The Diamondbacks are open to talking about trades involving first baseman Christian Walker, The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro reports. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Walker is being shopped, it does provide another view into how the D’Backs could be approaching the trade deadline.
Arizona is in last place in the NL West, with a 39-51 record and sizeable deficits to make up in the division race (20.5 games behind the Dodgers) and the wild card race (nine games). As such, it looks like the D’Backs will be deadline sellers for the third consecutive year, yet their willingness to discuss Walker represents something of a change from the team’s strategy. In both 2020 and 2021, the Diamondbacks were only looking to move shorter-term veterans, rather than deal any core players and trigger a wider-scale rebuilding effort. As such, players like Zac Gallen and Ketel Marte were kept, and Marte even signed a new contract extension prior to the season.
Walker represents perhaps a middle ground between veterans under short-term control and what Arizona considers its core players. Walker is a veteran in own right, playing in his age-31 season, and yet he is still only in his first year of arbitration eligibility. After agreeing to a $2.6MM salary for 2022, Walker is arb-controlled through the 2024 campaign.
This makes Walker a relatively inexpensive option for a D’Backs team that traditionally works within a limited budget. However, the team could be considering Walker’s age, the fact that prospect Seth Beer could be ready to step into a more regular first-base role, and perhaps simply a desire to sell high on Walker during a strong season.
Emerging as the Diamondbacks’ top first base option in 2019, Walker hit .262/.344/.471 with 36 homers over 846 plate appearances in 2019-20 before struggling through some injuries last year. He has bounced back nicely, hitting .206/.319/.467 with 22 home runs in 361 PA, translating to a 116 wRC+/121 OPS+.
As Piecoro noted, Walker’s Statcast numbers are even more impressive, with plenty of hard-contact and an elite 13.3% walk rate. If anything, Walker’s real-world numbers don’t reflect his overall offensive quality, as his .339 wOBA is well under a whopping .400 xwOBA. Defensively, Walker has been one of baseball’s best first-base gloves, with +8 Outs Above Average, +12 Defensive Runs Saved, and +4.5 UZR/150.
There’s plenty here to attract rival teams, and Walker’s trade value is enhanced by his extra years of control. Josh Bell and Trey Mancini are considered the top first basemen available as the deadline approaches, but both players can test free agency after the season (Mancini is widely expected to turn down his end of a mutual option for 2023). The D’Backs could potentially shop Walker to not just current contenders, but to teams who might not be full-fledged contenders now but would be looking to vie for the playoffs by 2023.
For his own part, Walker isn’t worrying about any possible trade rumors, saying “just because somebody is an option to be traded, another team still has to want them. There’s a lot of moving pieces in it, like getting something that’s worth it in return. There are a lot of things that are above my pay grade, to some extent. For me, it’s a better mental spot to ignore it and if you get a phone call, you get a phone call. If not, this is my team and these are my teammates.”
Yuck.
I see the Padres as a good fit if they can get rid of a hosmer
For the sake of that entire city, I’m hoping they kick Hosmer to the curb ASAP.
I agree
This dude ain’t better than Hosmer.
Walker gives the team more power and way better defense add the fact that he’s cheap and he’s way more valuable than hosmer.
People don’t really care what Hosmer does. He is officially anointed with the scarlet letter of O for overpaid. Nobody cares about how he plays now. He is a meme.
He is waaaay overpaid, though
Yup, Walker’s only a little under 2 WAR better in a little over 30 more PA. Hosmer is clearly the better player lmao
You realize the Padres are stuck with Hosmer because of the contract unless they want to move some quality prospects.
I agree 100%. The padres should trade for and immediately extend him.
I see the Red Sox as a good fit with Casas not exactly tearing it up and JD a FA at the end of the season. Buys them some time, gets good defense at 1B (something they’ve been short on), gets a solid bat at 1B (something they’ve also been short on), and he’s pretty cheap.
Dalbec should be traded. He doesn’t fit this future team with Casas coming up.
Exactly what I think. Even if they resign JDM, they can find a way to play both of them or trade Walker over the offseason.
Strange how he’s one of those low batting average high power kind of first basemen. Yet he doesn’t strikeout a lot. I haven’t seen him play a lot. But I clicked on his baseball reference link and was very surprised by his K/BB. His batting line would suggest far more K’s and a lot less contact and walks.
His averages have been higher in the past, but I agree. Power-hitting first basemen that walk a lot usually either strike out a ton or are terrible on defense, but he’s a lower strikeout guy and a pretty good defender. He’d definitely help someone.
He seems to have embraced the launch angle centered philosophy of Mathers (the hitting coach) more than most on the team; or he just actually has the power compared to others on the team to take advantage of such an approach to contact.
