Stats Geek: Neil Walker's Remarkably Steady Production

Sometimes a guy can be in his prime, perfect for your current team and not worth signing long-term.

That’s Neil Walker, who seems likely to start the season as the Pirates cleanup hitter.

The Pirates’ oldest regular -- can we still call Walker “The Pittsburgh Kid” when he turns 30 in September? -- has suffered back injuries but nonetheless has been immune to bad years. He will never be called the best second baseman in baseball, but he’s always better than most.

In his last four seasons, Walker has steadily increased his home run production while his on-base average has hovered between .334 and .342. He’s missed some time, but Walker has not had fewer than 512 plate appearances since the 469 in his rookie year of 2010.

He’s also the only second baseman in the National League who has been both good enough and healthy enough to come to the plate at least 502 times (minimum for the batting title) in each of the past four seasons

The best second basemen -- Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia and Ben Zobrist --  are all in the American League, but Walker is in the next tier. Among the 15 second basemen with at least 2,000 plate appearances these past four seasons, Walker ranked seventh in cumulative Wins Above Replacement, according to the baseball-reference.com Play Index.

Last season was his best at the plate, but it wasn’t far from his norm. Walker hit .271/.342/.467/.809 in 2014, setting the Pirates mark for home runs by a second baseman with 23 (and tying Brian Dozier for the most by any second baseman in 2014). In the previous three seasons, Walker averaged .268/.338/.417/.754 with 14 home runs. So the difference was pretty much all the long ball last season.

The best individual seasons for second basemen since 2011 are well beyond anything Walker has done, but there are more guys behind Walker than ahead of him. When the Play Index spat out the the second basemen with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title since 2011, there were 70 such seasons. Walker’s ranked 24th, 28th, 38th and 40th in WAR.

All that said, the Pirates almost surely have made the right call in holding off on long-term contract for Walker. Recent history, from Dan Uggla to Brandon Phillips to Jason Kipnis, has shown us too many sharp dropoffs after second basemen in their late 20s or older sign long-term deals. 

The signing of Jung Ho Kang and the presence of Alen Hanson, 22, give the Pirates options for 2016 if this is Walker’s last season with his hometown team. He’s not a free agent until 2017, but the club might not wait until his walk year to make a trade. A lot of that depends on how Kang and Hanson play this season.

Hanson crushed a C.C. Sabathia pitch for a home run the other day, but he’ll start and perhaps finish the season with AAA Indianapolis. 

Kang is coming north with the team. He obviously has struggled this spring, just 7 for 39 with 14 strikeouts, but he’s hit in three of his past four games and five of his seven hits have been for extra bases. Kang wouldn’t be the first player to have a bad Florida but do OK in the real games. Given all the cultural adjustments the Korean has had to make, the Pirates are being patient. Manager Clint Hurdle already has credited Kang with toning down his leg kick with two strikes.

We should know better in a few months whether the investment in Kang pays off, but the calculated risk is sound. Meantime, Walker lost his arbitration hearing and so will need to get by on $8 million rather than $9 million this season. Expect him to earn it.