Watch Taijuan Walker on the right day, and he already looks like an ace. On June 8, 2016, he struck out 11 Cleveland Indians in eight shutout innings, in what was one of his best starts of the his career. He was completely unhittable, racking up 17 swinging strikes, and silencing one of the best lineups in baseball.
However, he followed that start up with just 3 1/3 innings, during which he was tagged for three earned runs, one of his worst starts of the season. Those two starts are just a snapshot of Walker’s season and career, but I think they exemplify what makes him so simultaneously intriguing and frustrating, and what makes him such an obvious target for a high-variance starting pitching strategy.
Even in that 11-strikeout start, Walker was essentially a one-pitch pitcher. That pitch is, of course, a very impressive pitch, as he racked up a whopping 14 swinging strikes with his four-seam fastball alone. That fastball can be one of the best in baseball because among pitchers who threw their four-seam fastball at least 200 times last season, he was in the 77th percentile in average velocity, and was in the 87th percentile in whiff rate as well.
However, as many a fireballing young pitcher has learned, even a very good fastball isn’t enough to get major-league hitters out, and that has been Walker’s issue. When it’s on, he can get by on his heater alone, but opposing batters posted a .217 ISO against the pitch last season. Walker isn’t a one-pitch pitcher -- he threw his secondary offerings 40.51 percent of the time -- but the fastball is the only pitch he was able to throw with any kind of success last season.
Walker gave up a .197 ISO on his curveball in 2016, and ranked in just the 13th percentile in whiff rate for that pitch (min. 200 pitches), and his splitter/changeup fared even worse. He surrendered a whopping .252 ISO with that offering, while ranking just 16th out of 21 pitchers in whiff rate (min. 100 pitches). The secondary pitches left a lot to be desired last season.
There is reason for hope, however. In 2015, Walker’s splitter sported a 17.9 percent whiff rate, well above his 2016 mark, and his results were much better. The curveball didn’t generate many swinging strikes in 2015, however, so Walker still needs that third pitch to put batters away, especially right-handed ones. That is why what he’s doing this spring is so interesting.
BrooksBaseball.com has two starts tracked for Walker, and he has seemingly ditched his curveball, opting instead for a harder slider with tighter break. He has thrown that pitch 16 times so far, more than half as often as he threw it in all of 2016, and it is garnering rave reviews so far.
“It was short and late,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told MLB.com. “I felt he could go to it at any time, in any count. You could just tell he was in a great rhythm and comfortable with any pitch, not just the slider. Taijuan was really, really good today.”
Walker has made three starts in the spring, racking up 13 strikeouts to just one walk and three hits allowed in nine shutout innings. It’s still just the spring, and it’s still just a few outings, but Walker has always been an intriguing pitcher, so any sign of optimism should be taken very seriously.
If Walker has discovered a breaking ball he can be confident in, one he can throw consistently to put right-handed batters away, he might be ready to take the next step. His curveball has been pretty mediocre throughout his major-league career, so I wouldn’t mind seeing him ditch it, even if it means he has to pitch in a more narrow velocity band, with a mid-to-high-90’s fastball complemented by a splitter and breaking ball that both come in between 87-89 MPH.
The arm talent is here, of that there is no doubt. However, Walker has been the poster boy for a thrower who needs to learn how to pitch over the past few years. If this is him figuring things out, I want to be there when it happens.
With an ADP around Round 20, Walker isn’t even a risk at that price; he’s a bargain.
