Taijuan Walker Is Running Away With The Last Rotation Spot
You know the drill by now: the Seattle Mariners have 22 spots on their roster locked down, with open competitions being held for the last three. One of those position battles, the one for the shortstop job, just ended when Chris Taylor fractured his wrist, making Brad Miller the starter. The lefty reliever battle rages on. There’s supposedly one more competition going on, but by the look of things, it may be just about wrapped up.
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Nobody’s saying that Taijuan Walker is officially the fifth starter. Ask Lloyd McClendon and he’ll probably tell you that Walker’s competing with Roenis Elias and Erasmo Ramirez for that spot. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Walker’s the easy favorite right now.
Do you like spring training stats? Me neither, but since we have them we might as well talk about them for five-ish seconds. Elias has two walks, three strikeouts, and a homer allowed in 7.2 spring innings. Ramirez has no walks, two strikeouts, and a homer allowed in five spring innings. Walker has eight strikeouts, one walk, and no homers allowed in eight spring innings.
That should make it pretty clear what’s happened thus far – Walker’s been blowing everyone away, while Elias and Ramirez haven’t been getting the ball past anyone. Just by looking at results – which we’re not supposed to even do – it becomes clear that Walker has been out-pitching his competition. But there’s more to it than just that.
Before Walker started the Mariners’ spring opener, Ryan Divish noted that the young righty had been toying around with a slider. The addition of the pitch was to come at the expense of his cut fastball, a pitch that Walker had visibly struggled to command in 2014. So far this spring it’s been a remarkable weapon, as Walker’s apparently got his new pitch down pat.
Walker with an effective slider is almost certainly a better pitcher than Walker with a broken-looking cutter. The similarity of the two pitches has made it easy for Walker to master his new offering, and the fact that it moves more is just delightful. Walker’s made a legitimate improvement and he’s got the results to match, even if they are just spring results.
Not to mention his prospect status and what we’ve long expected him to be capable of. Walker’s got that going for him, too, in case you forgot. At this point it’s hard to imagine him going to Tacoma to open the year. He was the presumptive best option at the start of the spring, and all he’s done since then is solidify his case.
Elias is probably going to Tacoma, where he’ll be available as maybe the best depth starter this side of Tanner Roark. Ramirez is probably going to another organization, in exchange for very little. It’s a bummer to lose him, but what are you going to do, send Walker to AAA? Not after all he’s done this spring. Not with the Mariners trying to make the playoffs for the first time since that mythical 2001 season.
Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, J.A. Happ, James Paxton, Taijuan Walker. Hell of a group, isn’t it? This team has the opportunity to win a lot of games. Going with Walker as the last piece to the rotation puzzle only increases the odds that 2015 will be something special.