It is strange that his plate discipline numbers have improved while trying to get more flyballs, though. Historically he’s been a line drive hitter, but they’ve all but evaporated this season (mostly against RHP). Still, even Joey Gallo doesn’t run a .188 BABIP; something has to give at some point, so he is potentially in line for some positive regression (don’t really have to bank on that as much with a current 115 wRC+ and GG caliber defense, though)
Also part of why I suggested Boston; he’s a RHB that only hits the ball oppo roughly 20% of the time and hits it on the ground roughly 40% of the time. That big wall has a tendency to artificially inflate BABIP/ISO on the kind of contact he’s making.
If he isn’t traded in season I could see him being a potential target for Philly in the offseason. As much as I love Rhys his defense is bad. They really could use a plus defender at 1st.
But are other teams?
In what world is a .202 BA a good thing? You can take all the “good” .202 guys and out them on one team and that team will lose 100 games. Walker ain’t worth a bucket of spit
Learn baseball
It’s not a good thing, luckily there is more to baseball than batting average.
In the same world where that .202 hitter has over a 3 WAR halfway through the season. If you had a whole team of guys with a 3 WAR already, mathematically you’d probably be on pace to win about 80% of your games. Not lose 100
That’s funny…the D-Backs are WILLING to listen but I doubt anyone wants this .200 hitting strikeout machine. Arizona is one of the worst run teams in baseball.
Every FO has been undermined by KK; they certainly have one of the worst owners, I’ll give you that much. Not every team can have the backing of billionaires, eh? 😉
BTW, 19.1 K% and 13.3 BB% are both well above average rates. So is the .261 ISO, for that matter. The issue is the BABIP.
Plus, he’s played elite defense. Some teams will have him on their radar to paper over a black hole. There’s a couple in that situation.
Like mentioned earlier by highheat, the Green Monster will make this guy into a monster.
The only thing Seth Beer is ready to step into is a big pile of doo-doo.
Got a good chuckle out of that one.
I’m still confident that they can get by with just Luplow and McCarthy doing what they can out there; that’s also a reason to call up Stone Garrett if they were trying to get another RHB OF on the roster, as there are not too many other options of that archtype in the system.
I’m still stumped as to why Garrett hasn’t been called up. Luplow can disappear, for all I care.
It’s kind of wild what he’s doing right now in AAA. In a reasonable sample size (aside from appearances with miniscule PA samples) he has:
-career high BB%
-career low K%
-career high LD%
-career low GB%
-career high Oppo%
-career low Pull%
-career high HR/FB% (PCL, duh)
-career low IFFB%
-actually has a higher OPS against RHP
I’d like to see him get a shot, because it’s always nice to see a post-hype sleeper. Could be a nice little scrap-heap pickup (another pickup of that variety I’m keeping an eye on is Leandro Cedeno, but he’s pretty much 1B only at 23).
And apparently Cedeno hit a 500+ foot bomb; granted that it was Amarillo and probably wind assisted, but that’s still legit pop and a lot of it.
I watched the video – 527 feet! Did you see the ball land and bounce away out in that parking lot? Dang, that’s a strong young man.
That thing got slapped lol
Best part about Cedeno? He wasn’t signed as IFA, drafted, or traded for by the DBacks. He was a MiLB FA from the Cardinals at 23 (not too much use for a 1B only over there, eh?)
Walker has a BABIP of .188, in spite of exit velocities and barrel percentages that are above average.
His xBA is .270 and his xSLG is .580.
He has put up good WAR in spite of being extremely unlucky.
If he had actually hit that .270, that would’ve been 20 more hits on the season. That’s 20 more times on base; unfortunately because AB and PA have different denominators you can’t just add the differences between OBP-BA. You’d have to recalculate OBP with the added hits. But fear not friend! I’ve got your back lol
His OBP with that .270 BA would be .374; added with IF he’d matched up to his xSLG, he’d have an OPS of .954, which is a far cry from his .786 coming into tonight.
Mariners 100%
We take him on the southside if it meant we made a deal for Marte.
Why do I think the RAYS make sense and add Walker? Years of control, their type?
Part of a package for Juan Soto!
If the Nationals can’t afford to extend Soto, the DBacks sure as Hell can’t lol.
Sadly, Soto killed the majority of his trade market when he refused that massive extention. Nobody wants to give up quality players or mortgage the farm for a guy that’ll definitely be gone in a couple years.
“bouncing back nicely” – hitting .206
One team says i will give you no one! (And still get him)
NL Contender should pick him up. Walker is an All-Star when he faces the Dodgers. Much like CJ Cron (who is now actually an All-Star)