According to a source of Bleed Cubbie Blue, Todd Walker will be traded this month. The source indicated that the Giants are the likely suitor and that they would use him at first base.
First base has been a black hole for San Francisco between Lance Niekro, Mark Sweeney, and a few others. The average NL first baseman is hitting .284/.364/.500 this year, while the Giants have gotten .251/.310/.393 out of their first basemen. You need a Lyle Overbay just to be average while the Giants have essentially been suffering through the offensive equivalent of Yuniesky Betancourt at first.
At .290/.361/.392, Walker still makes for a pretty lousy first baseman. However, he is a career .437 slugger so maybe that’ll pick up a bit. The Giants are 2.5 games out in the NL West and 1.5 games out of the wild card. The team will probably lose Jason Schmidt, Barry Bonds, and Moises Alou this offseason, so the time is now. In it this deep, Brian Sabean needs to acquire Pat Burrell, Alfonso Soriano, or Carlos Lee if he wants to actually gain some ground in the next two months. Adding Walker would just be an aesthetic change.
