Adam Brett Walker II - My Case

[amjgt]

I posted about this in the Sano thread, but it's bound to get lost in there. Plus, I did some "shoot from the hip" analysis of what his numbers would be with less strikeouts. It was late. I was on my phone and it was tough to crunch the numbers. But I wanted to circle back this morning and get the real numbers.

 

Adam Brett Walker's actual stats:

220 PA

15 BB

54 H

14 2B

16 HR

80 K (36%)

263 AVG (303 BABIP)

317 OBP

585 SLG

902 OPS

 

The premise of my post last night was, those number are pretty good, even with all of those strikeouts. People wanted to call up Sano and have him learn RF on the fly. Why would we call up Sano to play RF when we have a player on Sano's team who actually plays RF and is out performing Sano.

 

People have just gotten so hung up with his strikeouts, which, don't get me wrong, are happening too often.

 

In the post last night I said something like "If he struck out half as much, he'd have a 330 batting average and would be a top 10 prospect in baseball" Turns out I was actually selling him short.

 

Here are ABW's stats in plate appearances that he doesn't strike out:

432 BA

552 OBP

960 SLG

1512 OPS

Wouldn't that be nice

 

 

So, back to my premise last night.

We are going to waive our magic wand and turn half of ABW's strikeouts into non-strikeout at bats.

 

Half as many strikeouts (40):

355 BA

412 OBP

789 SLG

1201 OPS

21 HR

If he was doing that at AA, he's be in the Correa, Buxton, Seager group. Maybe even on top of that list.

 

 

How about removing 1/4 of his strikeouts (20 K's removed):

309 BA
363 OBP
685 SLG
1048 OPS

18 HR

Easily top 10 prospect, right? Probably in that 5-8 range.

 

 

How about just removing 10 strikeouts:

286 BA

338 OBP

636 SLG

974 OPS

This is a top 20 prospect, right?

 

I guess my question is this.... how can ten measly strikeouts in a little over 1/3 of a season really affect someone's prospect status and fans' opinion of him that much? 

 

To be fair, let's take things the other direction. Let's say that ABW's move to the majors caused him to now strike out in HALF of his at bats, but the rest of his non-strikeout AB translated. That's pretty extreme, and I'm not sure any of us would predict that, but he're what his numbers would be:

 

Striking out in half his at bats:

216 BA

276 OBP

480 SLG

756 OPS

 

That OPS would put him just ahead of Plouffe and just behind Hunter, and be 3rd on the team.

 

Why force a square peg (Sano) into a round hole (RF), when we have a round peg who's just the masher Sano is.

[amjgt]

I forgot one little thing worth noting....

 

I was doing this manually and ignored HBP and Sacrifices. It's small sample stuff and would have made it much more complicated.

[drjim]

Probably is when he goes to the majors he'll likely strike out more, perhaps significantly. So take his actual stats and deflate them accordingly. So yes, striekouts are that big of a problem. He'll get a shot at some point, probably middle of next year. He does have a unique skill set, could potentially mash LHs and does provide some value on defense.

 

But to argue Walker over Sano based solely on stats probably misses the point.

[amjgt]

His numbers against righties have been a decent amount better in 3 of his 4 years (2012, 2014, 2015, and pretty similar in the other year (2013)

[amjgt]

 

 

 

But to argue Walker over Sano based solely on stats probably misses the point.

 

I'm not arguing for ABW to play 3B (obviously), or even necessarily DH.

 

But, if people are trying to find the Twins a capable RF with some offensive upside, I'd argue we have one playing RF in Chattanooga.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Problem with walker is not the extra 10ks, it's the trend he's set the last 3 years.  he needs to lay off pitches he cannot hit (or figure out how to hit certain pitches in the zone, not quite sure which). 

[jimbo92107]

I find your analysis compelling, but then, I just ate some semi-rotten salad from my refrigerator.

 

Walker looks pretty solid to me. His batting stance and swing were somewhat similar to Chili Davis, and his power looks similar, too. Unlike Davis tho, Walker hasn't developed a top-notch eye for checking his swing on junk pitches. If brought up now, doubtless he will do some flailing, but even clever pitchers will sometimes leave a curve ball hanging or a fastball too much in the middle. Unlike the Twins bench at the  moment, Walker has more than enough power to deposit such mistakes into the second deck. I can see him becoming the fourth outfielder and pinch hitter, and sometimes a DH. It's not so much whether Walker's got a lot higher upside but that Sano is nowhere near ready to play RF, or third base. Walker is ready for RF right now.

[drivlikejehu]

Unfortunately, your statistical musings miss the point. Just to start with, Walker's strikeouts are correlated with his home runs - he swings really hard and usually misses, but when he hits, it's gone. He can't just change his approach dramatically to reduce strikeouts but keep all the home runs.

