In a major move this off-season, the Mets swapped Jon Niese for Neil Walker and this move makes a lot of sense. The Mets needed an upgrade at second base due to losing Murphy and not getting Zobrist. A long term deal didn’t make sense as the Mets are looking at Herrera down the road and Walker, with one year left, looks like their guy. He has more pop than Murphy but doesn’t get on base nearly as often. On the other side, he provides more consistent defense on the field. Let’s take a look at what the computers think about our new second basemen:
| Player: | Neil Walker | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Projection Source: | AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| MLB.com | 530 | 68 | 18 | 68 | 3 | 0.27 | 0.328 | 0.436 | 0.764 |
| Steamer | 507 | 67 | 18 | 63 | 3 | 0.256 | 0.328 | 0.422 | 0.75 |
| ESPN | 553 | 72 | 23 | 78 | 3 | 0.275 | 0.34 | 0.474 | 0.814 |
| ZiPS | 562 | 68 | 19 | 71 | 3 | 0.261 | 0.33 | 0.44 | 0.77 |
| PECOTA (BP) | 595 | 65 | 18 | 72 | 3 | 0.25 | 0.319 | 0.412 | 0.731 |
| Sporting News | 504 | 67 | 17 | 70 | 2 | 0.266 | 0.329 | 0.433 | 0.762 |
| Baseball America | 554 | 72 | 18 | 70 | 4 | 0.264 | 0.332 | 0.424 | 0.756 |
| Rotowire | 522 | 66 | 16 | 68 | 3 | 0.264 | 0.332 | 0.427 | 0.759 |
| MLB Yearbook | 459 | 68 | 15 | 56 | 2 | 0.266 | 0.334 | 0.429 | 0.763 |
| AVERAGE: | 531.7777778 | 68.11111111 | 18 | 68.44444444 | 2.888888889 | 0.263555556 | 0.330222222 | 0.433 | 0.763222222 |
Not really surprising here, the computers see an uptick in power from last year (where he hit 16 homers), and see a down tick in batting average. These numbers up the middle though are average or better than average, so I’ll be happy with them, if it comes with consistent defense.
Notes:
Both ZiPS and PECOTA (BP) do not provide AB’s, so those are PA’s instead.
MLB.com and Steamer data can be found here.
ZiPS data can be found here.
ESPN data can be found here.
Baseball America data is from the 2016 Preview Fantasy Guide
Sporting News data is from the 2016 publication of Sporting News Fantasy Baseball
Rotowire data is from the Fantasy Baseball Guide 2016 published by Rotowire
MLB Yearbook data is from the 2016 Major League Baseball Yearbook
PECOTA (BP) data is from the Baseball Prospectus 2016 Annual
