"Left Field, Christian Walker"

Joe Reisel's Archives

With current first baseman Chris Davis signed through the next three Congressional election cycles, and AA first baseman Trey Mancini emerging as this year's prospect de l'annee, last season's prospect de l'annee, AAA first baseman Christian Walker, found himself in danger of being squeezed out of a major-league position with the Orioles. When the Orioles traded for Mark Trumbo and signed Pedro Alvarez as a free agent, Walker fell to #5 on the first base/designated hitter depth chart. Toward the end of spring training, the Orioles decided to try Walker in left field, expecting to increase his versatility and hoping that he might be a viable part of their complex left-field solution.

We, and probably the Orioles, know what Walker would likely contribute offensively. Given his consistent performance at AAA Norfolk and the track record of batters moving from Norfolk to Camden Yards, a reasonable performance for Walker would be .260/.330/.430. This .760 OPS value would translate into a 105 OPS+. This is for a full-season performance; if he was primarily used in a platoon role, he might do better than that.

The question is whether Walker can play left field well enough to be something more than an emergency option. At first blush, it would seem unlikely. Before the 2016 season, Walker had not played professionally at any position besides first base. Generally, teams try to play their prospects at the toughest position they believe they can handle. If the Orioles hadn't tried Walker anywhere other than first base, it seems likely that they didn't think he could play anywhere else.

Christian Walker has played exclusively in left field for the Norfolk Tides. That's not literally true; he's played a few games as the designated hitter, but he hasn't played defense at any position other than left field. Through May 9, I've seen and scored ten Tides games. While this isn't many games for statistical evaluation purposes, there is probably some interest in Walker's performance in left field. So, I'll try to answer the question, "How is Christian Walker's left-field defense?"

Based on my observation, Walker has had two major problems. First, he has had problems judging and tracking fly balls. This should be expected; Walker hasn't had much experience judging fly balls and his performance may improve as he gets experience. Second, Walker doesn't have great speed, especially going toward the walls. On the positive side, Walker does catch and hang on to what he is able to get to. And I haven't seen his throwing arm be challenged; it seems to be neither a positive nor a negative.

However, there are plenty of outfielders who don't look good but who nevertheless get the job done; there are other outfielders who look good but who don't get the job done. I've assembled data I have from the ten Norfolk games I've scored. Specifically, I've compared the left field defense for Walker, Xavier Avery (who played left field in two games in which Walker was the DH), and the Tides' opponents' left fielders. Ten games is not much of a sample; there are many factors which pollute the data. However, if the data shows that Walker is much better than he appeared to be, then I could conclude that appearances are misleading and Walker is a viable left fielder.

The tables below should be pretty self-explanatory. The distinction between "Line Drive" and "Fly Ball" is my own subjective judgment, about which I can say that I have scored games for BIS for eight seasons and there has been no complaint about my over- or under-use of either category. These are balls that were first touched or fielded by the left fielder. The "x" in the cell for Ground Ball - Out represents that any ground ball that gets to the outfield is almost always a hit, the occasional 7-4 or 7-5 force out notwithstanding.

Christian Walker (8 games):

	Out	1B	2B
Line Drive	1	8	4
Fly Ball	13	0	4
Ground Ball	X	6	2

Xavier Avery (2 games):

	Out	1B	2B
Line Drive	0	9	1
Fly Ball	5	1	0
Ground Ball	X	4	0

Tides Opponents (10 games):

	Out	1B	2B
Line Drive	3	9	5
Fly Ball	15	2	2
Ground Ball	X	6	1

The data is this limited sample, by itself, does not prove or disprove that Christian Walker is a good or a bad left fielder. The one potentially significant fact is that every fly ball that Walker didn't catch went for a double. That might mean that Walker isn't good at cutting off hard-hit fly balls and they are getting past him, going for doubles rather than singles. I observed that he had trouble going back on fly balls, and that fly balls that fall in go for doubles tends to support that.

It's early and the data is limited. There are plenty of factors which may explain why more doubles were hit when Walker played left field than when others did. I am certainly not at this time declaring the experiment a failure. But I don't believe that Christian Walker is going to part of the Orioles' left-field solution any time soon.