With the drafting of Alvarez today where does that leave Neil Walker in the long term picture? Will he just be a short term stopgap at 3B, will he be a lifer in AAA, or will the Pirates move him back to Catcher?
Personally I'd like to see him moved back to catcher, but I don't think the Pirates will do that. They'll probably use him as a short term solution until Alvarez is ready for the show and then use Walker as a bench player.
Walker is still very much a a key component to the future of this team. I see several different scenarios...
1) Move Walker across the diamond to 1B, Alvarez plays 3B, LaRoche is gone.
2) Vice versa of #1
3) Alvarez at 3B, Walker to a corner OF, Steve Pearce moves back to 1B, LaRoche gone.
4) Walker back to catcher, but I highly doubt it. For one, he's probably too far removed from a postion he wasn't very good at defensively in the first place to successfully transition back. And two, Doumit appears the long term answer behind the plate. It would be much easier to teach someone the 1B position and ship LaRoche out.
Kovacevic wrote in today's Pirates Q&A about this.
Walker came up an awful lot again, and this is understandable given his profile in the organization, not to mention our community. Huntington said yesterday when asked about this: "We're very excited about Neil, but we always are going to be looking to add talent." Which is another way of saying that positional needs are irrelevant in this setting.
At any rate, Alvarez and Walker are only one year apart in age, 21 and 22, so it seems likely that they could collide at some point. But, as noted above, Alvarez probably will start in Class A, then a decision will be made next year. Under no circumstance would they be on the same minor league level unless one switched positions. That is something no intelligent team does when managing its top prospects.
At the major league level, that, from the sound of it, is a brige the Pirates will cross when they get to it. Or at least get clsoe to it. Right now, there are more questions than answers about this whole scenario, including signing Alvarez and whether or not Walker will emerge as a legitimate major league talent. Let the numbers confirm that this has not happened yet.
pgh: Walker is going through his first sub-par season at the plate, but even though he is hitting only .224, he has contributed 12 doubles, 4 triples, and 6 HR's for 25 RBI's which is tied for second on the Indy team. At 3B he has committed 8 errors or 2 less than what has been committed at 3B by the 3 people who have played 3B so far for the Pirates.
History - he hit .301 at Lo A with 33 doubles, 2 triples, and 12 HR's; He missed half the next season but came back at Hi A with a .284 with 22 doubles, 1 triple and 3 HR's in only 264 AB's. Last year at AA he hit .288 with 30 doubles, 3 triples, and 13 HR's in 430 AB's. The kid's a ballplayer and as soon as the moves begin, with Nady or Bay or LaRoche or whomever, McC has to be in CF and Walker needs to be at 3B. We will work the rest out from that point, but we have to look at the whole body of work and that tells me this kid is a hitter who hit a slide and is working his way back. Once we find out what he can do as a switchhitter in the lineup, it will tell us a lot more about where we plan to use Alvarez.
