Christian Walker (1B, ARI) - Week 16 Waiver Wire Pickups

July 14, 2019

Brady Grove profiles Arizona Diamondbacks slugger Christian Walker as a potential waiver wire pickup or add target for fantasy baseball leagues in Week 16 of the 2019 MLB campaign.

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ANALYSIS: Before the 2019 season, 28-year old Christian Walker had taken 88 AB across four separate seasons in the MLB, mostly culminating in disappointment. Fast forward 308 AB into this season and the former South Carolina Gamecock has crushed 18 home runs, stolen five bases (in six attempts), and hit for a complete slash of .263/.332/.510. While public skepticism of Walker's explosive emergence is well warranted, his body of work is backed by an impressive onslaught of telling peripherals that suggest that his stock is a wise purchase moving into the latter-half of the season.

If you have a complaint, you would wince a little at Walker's unfortunately high strikeout rate of 28.2% and his sediment-heavy grounder rate of 40.1% so far on the year that suggests he is squandering a good number of opportunities. Other than that, his physical feats measure him on par with decathletes in terms athletic prowess applied on the field. At 27.2 feet per second in sprinting speed, he runs better than a good majority of major league first basemen, and his 49.1% hard contact rate with just 14.6% soft contact applied to 41% fly balls on the year bodes well for his potential home run total by season's end. If that isn't enough, he has produced an exit velocity of 91.3 MPH and an average home run distance of 410 feet as a player within power-friendly Chase Field, and his .247 ISO only further settles the concrete of confidence in Christian Walker as we hit mid-July. With such wide availability, he seems like a no-brainer for a postseason push.