If you’ve been in the Game Chatters, you’ve heard a bunch of talk about Taijuan Walker and his lack of strikeouts. So far this season, Walker has 40.2 IP and 21 Ks, including last night when he had just two strikeouts in 5.2 innings pitched. Once upon a time, you could be a successful pitcher with a low strikeout rate. But here in 2022, it’s nearly impossible to be successful in the long haul with a 4.6 K/9.
Among Mets starters, the next lowest K/9 to Walker’s 4.6 mark is the 5.4 of Trevor Williams in four starts and 15 IP. Williams has a 4.80 ERA. Next up is David Peterson, who in five starts has a 7.0 K/9. Every other starter with more than one game in the role has at least an 8.1 K/9, with Max Scherzer leading the way with a 10.7 mark.
If we expand to include all MLB starters with at least 40 IP, we find 17 SP with a K/9 of at least 10, with Dylan Cease leading the way with a 12.75 mark. On the flip side, of our 106-pitcher sample, only four hurlers have a K/9 under 5.0, with Walker having the second-worst rate with his 4.6 mark. If we look at the 20 pitchers with the worst K/9 mark, they have an average fWAR of about 0.5, one that high only due to Jameson Taillon’s 1.6 mark with a 6.75 K/9. That’s the ninth-highest fWAR among our 106 pitchers.
But Taillon is the exception that proves the rule. The next best fWAR among our bottom 20 K/9 group is the 1.0 of Paul Blackburn. That makes him tied for 36th among the 106 starters with at least 40 IP. Walker is right around average among the bottom 20 K/9 group with his 0.6 fWAR, with 13 pitchers in this group having a lower rate than that.
In order to succeed with a K rate this low, you have to do everything else really well. You have to keep the ball in the park, limit your walks and have BABIP fortune. Walker’s got the ninth-best HR/FB rate with a 4.9% mark in the category. He has a roughly average 2.88 BB/9 and .280 BABIP, so his success is due to keeping the ball in the park, a far cry from what he was doing in the second half of last season, when he allowed 20 HR in 64.1 IP.
Walker had a 7.1 K/9 in the second half of last year, along with a 9.0 mark in the first half, when he posted a 2.66 ERA. This year he has a 2.88 ERA but our estimators show that to be quite fortunate. Walker’s FIP checks in at 3.71 and if we give him a league-average HR rate, he has a 4.49 xFIP. Interestingly, that’s pretty much what his xFIP was in 2021, too. He had a 4.47 mark a season ago, giving us a strong ballpark picture of the type of hurler Walker is at this stage in his career.
The reason Walker’s done better so far in keeping the ball in the park is he’s throwing twice as many splitters as he did a year ago. In 2021, Walker threw the splitter 14.1% of the time. This year that number jumps to 29.5%. He’s also mixing in a cutter this year. Last year he was throwing more sinkers and sliders.
It’s optimistic to think that Walker can maintain his 2.88 ERA over an entire season without an improvement in some other area, perhaps needing multiple improvements, too. If we look at last year’s starters, there were 115 who threw at least 100 innings. The lowest K/9 was the 5.18 mark of Dallas Keuchel, who had an identical 5.18 ERA. The pitcher with the lowest K/9 last season to also post a sub-3.00 ERA was Walker Buehler, who had a 9.19 K/9. Among the 20 pitchers with the worst K/9 mark last year, the best ERA was the 3.33 mark of Adrian Houser, who had a 6.45 K/9. And Houser vastly outperformed his peripherals, as he had a 4.34 FIP and a 4.40 xFIP.
If we look at all starters with at least 300 IP in the 2017-2021 period, the lowest K/9 is the 5.25 mark of Brett Anderson, who had a 4.39 ERA in this period. There were five pitchers with a sub-6.0 K/9 and they all had ERAs in the fours. If we look at the 20 worst K/9 rates, the best ERA was the 3.54 mark of Miles Mikolas, who had a 6.73 K/9. Again, Walker has a 4.6 K/9 so far this season.
Walker’s production so far this year has been really good. But it’s simply not sustainable with his current strikeout rate. The good news is that when the three injured starters for the Mets return to action, Walker can move to the bullpen and be a multi-inning reliever. And if he goes all out while pitching shorter bursts, perhaps he can up his strikeout rate, too.
It could be a win-win situation for both Walker and the Mets.
Walker isn’t throwing as hard as he did last year. That may be the difference of his diminished strikeout rate. Maybe he’s not 100% healthy.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/taijuan-walker-592836?stats=career-r-pitching-mlb
I was surprised what you said in the chatter and in this article making him a long reliever. I think, at this point of his career, he is slightly better than Megill and Megill should go to Syracuse and remain stretched out. As long as Walker produces then he should be in the rotation.
I don’t think there’s any obvious play right now.
The good news is that Megill is likely the first one back and we’ll get to see how both he and Walker fare in the rotation. By the time the other two are back, then we can see what makes the most sense. It’s certainly possible that Megill as a multi-inning reliever is the best outcome for everyone.
Megill is better then Williams though, but Williams has no waiver options and I would not expose to the rest of the league and lose him. I would want to have McGill stretched out instead of him being another long reliever with Williams. Maybe Megill would be a wise choice for a playoff roster but that is getting ahead of ourselves. ( isn’t it great that we have these problems!)
Williams made the Opening Day roster as a relief pitcher so I imagine he’ll return to that role.