lastnight when the browser crashed and had to redo it today. Not the same as 1600 words, but frustrating anyhow.

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