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But what should he be to us?

 

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First, let's talk about who is. 

 

If you haven't seen him throw, well, here's a clip from his first AAA start.  

 

Back yet?  Stop drooling.  That fastball just explodes out of his hand and he is scary with the occasional "effective wildness" of that pitch. It's hard for batters to see and it gets on em in a HURRY.  None of this Carter Capps throwing 97-but-easy-to-catch-up-to stuff.

 

 

He did all this with a slidestep, btw - no lessening of stuff with runner on for this guy.

 

Taijuan's complaint about the game?  He didn't have his cutter.

 

 

But his well-traveled catcher Jaramillo was impressed.  

 

 

That's what you call gushing. Jaramillo is saying that you can just FEEL the waves of Special wafting off Walker.  Some of the "special" pitchers he's been around? Well he was in the Phillies org when they won their WS (and several years before that) so he spent his Spring Trainings with Hamels and Moyer and crew.  When he's comparing Walker, it's probably to someone like Hamels.

 

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So with a guy who has explosive primary heat, alternate pitches to offer to oppo-handed hitters, potentially devastating breaking stuff, is still climbing the mountain of specialness as the youngest guy in AAA, and who has the aura of greatness about him... Why on EARTH would you ever trade that guy?

 

In a perfect world you don't. In a perfect world you trade lesser players, or make good free agent moves, or have internal options that mean you'll never have to say, "I just traded Pedro Martinez and I am ashamed."

 

You would trade someone else.  Paxton has great potential - but his injury nicks and inconsistency drop his value. Plus let's face it, being the 4th best pitching prospect in an organization (behind Walker, Hultzen and E-Ram) means his relative value is low even though his absolute potential remains high.

 

Hultzen's injury has decreased his value until he can prove everything is back to perfect working order.  Same with E-Ram.  We've had some bad luck with pitching prospect health this season.  The guy with diamond-hard value IS Walker.  He will get you nearly anything you want in the right package. Nobody has any arm like him that they might be willing to part with.

 

But is what you can get back worth more than what Walker can be for you?  We made that call with Pineda, deciding that while he was a very good pitching prospect he had some things that might drag his value down over time.  We didn't get the value we wanted for him (stupid potentially-juicing catcher/DHs) but Pineda still hasn't thrown a pitch in the bigs for the Yankees a year and a half later.  We weren't wrong about trading Pineda while his value was high.

 

Is there any reason we need to trade Walker while his value is utterly maximized?

 

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600.  That's the number of runs we're unlikely to get this year. If we don't, that'll be the 3rd time in 4 years we've failed to hit that mark.  The Astros, hapless as they are recently, have only failed to get to 600 twice in the last 30 years, and are on pace to surpass that number again this year.

 

The offense needs help.  Maybe there's enough internal help to enable us to keep most of our young talent.  After all, Franklin is killing it, Zunino is getting his feet wet, Miller should be here in a couple of weeks, Seager is playing like an all star, Saunders might find his mojo...

 

But as I've outlined before, the list of teams that have been contenders with 3 or more guys playing every day as 1st or 2nd year players is VERY small. Only 14 teams in the last 50+ years have even TRIED it.  For success stories, I guess you could look at the 1975 Bo Sox with Burleson, Lynn and Rice.  Sure, if we're adding Lynn and Rice to a team that has Fisk, Yaz, Cecil Cooper and Dwight Evans I'd feel pretty good about it too. Do we have those guys in a storage closet somewhere?

 

Most other teams do it because they're desperate. Are we desperate? Yes.  Is it likely to work? If Zunino is Posada and Franklin is Jeter then it might, I guess.  

 

Otherwise it's another year or two of development, and then roll the dice.  We HAVE talent.  We can absolutely wait on it, trust the process, and believe that 2016 or 2017 might be our year. 

 

 

It took Tampa Bay an entire decade where they couldn't win more than 70 games in order to amass the kind of talent that could make them a contender.  Not win anything (well, to be fair they do have a pennant which is more than we have) but contend. Since the best the Ms have EVER done - even with multiple first-ballot HOF types on their teams - is contend, I definitely would not turn my nose up at that bar for success.  But can we obtain it with what we have?

 

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Perhaps Walker is the Cole Hamels type who can win us a pennant. He's insanely talented. Maybe Franklin and Zunino and Miller and the rest really CAN set us up for a 6 year run at incredibly competitive ball, starting next year.

 

But if they can't take us over the hump to contention, is there anything that Zduriencik has done with FA that makes you think a savior is coming in that door without some talent going out it to procure that talent for us?

 

I do not want to trade Walker.  I also don't believe that we will simply promote the blue-chippers and hope it all falls into place.  Walker is backed up in the system by Hultzen, E-Ram, Maurer and Paxton, to say nothing of some interesting low-minors arms a few years away (one of whom, Diaz, has an electric arm much like Walker's that they are working on harnessing).

 

The offense can't afford too many trades out.  Seager or Franklin leaving could undo a lot of what any new bat acquisition might add, and we'll have to trade SOME of our top talent to get back anything useful, let alone All-Star.  Peguero + Triunfel + Gillheeney isn't getting us a sack of cold bricks.  Of course, if we had held on to Fister instead of trading him for junk we wouldn't be in quite this pickle with the middle-to-back of our rotation, either.  At some point hitters gotta hit, and all these great pitching prospects have to come up and pitch to that talent level. 

 

Walker's level is immense.  If someone would open the checkbook for Choo that would help us keep Walker. Even if he winds up being an overpay in the last couple years, we'll have our new TV money to eat it and a whole new batch of cheap young talent to help absorb it.  But how many high-priced FAs have we signed recently?  Or ever?

 

 

Keep Walker and maybe utilize his amazing talent's along with those of some of our other young pitchers and create a wrecking-ball pitching staff even if our offense is merely adequate? 

 

Hope that the talent on offense congeals into something more than adequate with a few of the gems we do have?  

 

Trade some of those gems, maybe even the crown jewel in Walker to get what will hopefully be an ACTUAL lynchpin instead of a bunch of theoretical ones that don't pan out?

 

I'm open to suggestions.  All paths are fraught with peril.  Trading Walker is just as risky as keeping him.  If Stanton is a pipe dream I'd like a list of worthy trade pieces we COULD get for Walker.  That list is... short.

 

Which means we may keep Walker by default, because no one will part with a big enough monster at the plate to let us send Tall Pedro their way.

 

Maybe that'll be the best option, in the end.  Fingers crossed.  The first step is getting enough talent in the system, especially All-Star level talent, to even have this problem.

 

Step one is accomplished.  Now, about that winning record thing...

 

~G