Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Was Walker right last season?

Last season there was a pretty big hoopla when Neil Walker said he thought the new regime was holding down the old one's players. Walker did eventually come up and wasn't all that great. This year though Neil Walker is absolutely killing Triple A, the man blocking him at the ML Level is the woeful Akinori Iwamura.

Even worse than that is the fact that with Andy LaRoche hurt we are starting Delwyn Young at third. His defense was on full display in last nights embarrassment. Not content to ruin third base he played a role in our "breakout" first baseman's injury. I understand that they aren't going to cut Aki. This FO is loyal to a fault. But what about Young? He plays all the positions that Walker can play (except Walker plays them much better).

So why isn't he up? Failure to run out an pop-up with the "infield fly rule" in effect. What does that mean? That Walker didn't run out a ball that was a unequivocal sure out. If the ball had been dropped, dribbled like a soccer ball to the outfield, and traded for the phone number of a girl in the stands (not even a hot one, maybe like a 6), Walker would still have been out.

His maturity has been questioned quite a bit, including by Stark. I don't know what we're missing but save the incidents I have mentioned I can't recall anything else. He was a model player in Spring Training, and has been moved from his natural position at Catcher (because he was going to be blocked by Paulino, hahahaha), to third base, then to outfield, now to second base. The guy has worked extremely hard to become the most versatile player in our minor league system.

He deserves his shot more than anyone else in AAA up to this point, and that includes Pedro Alvarez.

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