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Arizone Diamondbacks first baseman Christian Walker is a 2021 fantasy baseball draft value. His ADP is undervalued, making him a potential draft bargain and late-round sleeper to target.
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 175
CURRENT ADP: ~193 overall
ANALYSIS: Walker put together a solid 2020 campaign hitting .271/.333/.459 with seven homers in 57 games, although that's hardly worth describing as a break out. Statcast emphasizes that Walker was unlucky in 2020 with regards to home runs as he had an expected home run (xHR) total of 11.3. That's nearly a 50% increase and would equate to 30 homers in a full season. Among all hitters in 2020, only one player had a bigger negative difference between total homers and expected homers than Walker's 4.3 and that was Garrett Hampson (-4.4).
Last year, Walker provided excellent production in the counting stats too with 35 runs scored and 34 RBI. That was on a Diamondbacks team that ranked 18th overall in runs scored on route to a 25-35 record. For context, among all first basemen, Walker ranked 5th for runs scored and 7th in RBI. After predominantly hitting in the fifth spot of the Arizona lineup, Walker spent the final month of the season as the number three hitter which should continue and help him towards topping 90 runs and RBI (which he did the equivalent of in 2020).
Walker has shown he can hit for power and also put up a solid batting average while compiling good run and RBI numbers. If he manages to combine the best bits of his last two seasons, Walker will likely end the 2021 season as a top-10 first baseman and is on the verge of taking that next step.
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