Christian Walker road/home splits this year. G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB HBP SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG Road 75 307 39 79 13 0 15 48 18 4 80 1 0 .257 .307 .446 Home 72 252 28 51 10 1 8 34 22 7 92 1 1 .202 .281 .345 Why would he hit so much better on the road? What explains the team, overall, hitting so much worst at home?
Walker has been absolutely terrible in September. He was quite great for the 50ish games before that. I wish he, and others, would get their s!!t together at the same time.
Hot streak or not, he’s had an overall disastrous season. A hot streak the rest of the way including the playoffs is the only path to redemption for him.
There are a few on here who have defended him most of the season. Also, when did anyone say that he didn’t have a little hot streak? You can say things and I can’t?
So is this deal maybe gonna work out ok? Crazy that it is even a thought after last year, even recognizing walkers stronger second half.
We’ll see. He was about $10M underwater last year and if he just meets his projections this year he will be worth almost exactly his salary. Obviously if he keeps hitting like he has so far this season his contract will be a steal since he would be a top 5 MVP candidate putting up something like $70M worth of value this year alone. An All-Star appearance would go a long way to justifying his contract even if he doesn’t necessarily put up total value to match.
I hoped that walker would meet expectations the first two years and be underwater the last year. Still hoping the total value works out, even if not in that order.
I'm not sure why it's a crazy idea. Young players have down seasons (or half-seasons) all the time and no one thinks its a big deal. If an older player does it, people just assume it's permanent. But older players can just randomly suck too. In Walker's case, he had a new team, new spring routine, a spring injury causing him to miss most of his spring training, etc. It's why the idea of trying to trade him primarily to clear up salary was so silly. Yes, you might end up with Abreu, but he was a pretty extreme case to go downhill as fast as he did. Fans would essentially be selling low and buying high all the time (because no fan wants to sign a free agent coming off a sucky season either) and no team can compete that way. Because they have so many "fair-value" type contracts and few underpaid stars, the Astros have to rely on luck to compete - and that means counting on at least some of their bad years to rebound over time.
Maybe. If he keeps it up. He’s been worth about $7M so far this season. If he maintains that pace, he will be an MVP candidate and worth the entirety of his contract in this season alone. He only projects for another ~$15M worth of value, so if he meets his projections then he will have a few million in surplus value this season; he was about $10M underwater last season so really he’d need an all-star caliber full season to make that up. But obviously the performance of Walker and Smith in the early going have been absolutley huge. It’s a shame they’re being overshadowed by the pitching woes.
