I look at Walker and I was expecting to see his GG caliber defense, but his defensive WAR ratings is a negative 1.4. Last year and the year before he was at a .1 and 3 years ago he was at a solid 1. But in all 3 years he won a GG. Was it based on reputation, or was he really elite defensively? His defensive metrics are obvious down from previous GG quality years. Is it because he has to cover more ground when Altuve plays 2nd? Is it the ballpark? Is it how the coaches want to situate him? Or is his defensive rating down because he’s older and doing less because of it? Offensively he has made some solid strides to get back to respectable with his August numbers. He’s not a sure thing at the plate, and I think with his age he is likely to continue to regress as his contract progresses. I saw someone noted Walker has been typically very streaky hitter throughout his career. But with age I’m a thinking, the streaks may not be as kind to him as in the past.
Defensive metrics have traditionally been worthless with regards to 1B and catchers, for whatever reason. He's been quite good there. Lots of other things to b!tch about him for.
About the only thing I like about his game is his defense. I don't care what the metrics say, he passes the eye test defensively, it's the rest of his game that concerns me!
Imagine if we just had "average career" Christian Walker, which is what I think everyone assumed we were getting... .253 .332 .464 .797 114OPS+
imagine if he put up his July - present numbers to start the year, and then got cold and gave us April to July. I’m not sure if this Astros forum could survive that.
Other than his horrid start, Walker is doing what we paid him to do. If it weren't for the injuiries, this would be one of the best teams we have ever had. I'm just hoping we lightning in a bottle and steamroll people in the playoffs.
