Neil Walker Agrees to Deal with the Yankees

This morning, it was announced by multiple sources, that free agent second baseman, Neil Walker, officially agreed to a one-year, $5 million dollar deal with the New York Yankees. The deal is still pending a physical and an official team announcement.

While the signing might confuse some people, it starts to make a lot more sense when you dig a little deeper and see exactly why the Yankees decided to sign Walker even though they already had plenty of infield depth. Walker, who is a 9-year MLB veteran, has experience playing at first, second, and third base and has even been a Designated Hitter before. Simply put, this signing was done to give the Yankees extra assurance and more versatility on their 25-man roster.

That assurance is incase there is an injury that happens among Greg Bird, Tyler Wade, Ronald Torreyes, Gleyber Torres, Brandon Drury, and Miguel Andujar as well as if one of those 6 players ends up falling way short of expectations. The Yankees know there was risk going into the season by having Miguel Andujar open the season as their primary third baseman, which is why they traded for Brandon Drury, and they knew there was risk relying solely on Wade, Torreyes, and Gleyber Torres at second base.

You can't overlook the fact that Gleyber Torres underwent Tommy John surgery either. Torres is still a stellar player at 21-years old, but could probably use more seasoning down in Triple-A before receiving an official callus to the big leagues. After all, Torres is 3-for-23 so far this spring with 6 strikeouts.

Furthermore, with Walker, the Yankees know what they are getting. They are getting a veteran presence to have in their clubhouse, a productive utility player, and someone who can not only play on an everyday basis, but hits from both sides of the plate. What team wouldn't want a switch hitter like Walker?!

In fact, Neil Walker was probably the most underrated free agent this winter simply because of his offensive ability. Over his 9-year big league career in 4,332 plate appearances Walker has hit: .272/.341/.437 with 1,051 hits, 130 home runs, 522 RBI, 29 stolen bases, 375 walks, and 754 strikeouts. Walker's career WAR is 20.4 and his Offensive Wins Above Replacement (oWAR) amount is 22.1. Inserting a bat into the Yankees already potent lineup, just gives them that much more of an advantage over their opponent and a nice versatile piece that can fill-in around the diamond when a player needs a day off.

In addition, with the inclusion of Neil Walker into the picture, it gives the Yankees the opportunity to pursue a roster upgrade later on down the road if they choose to do so. That roster upgrade could potentially happen before Opening Day if the right deal were to come along, but the bigger bet would be that it happens around the Trade Deadline at the end of July.

New York has already made it known that they would like to upgrade their starting rotation in some form or fashion as that is probably the area of their roster with the biggest question marks heading into this season in terms of health and durability. Over this past offseason, the Yankees tried to acquire Patrick Corbin from the Diamondbacks in a deal that also would have included Brandon Drury and attempted to try to make a trade for Gerrit Cole, before he was later traded to the Astros, as well as Michael Fulmer of the Detroit Tigers. All three of those starters would have provided a significant upgrade to the Yankees rotation.

After the Yankees landed slugger, Giancarlo Stanton, and traded for infielder, Brandon Drury, many people around the industry expected them to be done with other roster upgrades. However, the Yankees surprised us all once again and made their 25-man roster even better than it was yesterday. Now, the Yankees have to hope that these moves pay off, their impact players all stay healthy this season, and everyone that needs to produce performs to expectation.

If all of that happens, the Yankees will be a serious threat to everyone in the American League and may very well find themselves playing in the Fall Classic once again.