You ready to make that bet?
How long would you give Walker as a starter?
-
phins
- Sobbing quietly during Fox programming
- Posts: 12085
- Joined: June 9 06, 3:51 pm
-
jagtrader
- Hall Of Famer
- Posts: 12656
- Joined: June 5 06, 10:01 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
What bet? I think they’ll try. Wetherholt’s deal is team friendly. I have no idea what Walker wants.
-
phins
- Sobbing quietly during Fox programming
- Posts: 12085
- Joined: June 9 06, 3:51 pm
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
The bet that Walker is who he is right now. Without the glove and legs floor of Wetherholt, I think it's a real question should you invest in Walker yet. Maybe that's just me though.
Online
- Popeye_Card
- GRB's most intelligent & humble poster
- Posts: 31062
- Joined: April 17 06, 11:25 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
I was on board with giving Walker until the end of this season after winning the HR derby. But after that K in the All-Star game I’m tightening the leash. Two weeks, tops.
- booger71
- Perennial All-Star
- Posts: 5773
- Joined: June 19 18, 5:36 pm
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
Almost everyone on the National League team struck out...most of them against hittable pitchers.Popeye_Card wrote: ↑July 15 26, 11:15 amI was on board with giving Walker until the end of this season after winning the HR derby. But after that K in the All-Star game I’m tightening the leash. Two weeks, tops.
Online
- ghostrunner
- GOAT
- Posts: 30856
- Joined: April 18 06, 9:40 pm
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
Interesting to see him up against Wood, who's better in almost every offensive category. And already at 4.6 WAR while being roughly equal defensively. Wood has a slightly higher K rate (28.4% vs 24.8) but a significantly better walk rate (17.4% vs 8.1), slightly higher SLG, and even a couple more steals.phins wrote: ↑July 14 26, 1:36 pmxwOBA of .374 and an actual of .380 gives even more credence to this being real. It's not a 1 correlation, of course, but it's a nice sanity check for hitters.
His BABIP is very high, but it should be with his exit velocities and sprint speeds. K% is somewhat under control.
Realistically, his under the hood data says this is a 3.5 WAR guy. He's tracking towards ~4 that at this point, but e we it's a bit of priors built into the projection (it's called Bayesian) so he probably ends up between 3.5-4 WAR this year.
When you think about his season and then realize Wetherholt is tracking towards breaking six, it also puts his year into context about why they prioritized extending Wetherholt.
-
jagtrader
- Hall Of Famer
- Posts: 12656
- Joined: June 5 06, 10:01 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
The Cardinals aren't driving the bus here. He's getting close to free agency. I think there's a chance his asking price is beyond what they're willing to spend. Wetherholt was relatively cheap all things considered. This won't be. Walker is a one-of-a-kind case. I'm curious to see where it goes.
-
cardsfantx
- Hall Of Famer
- Posts: 12208
- Joined: November 6 10, 10:58 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
he's been god awful the last several years, and only has this great track record of 4 month...total. 4 months.jagtrader wrote: ↑July 15 26, 12:22 pmThe Cardinals aren't driving the bus here. He's getting close to free agency. I think there's a chance his asking price is beyond what they're willing to spend. Wetherholt was relatively cheap all things considered. This won't be. Walker is a one-of-a-kind case. I'm curious to see where it goes.
we still control him 2 years after this one.
He's not going to break any kind of record with his contract/we're not setting any high level mark for 4 months of production after several years of trash.
-
jagtrader
- Hall Of Famer
- Posts: 12656
- Joined: June 5 06, 10:01 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
He’ll be a free agent at 27. He’s gonna get paid.
-
cardsfantx
- Hall Of Famer
- Posts: 12208
- Joined: November 6 10, 10:58 am
Re: How long would you give Walker as a starter?
That’s 2 years after this one; we still have control of him for 2 years after this one.
If he wants to sign an extension now, it’s not going to break the bank. It’ll be modest and team friendly.
If he has a great rest of this year and continues next, yes it will go up.
But right now if they talk extension (which is what is being discussed in this thread), it wouldn’t be some record breaking cardinals contract