Steve Pearce’s ankle injury is apparently bad enough for him to miss significant time, so the Pirates are putting him on the disabled list and calling Neil Walker up to take his place. It’s obviously not a 1:1 swap since Pearce makes a nice platoon partner for Garrett Jones and Jeff Clement while Walker is a switch hitter that, like many switch hitters, is much better from the left side and is probably better suited to the middle infield given his bat.
Still, the Walker for Pearce swap on this move is interesting because the way the Pirate handle Steve Pearce is exactly how they shouldn’t handle Walker for however long he’s called up. Pearce has, believe it or not, spent parts of four seasons now with the Pirates and each of the four seasons was handled the same; he’s been used sparingly as a platoon player or pinch hitter, spent long stretches of time on the bench no matter how hot he’s been. He’s been treated, for lack of a better term, like a known commodity and that’s more or less what he is. He’s got a great glove at a non-premium position and he kills left-handed pitching (career big league OPS: .929) while struggling with right-handed pitching (career big league OPS: .606). If the Pirates wanted to give him a longer audition at first base while Jeff Clement went down to the minors to work on his swing that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but at 27 I’m not sure Pearce is ever going to develop into more than he is now (which, don’t get me wrong, is a useful player, just not an everyday player).
Walker, though, is only 24 with a relative handful of big league bats to his name and there’s just no reason to call him up right now if he’s going to sit on the bench to watch Akinori Iwamura and Bobby Crosby play. I don’t really expect him to turn into a Major League regular, but I do think he deserves a chance to establish what sort of player he’s going to be on the field by playing regularly, especially given the Pirates’ other options right now. As I mentioned in the comments of my “call up Neil Walker” post, I think there’s a legitimate chance that Pedro Alvarez won’t be here until later on in the summer, so now is the perfect time to play Walker without having to choose between him and Andy LaRoche. He’s here. Play him. Worry about what to do with Iwamura or Crosby later.
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