Beat40 said:txags92 said:Beat40 said:txags92 said:agproducer said:Farmer1906 said:TarponChaser said:Farmer1906 said:TarponChaser said:
I don't know what we could get but even if we have to eat a chunk of his salary, I think we need to try to trade Walker before Paredes. Try to get prospects and OF guys and put Paredes at first.
Based on reports, there is little to no interest in Walker. Add in his partial no-team trade clause and it's clear where he's still on the team.
If we can't find someone to take Walker and don't/can't trade Correa & Altuve, then it leaves Paredes as the odd man out, unless you bench one of Walker, Correa, or Altuve.
It comes down to needing an injury or being okay with Walker and his $40 M dollars owed being a part-time player.
OR you gotta trade Paredes since he has value and the team has other needs (OF help).
That sucks.
I think Paredes has all-star potential at 1st. Walker seems to have just gotten old and lost bat speed.
His slowed down bat speed (0.9 lower) is still fairly elite. He was sandwiched between Wilyer Abreu and Bryce Harper. He's still 150+ spots and about 5 MPH ahead of Paredes.
I think Walker could bounce back. I'm still of the thought that being with a new team last year, he rushed back from injury. I think the true CW is what we got in the second half of last year. He started turning it around a bit in June.
Also -- stats show he may have just been trying too hard. His First pitch swing % went up almost 13% YoY. His swing % and out of the zome swing % were also up. Trying to live up to the big contract?
I am more concerned about his home splits. His first half was ok, but his 2nd half was atrocious once teams learned he couldn't catch up to a fastball anymore.
Home March-June 2025: .240/.312/.416 with .728 OPS, 29.5% K rate, and wRC+ 104
Home July-October 2025: .146/.231/.233 with .464 OPS, 36.8% K rate, and wRC+ 30
So they didn't figure out he couldn't catch up to the fastball when he was away?
He has the same issue home or away, yet his OPS was 139pts higher in the second half (.799). For the year his away OPS was 171 pts higher.
So how are you explaining it?
Here's a question for you that I would like a sincere answer: His second half OPS was .799. If he could have an OPS of .800 the entire year, but keep similar home/away splits, do you take it?
Honestly, I think we should have made a bigger effort to trade him to one of the teams whose stadium he hit lights out in, but yeah it is a no brainer if he has an .800 OPS overall, I want that on the field. But if it is 1.000 on the road and .600 at home, he is not going to be an every day player for me in home games if we have Paredes sitting on the bench collecting dust. Keep in mind that we are not talking small sample sizes...he hit right around .200 for the season at home. 82 games is not cherrypicking.
When should we have made the effort to trade him? During the season or after? How were we going to do that when it's clear those teams don't want him?
I haven't said you're cherry picking. However, 82 games compared to his previous 6 or 7 years is a small sample.
My point is it's pretty darn unexplainable why that happened last year. Sometimes the answer is "it's just baseball."
We're just coming from two different sides. You take it as you're not playing him at home. I'm taking it as he's earned the right have some time to start his year at home because of what he did on the road. I've gotta know which player he is now. Is he the 1st half hitter or the 2nd half hitter? I can't answer that question.
Which do you think he is?
After the season, obviously. We were not swimming with spare anything during the season and he was one of the few that stayed marginally healthy. I am not saying we bench him at home to start the season. Since we couldn't trade him in the offseason, we have to find out what he is and isn't capable of. Maybe he just doesn't see the ball well at Daikin. Maybe he was trying too hard to live up to his contract. Maybe Cintron and Snitker ruined him (j/k). Maybe he was tired from dealing with a newborn. I don't know the cause.
But what I know is that for what he is making, he needs to figure it out. For me he starts the year as a fulltime starter, but I am not giving him the full season to get it together. But if he makes it a couple of months into the season and his home #s look like 2025, I start limiting his home starts and find other lineups that give us a better chance to win there.
I really honestly do like Christian Walker and want him to put up good numbers like he has previously in his career, but it is hard to shake the stink of the last big 1B FA contract and how that ended and not feel like maybe we are just jinxed bringing in older stars at the position. Most of all, I just really hate starting the season with a bunch of "if" statements as our reason we think the season will be successful. If Walker hits like we know he can and finds a pulse at Daikin...if Yordan stays healthy...if Altuve goes back to playing a competent 2B...if Correa stays healthy...if Cam Smith figures it out against RHP...etc. etc. I grew up watching the Astros in the 70s-90s and maybe my BAS is just too strong, but this feels a lot like when we would fall short every year back then and make very few changes and then go into the next season hoping things would be different.
