Astros Get Early Christian-mas Present

The Astros’ facelift continues. One week after buying and selling star outfielder Kyle Tucker to Chicago, Houston has dived into the free agent market and provide you with a alternative: first baseman Christian Walker, now the beneficiary of a brand new three-year, $60 million contract.

Walker didn’t set up himself as a significant league starter till he was nearly 30; he spent the mid-2010s caught behind Chris Davis, Freddie Freeman, Joey Votto, and Paul Goldschmidt, in that order. However since claiming the Diamondbacks’ first base job after Goldschmidt acquired traded, Walker has established himself as one of the constant gamers on the place. Over the previous three seasons, he’s had wRC+ marks of 122, 119, and 119, and posted WAR totals of three.9, 3.9, and three.0. That downturn in 2024 was knowledgeable by an indirect pressure that value Walker the month of August. If he’d performed 162 video games, he would’ve been proper again up round 3.9 WAR once more.

The previous South Carolina star is 33, a bit previous for an enormous free agent signing, particularly a primary baseman, and much more particularly a right-handed first baseman. However he’ll be an incredible asset to the Astros, and sorely missed by the Diamondbacks.

You wish to know why this can be a nice deal for Houston? Come check out this. Take a peek. Take a gander. That is each season of 200 plate appearances or extra by an Astros first baseman since 2015. That’s when the Course of ended and the Astros acquired good. Take into consideration what number of All-Stars have come via Houston prior to now decade. And aside from a pair seasons earlier than Yuli Gurriel’s bat pace evaporated, none of that magic has occurred at first base.

I dunno, a few of these Marwin Gonzalez and Tyler White seasons look OK. Are you positive we’re not simply being spoiled by how good the Astros have been on the different positions?

No.

Houston has many superlative qualities. It’s Area Metropolis, the vitality capital of America, probably the most air conditioned metropolis on the earth. However most of all, it’s the Mecca of crappy first base play. Over the previous three seasons, Astros first basemen are a cumulative two wins beneath alternative degree. That’s not solely worst within the league, that’s the worst quantity at any infield place throughout that point interval.

Not counting DH — the place like a 3rd of the league is underwater; that positional adjustment is a merciless mistress — there are 9 positions the place a crew has dug a full win beneath alternative since 2022.

Aside from the Astros, each different crew on this listing has been canine crap. And the White Sox are on it twice, as a result of they’ve been doubly canine crap. If something, it’s spectacular that the Astros have made the playoffs every of the previous three years — and gained a World Sequence alongside the best way — whereas saddled to this absolute millstone of a place.

With that stated, it’s not just like the Astros weren’t conscious of their deficiencies. Walker’s reported $20 million wage will make him the second-highest-paid participant on the Astros, behind Jose Altuve. It’s an amusing little bit of trivia, then, that even earlier than this signing, the Astros’ second-biggest wage already went to a mid-30s first baseman on a three-year contract: José Abreu.

For these of you who didn’t observe Abreu’s temporary tenure with the Astros, right here’s an illustration within the type of a rocket launch:

And this wasn’t a case of the Astros signing Abreu and never realizing he’d been washed for years. The 2020 MVP was nonetheless actually good in 2022; his 3.8 WAR that season was akin to Walker’s common efficiency over the previous three years.

Instantly my optimism for the Walker signing is barely much less boundless.

Effectively, let’s discuss ourselves into how that is completely different. First, Walker is youthful now than Abreu was then. The 2-time School World Sequence champion will flip 34 in the future after Opening Day subsequent spring, whereas Abreu was 36 when he first suited up for the Astros. In your mid-30s, a distinction of two years in age most likely issues lower than how a lot fiber you eat and the way a lot time you spend stretching your hip flexors, but it surely’s a good knowledge level.

Additionally, Walker’s the higher athlete. He’s not quick — at the very least not anymore. I’m positive you all bear in mind when he gained a School World Sequence recreation along with his legs. Oh, you don’t? Effectively, it might’t harm to look at it once more.

That was enjoyable, however these days in Omaha had been a very long time in the past.

Again to the nearer previous: Walker was the most effective defensive first baseman within the league in 2024, whereas Abreu is a much bigger, bulkier bodily presence, and was DHing 35 instances a yr beginning along with his rookie season. The defensive distinction between the 2 is price a couple of win per season, which isn’t insubstantial. It stays to be seen how that figures into his eventual decline. I’d speculate that Walker will age higher than Abreu did, however that’s certainly solely hypothesis.

What’s difficult about avoiding one other Abreu state of affairs is that there have been yellow flags round him on the time, definitely, however few purple flags. Abreu was at all times extra of a twig hitter and a groundball hitter than Walker. His final two years in Chicago, he did alter his recreation considerably. He began strolling extra, and in 2022 he lower his strikeout price by nearly 1 / 4. On the similar time, he halved his residence run whole from the earlier yr, however he additionally raised his batting common by 43 factors and continued making arduous contact at an elite price.

When he signed with the Astros, I used to be underneath no phantasm that he was nonetheless the man who’d gained the MVP in 2020 by hitting 19 homers in 60 video games. As an alternative, I believed Houston was getting a alternative for Michael Brantley: A high-OBP line drive hitter who’d chip in perhaps 20 residence runs and 30 or 40 doubles. It was solely after arriving in Houston that Abreu’s bat went utterly.

It is a lot of ink spilled a couple of man who’s now not on the Astros, I understand, but it surely’s essential to notice the methods wherein Walker is a very completely different hitter. FanGraphs doesn’t have a sitewide editorial stance on particular person gamers, however lots of us right here like Walker as a participant. For me, that’s largely attributable to the truth that he was among the finest gamers on my favourite faculty baseball crew once they gained back-to-back nationwide championships.

However my coworkers, who had the misfortune of not attending the College of South Carolina, the promoting level for Walker is that he’s a course of nut. That massive, bald noggin of his is a bottomless repository of hitting info, and he’s one of many extra empirically savvy hitters you’ll discover. See this 2023 interview with David Laurila for perception into how Walker thinks. And for perception into the real-world results of Walker’s research, see this 2022 story by Ben Clemens.

In 2024, Walker was twenty fifth out of 129 certified hitters in HardHit%, twenty fourth (in ascending order) in GB/FB ratio, and forty eighth in pull price. He strikes out lots and customarily doesn’t put up an enormous BABIP, however when Walker places the ball in play, he places it the place it’s going to do harm.

Right here’s that argument in visible type. As a lot as I’m having fun with writing concerning the affect of the Crawford Containers on right-handed energy hitters for the third time in eight days — I don’t really feel like I’m going batty within the slightest — right here’s Walker’s spray chart from 2024, laid over the silhouette of Minute Maid Park.

Looks like Walker might do fairly properly there.

Paying $20 million a yr over three seasons for a 34-year-old looks as if a danger. However no contender had a better want at a single place than the Astros did at first base. Walker rated because the second-best free agent first baseman, behind Pete Alonso, and over the subsequent three seasons, I wager the distinction between the 2 can be smaller than you’d assume.

So if this can be a danger, it’s a calculated one. If you’d like a positive factor, you’d higher be ready to pay much more than what the Astros did.