The Brewers have claimed Adam Walker off waivers from the Twins, according to Phil Miller of the Star Tribune (via Twitter). The 25-year-old, who is a Milwaukee native, was a third-round draft pick back in 2012.
Walker has long shown impressive power in the minors, with 124 total home runs in his five professional seasons. But he has yet to earn a trip up to the majors due to questions surrounding the rest of his game.
At the plate, Walker racks up an enormous number of strikeouts. At Triple-A last year, he managed a .243/.305/.479 slash and 27 bombs. But he also went down on strikes 202 times in 532 plate appearances, making for a cringe-worthy 38.0% K rate.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of opportunity Walker will receive with the Brewers. He’s bound to draw comparisons to current first baseman Chris Carter, who has a similar profile. Indeed, with Carter’s arbitration price tag projected to rise to $8.1MM due to his voluminous home run output, it’s possible that the club could ship him out and instead go with the younger, cheaper Walker — though he has played only in the outfield as a professional. Carrying both on the MLB roster, or stashing Walker at Triple-A, are also certainly plausible outcomes as well.
Wow has a lot of power but K’s a ton.
Brewers feel like they can work with that prototype apparently. Chris Carter last offseason. I guess if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t cost much, so there isn’t a lot of risk.
Just looked at the stats. Wow. Those strikeout numbers are so bad they’re actually impressive.
Agreed. My first thought was he’s a more athletic Chris Carter. Maybe even a (very) poor Adam Dunn. I’m actually kind of surprised he was put on waivers since power is such a sought after commodity.
Yeah I’m surprised he was waived as well. His strikeouts are pretty alarming, bad even by recent MLB standards, but overall his numbers aren’t bad. He hits for power and despite the heavy Ks his OBP isn’t terrible. .310ish isn’t anything special but I would’ve expected lower from a guy who strikes out that much. It’s definitely workable if the Brewers think they can fix some of his strikeouts. Could be a steal, honestly.
I could actually see him possibly posting Ryan Schimpf-type numbers if given the opportunity, with less BB and slightly more K.
Thanks for filling in the blanks for me!
Click his link, man.
Don’t give too much info, guys. I’d hate to know what position he plays or strengths/weaknesses.
Position: OF
Strength: Power
Weakness: Hit tool/strikeouts
There. I’m pretty sure the article says all of this. Considering this isn’t a paid website, I think that’s decent info. Overall these guys do an awesome job, your complaints are misplaced.
Yeah that was all added after my comment and the link gave nothing. I’m slightly smarter than that. Thanks for hanging out.
If you’re slightly smarter than that, maybe you could do a little research yourself and find out the information you feel you missed out on all by yourself like a big boy.
If you click on the player’s name, in red and underlined, you get a wealth of statistical information, including his position. Plus if you bother to read above you’ll find the line, “Walker has long shown impressive power in the minors, with 124 total home runs in his five professional seasons. But he has yet to earn a trip up to the majors due to questions surrounding the rest of his game.”
Or you could just complain expecting someone else to do all the work for you.
In thetodd’s defense, the article originally just the first paragraph.
I am impressed by the home runs that he has hit. Nice
His stats look like a Joey Gallo but a little bit older.
Walker was the Twins #15 ranked prospect last year. He’s already gone through AAA and he’s still 25 so this is an easy claim for any team but I’m surprised the Brewers took him because they have a lot of OF prospect depth.
People have been saying he may not stay in RF and be a 1B instead, was the case even with the Twins.
Might give Mark Reynolds a run for his money on being the strikeout king.
I don’t recognize him without the “Brett” thrown in.
Ha, yeah… I had the same thought when I first saw that in an article not long ago. I think it was only this past year they quit referring to him as Adam Brett Walker.
I lost tack of him after his Florida State League, Southern League days.
For how good of an athlete Walker is I was always surprised how bad he was defensively. Not to mention his arm is weaker than my grandmothers!
Surprised the Twins didn’t keep him around to use him for 1B since they’ve said they’ll probably play Mauer less. He’s always been rumored to be a 1B guy if RF doesn’t work out. He’s all power and not much else, but I would have liked it if they gave him a shot.
I know they still have Vargas and Park, so it’s a logjam but I’m not too confident in either of those guys. The more options the better since no one stands out. Not too sad about this overall though.
Jeff,
Do you think Walker could possibly make the Brewers 25-man out of Spring Training? Seems like he’ll have a 50-50 chance, at least as a platoon player.