Who’s The New Guy, Part Deux
There’s a whole lot less (right now) about SS Zach Walters, acquired in the trade for Jason Marquis, but in the interest of serving our readers…
A 9th-round pick last year out of the Univ. of San Diego, Walters is your prototypical “athletic shortstop” — raw power, runs well, has range and arm… and makes a ton of errors (40 in 160 games). Injuries dogged him in college but he’s stayed off the DL this year and last.
Sickels graded him a “C” in his 2011 Prospect Book and cautioned that his plate discipline needs improvement. So far so good, as he’s improved his OBP from .338 to .377 while still batting .302 and improving his slugging percentage from .440 to .485.
Baseball America describes the switch-hitter as having “all the hallmarks of a future utility player,” and say the scouts have doubts that his arm and range will improve enough to stick at shortstop.
If he is indeed assigned to Potomac, I’ll obviously have more to say after the next homestand on August 8-14. In the meantime, I’m off to Woodbridge…
UPDATE: Bill Ladson is reporting that Walters will be placed on the Potomac roster. With Walters leaving from Michigan, his debut is most likely going to happen on the road in Salem, Virginia, where the P-Nats begin a three-game series on Tuesday.
I wonder if Walters can play CF
That’s the other guy: Komatsu in Harrisburg. In Potomac they have Eury Perez. In Hagerstown they have Taylor (who is doing well) and Curran just in case. Then there’s Brian Goodwin and Corey Brown.
Okay, now the Gomes trade really doesn’t make sense. If we are just going to dump our veterans for nothing usable in the immediate future, why bring in a spare part outfielder? I doubt we’ll risk him accepting arbitration, which would allow us get the Type B comp draft pick if he declined.
This all reminds me of Kasten’s “plan” that in fact involved no planning whatsoever. The only hope is that Gomes is flipped as part of a deal for a center fielder.
I think that was simply that Davey wanted a RH pinch hitter to replace Stairs. Unfortunately, I don’t think Rizzo counted either Rhino, Manno (or Gomes, for that matter) as significant parts of the “plan”.
I don’t think he’ll accept arb. It could be a handshake deal, but there is a good chance he makes more money on the free market. Besides he didn’t sound to psyched to play here.
Rizzo Harris You mark my words In the not so distant future the Gomes trade for Manno and Rhinehart will come back to bite you , by the way manno comes in for the first time in High A and strikes out the side. Badddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd move Rizzo
You might be right, but i don’t think that you can count on what a single A reliever can do. This trade still seems fine to me assuming we get the comp pick. Otherwise it makes me sad.
Wally, I’m sorry to say I agree completely.
Looks the Nats assigned Walters as a 3B to Potomac. So, I guess we’ll be hearing more about him in the installments of another night in Woodbridge.
Meanwhile with Maya going on the DL with Pudge’s injury have to figure Detwiler gets a shot at that rotation spot if Gorzelanny remains in the bullpen. Also, you have to wonder how much longer Livo will be in the rotation?
Maybe Livo wont be in te rotation past 4:00 today. I dont know who would get the rotation spot between Grozy, Det, Milone, Peacock. I dont think Maya would have gotten the start anyway, as this was a his day to pitch spot start
You might be a little quick-triggered re: Maya to the DL; Management will likely see how he looks on Mon-Tues before making the call there. If he’s still hurting, then Gorzelanny probably takes the start, and Stammen likely gets the callup, imo.
Just about any other callup would directly effect the current 40-man structure, and I don’t think Rizzo sees any need to do that until September.