 

But more importantly, he has a pitch recognition problem. Guys like Joey Gallo strike out a ton but also walk a lot, because they work counts and look for pitches to drive. Getting deep into counts and taking big swings does result in strikeouts, but it also leads to walks and power - or, OBP and SLG, which is what matters.

 

Walker doesn't work counts so much as he just swings and misses a lot. His walk rate is horrible for a player with his power. Big league pitchers will exploit his weaknesses far more than his AA opponents. I don't think he could hit .200 in the Majors at this point.

 

He has a dedicated little fan club on the site for some reason, but the guy is a mediocre prospect. He was a lotto ticket when the Twins drafted him and he still is, but its year 3 and his strikeout rate is 36% and walk rate under 7%. Kohl Stewart is like a sure thing by comparison.

[Monkeypaws]

Well, the fact that he keeps kicking ass with the power at every new level means he is improving.

 

One can only hope that he continues the same rate of improvement over the last two levels. 

 

The fact that he seems to be handling AA pretty well is very encouraging to me.

[clutterheart]

If strike outs werejust the problem it wouldn't be terrible, but for whatever reason he doesn't walk much either.  So his OB% isn't pretty and as far as I know, no productive MLB level player has had such consistently horrid OBP, SO and BB numbers in the minors.

 

If he makes it to the Twins I could see a season of him striking out 45% of the time, and still hit 30 HR with a bunch of xBase hits.  

 

Is that productive? I don't know

[amjgt]

 

Unfortunately, your statistical musings miss the point. Just to start with, Walker's strikeouts are correlated with his home runs - he swings really hard and usually misses, but when he hits, it's gone. He can't just change his approach dramatically to reduce strikeouts but keep all the home runs.

 

 

 

I agree it's not perfect. I was hoping for some better splits data in terms of what he does in certain counts. They've got data for ahead vs behind in counts, which doesn't really give me what I'm looking for (since 3 and 2 is "ahead" in the count)

 

I don't think you want to take this data to Walker and be like "see, just take the ball the other way, get some slap singles, and you're a major league all star." You don't want to really reign him in, except for maybe when he gets to 2 strikes.

 

At the end of the day he's a run producing machine. The saberheads will tell me that's a teammate dependent measurement, which I agree with to a point, but there must be some "IT" that he has since he leads every league he plays in in RBI. He's playing with an all star team right now, but that hasn't really been the case the last 3 years.

 

He was moved up in the lineup recently from 7th to 4th/5th. It will be interesting to see how that changes his approach and numbers, now that he has the protection of the 5th/6th hitters behind him. He certainly has been mashing since the move up, but we are still definitely in "small sample size" territory at this point.

[Willihammer]

Walker's one of those prospects where I would look at constructing a hard red light-green light matrix for. I know nobody likes that idea because every at-bat is special and a system like that wouldn't take the game situation into account but clearly he has the talent but is his own worst enemy when it comes to aggressiveness at the plate.

[jokin]

If strike outs werejust the problem it wouldn't be terrible, but for whatever reason he doesn't walk much either.  So his OB% isn't pretty and as far as I know, no productive MLB level player has had such consistently horrid OBP, SO and BB numbers in the minors.

 

If he makes it to the Twins I could see a season of him striking out 45% of the time, and still hit 30 HR with a bunch of xBase hits.  

 

Is that productive? I don't know

You actually answered your own question given the data (which I find completely plausible). Looking back for the last 7 seasons, there are usually only a couple qualified hitters who top out with a low-to-mid 30s in K%. Think Davis, Carter, Dunn, Reynolds- plus most of these guys walk at a much higher rate- every one of them with double digit BB%s. If Walker were to K in the 45% range (likely), he'd never make it through a season, hence his prospect status is so sketchy.

[spinowner]

I think ABWII is certainly a prospect worth watching, but to say he would be great if he didn't strike out so much would have gotten this response from my late grandfather: "Yeah, and if my aunt had ****s she'd'a' been my uncle!"

(Waiting to see if the mods let this one stand.)

[nicksaviking]

I want Walker to work out, it would be fantastic if he did.

 

But as it sits, the only time he'd see a pitch over the plate at the MLB level is when the pitcher misses badly.  He's just not willing to take a pitch; the other numbers are moot as long as that's the case. 

 

It always seems strange to me, that some guys just cannot help themselves and swing at everything even when their career is on the line and at least somewhat dependant on having a modicum of patience.  If the team has told Walker that he needs to work on not chasing pitches, and you'd have to assume they have, yet he continually shows no improvement, that tells me he has poor impulse control.  If so, he should get checked for ADHD, perhaps proper medication could even him out.

 

Not that I in anyway am advocating for unnecessary medication.

 

And not that I'm a doctor.

[nytwinsfan]

 

I posted about this in the Sano thread, but it's bound to get lost in there. Plus, I did some "shoot from the hip" analysis of what his numbers would be with less strikeouts. It was late. I was on my phone and it was tough to crunch the numbers. But I wanted to circle back this morning and get the real numbers.

