Adam Brett Walker vs. Miguel Sano

[lightfoot789]

Over the last 2 years - 5 Pre-Season/Spring Training games with the MLB Twins have resulted in:

 

6 for 14 over 5 games with 3 Ks - 2 2B - 4 HR - 5 Runs Scored - and 6 RBI

http://m.mlb.com/min/video/topic/8877600/v59835383/bosmin-walker-hits-a-solo-home-run-to-left-field/?c_id=min

The last game was the final tune up for Pelfrey and May (Intrasquad) 

 

His 6 hits were off of:

Matt Barnes (Boston)

Tanaka (Yankees)

Layne (Boston)

Valdez (Boston)

Pelfrey (Twins)

May (Twins)

 

As pitchers make adjustments to scouting reports on Walker - I have confidence that Brunansky will help Walker make adjustments to those same pitchers.  Enough to be "Walker like" successful.

He doesn't appear to be afraid of the moment, that's for sure.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I'd probably want to challenge him this year too.  Probably a call-up to AAA now, and if he acquits himself well, a September call-up to MLB.  Get a little more info on him before you have to make the 40-man roster decision this winter.

 

It would be very interesting if someone made him a Rule 5 pick, though!

 

He may be a flawed prospect, but I highly doubt he's left off the 40 man this offseason when he's eligible.  That would be rather silly of the Twins.  The kid has star potential, that I think we agree on.  Even if his odds of making it are low, I think he gets a 40 man spot and an eventual call up at this point. 

[drjim]

 

He may be a flawed prospect, but I highly doubt he's left off the 40 man this offseason when he's eligible.  That would be rather silly of the Twins.  The kid has star potential, that I think we agree on.  Even if his odds of making it are low, I think he gets a 40 man spot and an eventual call up at this point. 

 

I'm pretty sure there is a large group here that does not think this.

[drivlikejehu]

 

I'm pretty sure there is a large group here that does not think this.

 

Correct. I have him outside the top 30 Twins prospects. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

The last game was the final tune up for Pelfrey and May (Intrasquad) 

You're quoting stats from intrasquad games now?

 

Look, Walker is an interesting player, who is having a VERY interesting season.  I'd guess most folks here wouldn't mind his promotion to AAA right now, and if not for a possible 40-man roster crunch, a potential September promotion to MLB too.

 

Don't know what more you want, or what you want to convince folks of.

[by jiminy]

Someone with a 7% BB rate adn a 37% K rate in the low minors is going to get eaten alive by major league pitchers. He may be leading the league in home runs but it's against pitchers who aren't consistently good. They give him pitches to hit. Typically as you move up the easy pitches to hit stop coming, and the K rate goes up, not down. Unless he makes a concerted effort to improve his plate discipline he is doomed.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I'm pretty sure there is a large group here that does not think this.

 

I should have worded this different.  His ceiling is very high.  That's what I mean by star potential.   His bust likeliness is pretty high too. 

[jokin]

 

Walker has usable minor league power. That's not relevant - only usable MLB power matters.

 

Kingman had better MLB plate discipline than Walker has AA discipline. There is no comparison. Walker just cannot make enough contact or work the count enough to hit in the Majors. He isn't only bad compared to guys that went on to succeed - his AA numbers are historically bad, worse than almost everyone who ever played full time in AA going back decades.

 

To put it another way - hundreds of players failed due to their lack of plate discipline. Walker is much worse in that area than 99% of those failures. 

 

All entirely valid. It's way too soon for those who are climbing on the bandwagon of suddenly "usable major league power."  

 

But what the biggest outlier of all for Walker is, particularly in the face of this accelerated K percentage (June vs. April/May this year, plus 2015 versus all previous seasons), is his huge spike in his HR frequency per AB.  And this has come after promotion to the level that most regard as the toughest jump, and the level where all the best pitching prospects usually come from, and where the big separation starts from between prospects and suspects.

