Neil Walker < 500

Neil Walker is a perfect storm. He, perhaps first and foremost, a wonderful story. He was drafted out of high school by his hometown team as a catcher in 2004, but he wasn’t all that well suited to the position and injuries eventually forced him to third base. In 2007, he moved to third base. Later in 2007 the front office that moved him to third base was completely fired and replaced with a new management team that both drafted and traded for third base prospects in their first year on the job. Walker, if you recall, bristled a bit and suggested that he wasn’t being properly treated because he wasn’t acquired by Neal Huntington. He was more or less moved to second base at that point and told that if he wasn’t happy with how he was being treated, that maybe he should play better.

He did. If we go back to 2010 and look at all of the second basemen in baseball that have averaged 500 plate appearances a year since then, we find 14 players. Walker has the eighth-best WAR and has been the sixth-best hitter in that stretch, which is important if you think that the Pirates’ defensive shifts are doing something to mask his generally-poorly-regarded defense. As a hitter in the last five years, he’s virtually indistinguishable from Ian Kinsler. Last year in particular he really broke through, taking the surprising power from his rookie season and combining it with a slightly more mature approach at the plate (he struck out in 15.4% of plate appearances, a career low) to put up a career best .356 wOBA. It was the first year that Walker wasn’t just a good hitter “for a second baseman.” He was a straight-up good hitter in 2014.

There’s one problem: it’s really hard to envision him aging well. He’s 29 now and will be 30 before the season ends. He’s slow, his defense has always been questionable, and he’s had back problems in three of the last four seasons. The general solution amongst Pirate fans has been to put him at first base, but he’s only had one season in his career in which his bat could really support the position. He’s going to make in excess of $8 million this year, more next year in his final year of arbitration, and then that‘s going to be the basis for his free agent years contract.

That’s the perfect storm: Walker is local and popular and good at baseball, but with a lot of uncertainty around the length of his career peak. There are a great many Pirate fans that would love to see Walker extended and would attribute his walking in free agency to the Pirates’ cheapness. Walker is going to make a ton of money from someone based on these last few years, and he’ll certainly deserve it. When I look at Walker, though, I see a player that’s the perfect second baseman for today, but not necessarily for tomorrow.

<500 is an ongoing series previewing 2015 for each key Pirate in fewer than 500 words.

Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images