 

Adam Brett Walker's actual stats:

220 PA

15 BB

54 H

14 2B

16 HR

80 K (36%)

263 AVG (303 BABIP)

317 OBP

585 SLG

902 OPS

 

Sorry, but that BABIP of .303 is NOT correct:  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa621791&position=OF

 

It is .342.  .303 was 2014. I think that is important to note. The highest he has ever been before in a season is .310. While of course it is possible he improved his contact ability and that could be responsible for the increased BABIP, it is also pretty likely that his numbers are going to regress some.

[jokin]

I want Walker to work out, it would be fantastic if he did.

 

 

 

And not that I'm a doctor.

You don't even play one on TV?

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

It always seems strange to me, that some guys just cannot help themselves and swing at everything even when their career is on the line and at least somewhat dependant on having a modicum of patience.  If the team has told Walker that he needs to work on not chasing pitches, and you'd have to assume they have, yet he continually shows no improvement, that tells me he has poor impulse control.  If so, he should get checked for ADHD, perhaps proper medication could even him out.

Could be that's the only way he can have success, though.  For all we know, he's tried a different approach and it failed very quickly and spectacularly and he went back to what works, pending a better plan and to maintain his present career course.

[amjgt]

 

Sorry, but that BABIP of .303 is NOT correct:  http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa621791&position=OF

 

It is .342.  .303 was 2014. I think that is important to note. The highest he has ever been before in a season is .310. While of course it is possible he improved his contact ability and that could be responsible for the increased BABIP, it is also pretty likely that his numbers are going to regress some.

 

The 2014 thing was a coincidence... I subtracted off his HR from his hits, but forgot to from his AB.

[amjgt]

342 is higher than average, but I'm not sure a regression to the mean will affect his numbers all that much since he doesn't, you know, put that many balls in play.

 

Very close to half of his AB end up with the ball not in play.

[markos]

When I think about Walker's future, I feel like his future success depends on why he is striking out so much. And there are two factors: over-aggressiveness on bad pitches and holes in his swing. Basically, is he swinging and missing on balls out of the zone, or is he swinging and missing on pitches in the zone. I feel like the former can be (potentially) improved with more experience. The latter usually requires swing changes that may change the profile of the hitter.

 

In Walker's case I wouldn't be surprised if it was some of both, but it is hard to figure out from the stat-line. Even prospect analysts don't always pick up on it. For example, Oswaldo Arcia didn't have glaring strikeout issues in the minors - though a few analysts mentioned that he was perhaps too aggressive. But I don't recall a single prospect writer pointing out that Arcia had a massive hole in his swing that would be exploited by major league pitchers and require significant mechanical adjustments. 

 

 

[lightfoot789]

 

Unfortunately, your statistical musings miss the point. Just to start with, Walker's strikeouts are correlated with his home runs - he swings really hard and usually misses, but when he hits, it's gone. He can't just change his approach dramatically to reduce strikeouts but keep all the home runs.  YOU CAN WHEN YOUR AVERAGE HR IS OVER 400+ FEET.

 

Walker doesn't work counts so much as he just swings and misses a lot.   NOT TRUE - HE JUST DOESN'T WALK ENOUGH.  TONS OF FULL COUNTS

 

 

Would you still think exploited by looking at these stats too?  If you didn't know it was Walker?  Don't have to be a fan to recognize these stats ain't all bad.  Matter of fact - they are pretty damn good (minus the Ks).

 

2015 Minor League Stats in AA
*#1 HR hitter in minor league baseball
*#3 RBI hitter in minor league baseball
*.322 ISO
*.902 OPS
*.152 wRC+
*.405 OBA
*.309 BA away games
*.344 BA in June
*.545 BA with runner on 2nd base & 1.747 OPS
*.429 BA with runner on 3rd base & 1.357 OPS
*.339 BA with runners in scoring position & 1.122 OPS

 

And despite getting on base 28 times less than the best player in the league this year (Kyle Schwarber/Cubs) because of an insane BB Rate 17%;  a .315 BA; and a  .440 OBP - Walker is still 3rd in AA with 41 Runs Scored.  The question you should ask is what type of stats would he have if he moved slightly closer to what you think he should be.   25 HR and 75 RBI at the break?

[lightfoot789]

 

342 is higher than average, but I'm not sure a regression to the mean will affect his numbers all that much since he doesn't, you know, put that many balls in play.

 

Very close to half of his AB end up with the ball not in play.

 

32 XBH out of 55 hits.  So when the ball does go into play what happens?  

 

And to those who think Walker strikes out on 3 pitches regularly, you have never seen him play.  VERY VERY rarely does that happen.  At least 5 pitches most ABs with some foul balls.  He may go 0-2 to start an AB, but generally works the count to 2-2 or 3-2.   If you don't believe me, listen to a game more often or go to the Gameday charts.  He works counts well, but ends up chasing in the end.  Same problem/ result, but different learning path towards improvement IMO.