 

 

Walker's current 2015 AB/HR number is 11.7 and in June it's a Barry Bonds-like, 9.54.  In checking back in recent Southern League home run leaders, Paul Goldschmitt had 30 HR in 2011, with a AB/HR of 12.2... but his plate discipline was outstanding.  Neftali Soto also had 30 HR that year in the same league, and had a AB/HR of 12.63, but his plate discipline profile was much more similar ( but still far better- K% 23.2%  BB% 6%)  to Walker's.  And look at how Soto's MLB career has fizzled.

 

 

Speaking of what is, and isn't translatable at the major league level to what Walker's doing this year:

 

Giancarlo Stanton is the closest comp I could find for having a similar season at the major league level in 2015.  His AB/HR rate is 10.3 (this is his outlier number thus far in his career, one other season at 12.1).  He has a 30% K-rate in 2015, but with a 10.7% BB-rate.  His ISO is .341, with a slash of .265/.343/.606.
(At age 19 in his first tour of AA, Stanton had a 29%/9% K%/BB% ratio, with a slash of .231/.311/.455.  He repeated AA at age 20 with a huge across-the-board set of improvements- his AB/HR number went from 18.7 at age 19 to 9.1 at age 20 in the same league-  which ultimately led to his promotion to the majors. Is Walker having a similar, yet more of a "late-bloomer"-type spike in power output?) .

 

The current career AB/HR active MLB player leaders (3000 PAs) are:

Howard, A-Rod, Pujols, Davis, Ortiz, Teixeira, Bautista, Fielder, Mark Reynolds, Napoli... whose AB/HR numbers range from ~15-17.5. 

 

Again, this is not to say that Walker will ever come anywhere close to duplicating any of this type of production at a higher level, but just to point out how unusual his season has been thus far, relative to his 37.2% K-rate.  Of the above top 10 HR frequency active players, the closest comps to Walker, and the All-Or-None/TTO nature of his offensive production, and their career K-rates:

 

1) Mark Reynolds  31.9%
2) Chris Davis       31.1%
3) Ryan Howard    28.1%

 

Conclusions?  Walker's still a 100-1 shot, but hard to ignore what he's doing in the moment, bears watching, just to see how long he can continue to defy the odds against him.

[drivlikejehu]

 

1) Mark Reynolds  31.9%

2) Chris Davis       31.1%
3) Ryan Howard    28.1%

 

Conclusions?  Walker's still a 100-1 shot, but hard to ignore what he's doing in the moment, bears watching, just to see how long he can continue to defy the odds against him.

 

That's what they did in the Majors. Not the minors. That is a huge, critical difference. Most high-k% sluggers struck out much less in the minors. Even in AA, the majority of pitchers are nowhere near MLB-caliber in terms of stuff or command... they make a lot of mistakes, often with pitches that are mediocre to begin with.

 

It's not just that no player with Walker's plate discipline in AA has ever succeeded in the Majors. That kind of goes without saying, because Walker's AA discipline is among the worst at that level since statistics have been recorded. It's that no realistic amount of improvement would be enough to get his plate discipline to the point where success is possible.

[drjim]

 

Conclusions?  Walker's still a 100-1 shot, but hard to ignore what he's doing in the moment, bears watching, just to see how long he can continue to defy the odds against him.

 

All of this is about right. Outside of Twins top 30 seems excessive, but also putting him in the same breath as Sano is equally excessive. Let him do a level a year, keep watching and maybe he'll provide a little value to the big league club. But we should also stop pretending like he is some unique talent. There are several players similar to him the outlook does not look good.

[drjim]

 

That's what they did in the Majors. Not the minors. That is a huge, critical difference. Most high-k% sluggers struck out much less in the minors. Even in AA, the majority of pitchers are nowhere near MLB-caliber in terms of stuff or command... they make a lot of mistakes, often with pitches that are mediocre to begin with.

 

It's not just that no player with Walker's plate discipline in AA has ever succeeded in the Majors. That kind of goes without saying, because Walker's AA discipline is among the worst at that level since statistics have been recorded. It's that no realistic amount of improvement would be enough to get his plate discipline to the point where success is possible.

 

The only optimistic scenario I can think of for him is he can find a way to cut the ks just enough to provide some value as a lefty masher. But that type of player doesn't really roster anymore in the majors and his margin is already razor thin at best.