Christian Walker Is Having A Good Walking Year

He may not be playing in Arlington tonight, but Christian Walker just put together an All-Star level first grade. The Diamondbacks first baseman entered the All-Star break ranked third in the National League with 22 home runs, fifth with 66 RBIs, and among the top 15 hitters in wOBA (.357), xwOBA ( .365), and wRC+ ( 131). His 10 OAA is third among NL players, while 7 DRS, 4.1 UZR, and 8 FRV are top marks at his position. Thanks to his impressive defensive performance, the two-time Gold Glove winner is the only professional NL first baseman who has provided a definite defensive value in a start despite major adjustments to the position. On top of that, he has played in all 97 games for Arizona so far, putting him on pace for over 700 plate appearances this season.

Add his offense, defense, and durability together and you get 2.9 WAR, which puts Walker in the top 15 among NL position players and the top 30 in the majors. Considering that 46 position players were invited to the Midsummer Classic this year, it's hard to deny that Walker is having an All-Star season. At the same time, it is difficult and very angry to talk about his “snub”. Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman put up the highest offensive numbers and total WAR, rightfully earning the two guaranteed first baseman spots on the NL roster. In addition, three NL players with more WAR and arguably stronger All-Star cases than Walker were also left off the team: Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, and Willy Adames. Finally, this isn't even the most disappointing time Walker has missed a return trip to Globe Life Field over the past 10 months. Still, it's a shame that Walker's brilliant first half won't be rewarded. At 33 years old, the late Bloom is putting together the best season of his career at the plate and in the field. Certainly, that should be celebrated.

At this point, Walker is used to being looked down upon. He has been a down-and-out player from the moment he first tasted major league success. After his breakout rookie season in 2019 (111 wRC+, 3.0 WAR) ZiPS took a step back in '20; as Dan Szymborski put it, “The predictions aren't completely sold on Christian Walker, they still see him as the league's underdog.

It's not hard to understand why ZiPS was skeptical about Walker. At 29 years old, he had only one successful major league season under his belt, and no projection system could have expected him to maintain his ridiculous defensive numbers in the early going. ZiPS wasn't wrong, either, as they took a significant step back in 2020 and an even bigger step back in '21. So, the program still had doubts about Walker after his breakout sophomore season in 2022. Although Walker hit 36 ​​home runs, led first basemen with 14 OAA, and finished with 4.0 WAR, Dan included him on his list of ZiPS hitters going into 2023, describing him as “obviously not a star, the first major league player to come off a breakout year. Well, lo and behold, Walker nearly duplicated his 2022 season in '23. He finished with a 120 wRC+ and 3.9 WAR, while winning his second Glove in as many years. To be clear, I'm not bringing this to ZiPS, but rather to show how many times Walker has exceeded expectations in his extraordinary career.

Indeed, ZiPS has taken Walker a little further and is looking towards 2024; he has already surpassed his preseason 2.7 WAR according to ZiPS Depth Charts. However, the fact that projection systems (and ZiPS is not the only one) always sell Walker short is a feature, not a bug. A good projection program will not expect a career best performance from a player as he enters his 30s. Projection systems are built on historical comps, and Walker defies the general progression of a major league career. In his age-33 season, he is on pace for career-highs in plate appearances, games played, home runs, RBI, runs scored, wOBA, xwOBA, wRC+, OAA, FRV, and WAR:

When Walker spoke with David Laurila before the 2023 season, he explained how “hard data and numbers” helped him trust his process through adversity. Missing out on an All-Star nod in the midst of possibly the best season of his career is disappointing, but as long as he focuses on data and solid numbers, he should be nothing but happy with his performance in the first half.

Underlying Walker's career-best 131 wRC+ is a career-best 103.4 EV50 (average exit velocity for the hardest 50% of his batted balls) and a career-best 36.3% strikeout rate, resulting in a career-best 15.7 % barrel average. He also increased his pull rate and decreased his opposite field rate on fly balls. In fact, almost all of his top hits have been released this year, which is a stark contrast to last year, where he blasted the ball to all fields:

This he can it was a warning sign that Walker was trading up for more fastballs as he got older. However, I don't see many other indications of age-related decline. His bat speed is high (92nd percentile), and his strikeout rate remains unchanged from last season. In addition, he has done more damage on curveballs (+4 run value, per Baseball Savant), changeups (+4), and sweepers (+4) than any other pitch this season. That's not what you would expect from a batsman sitting on a fastball.

That said, Walker is striking out significantly more this season (25.2%) than he did in 2023 (19.2%), so no NL hitter has seen a significant increase in strikeout rate. However, it's hard to worry too much about this development after looking at Walker's basic plate orientation data. Both his swing rate (misses as a percentage of swings) and his swing rate (swings and misses as a percentage of all pitches) are down slightly from last season. So is his rushing rate. In addition, his first strike rate dropped from 60.2% to 55.7%. Only three professional NL hitters have seen a lower first-pitch strikeout rate this season, and no NL hitter has made more plate appearances earlier in the count. As you'd expect, Walker has done pretty well for himself in his 1-0 start, posting a 186 wRC+. Unfortunately, he has been worse than in previous years when he went into an 0-1 hole (75 wRC+). But that doesn't happen very often, so the tradeoff seems worth it.

All of this to say, I'm inclined to believe that Walker's increased strikeout rate is the result of conscious decision making rather than an inability to keep up with opposing pitchers. Consider this: Walker is more likely to have two strikeouts this season than in 2022 or '23, yet his wOBA, xwOBA, and home run rate in two strikeouts are all higher this year than any other full season. . I'm sorry if you're tired of reading about all the ways Walker is having a career-best season, but you'll have to take that up on the man himself.

As luck would have it, Walker is enjoying an excellent offseason with free agency on the horizon. Thus, his name has appeared a little to guess the trade; earlier this month, Jon Heyman called Walker the Astros' “dream” before the deadline. It seems unlikely that the reigning NL hitters will trade this summer, especially now that they're back over .500 and just a game behind the Mets for the last wild card spot, but it's fair to say that on July 1 general manager Mike Hazen would. non-committal when asked about his final plans. Maybe the fact that his team has gone 8-5 since his comments changed his mind, but then again, a loss after the All-Star break could swing the pendulum back in the other direction. Even if the Diamondbacks don't make a trade at the deadline, I would expect them to hold off. Their best bet would be to hope Corbin Carroll turns his season around and veteran starters Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Merrill Kelly return strong and healthy for the IL. However, if things don't go particularly well in the 10 games between the All-Star break and the deadline, perhaps Hazen could be swayed by Walker's strong offer. After all, Walker could be a great rental and one of the few impact bats available on the seller's market.

However, the likely outcome is that Walker stays with the D-backs come July 31. If that's the case, the team will certainly extend him a qualifying offer after the season, and he'll likely turn it down, setting himself up for free agency testing. first of all.

I find it beyond frustrating that a player who made his MLB debut at age 23 in 2014 won't be a free agent until the 2024-25 offseason, before his age 34 campaign. Many players in the same situation would have lost their high stakes due to the artificial limitations of the arbitration system. However, in Walker's rare case, he may be reaching free agency at the right time. During spring training, he said The Arizona RepublicHow proud Nick Piecoro is to feel like he'll have the potential to use it as a free agent: “It's a sense of accomplishment… We have the ball in our court. It wasn't like that yet.” And that was before he put together the best performance of the first half of his career.

Christian Walker may not be an All-Star, but he's playing the best baseball of his career, and he's setting himself up well to hit free agency this winter.