How Nick Swisher Could Ruin Zach Walters’ Career

Zach Walters is an interesting individual. The only return from the loss of Asdrubal Cabrera has no real defensive position, terrible plate discipline and a swing full of holes yet is the Indians top power opportunity since Travis Hafner was blasting home runs into Pronkville. The problem is that, while Hafner was a career .273 hitter, Walters is about 100 points below that.

There have been plenty of pure power hitters who struck out a ton, particularly in recent seasons, a few of which are listed in the chart below:

Each of the four hitters listed along Walters had long careers ending up within the top 50 in career Major League strike outs by striking out in at least 20% of their at bats. The chart above includes the beginning of each players career through the season where they surpassed 160 plate appearances to make a more fair comparison to Walters.

The most fair comparison in the group is former Indians infielder/outfielder? Russell Branyon. Each of the players listed had a hard time finding a regular spot in the field due to abnormally poor defense, with Adam Dunn and Alfonso Soriano playing at least 1,000 games in the outfield and 500 in the infield and Carlos Pena splitting time between first base and DH, but Branyon was the most difficult. He played more than 70 games at third base, first base, DH, right field and left field as ten different teams tried to find somewhere to hide his glove while making use of his bat.

Offensively, Branyan is also the most similar with the closest home run rate, strike out rate and batting average. All the above are retired and Branyan had both the shortest career and the most teams played for as each of the other three were able to provide a significantly better offensive performance. Dunn and Soriano even hit what used to be a near guaranteed Hall of Fame mark of 400 home runs.

That all being said, there was a reason that those four players combined to play for 27 different franchises and Walters is already on his second Major League team and third franchise (he was originally drafted by the Diamondbacks and traded for Jason Marquis in 2011 when he was just an advanced A player).

Now, Walters has been demoted to AAA again, his third stint with the Columbus Clippers and it may or may not have been entirely his fault. This year, Walters has just one Major League hit (1/17) that came with one RBI and eight strike outs, including four in consecutive at bats to start the season. Obviously, this is not the kind of production expected from a player of Walters’ caliber, but he was also never given a real chance to start, getting just 17 plate appearances across the 12 games he was with the team. While he wasn’t getting it done, there are others on the team who have been equally down this year and in previous years (Jason Giambi started 2014 0/12, ended it 0/7 and batted .133 throughout but was never DFA’d) and still stuck around. That, in itself, is part of the problem.

The primary reason the Branyans of the world can’t stick one place for good is that a winning team can’t afford to have multiple players who can’t get on base regularly and provide no value on defense. Many teams are intrigued by the power, but once it is in their possession, they realize it comes with a much bigger cost than the acquisition price. In addition to the retain price (in the case of Walters, Asdrubal Cabrera), there is also the cost of a roster spot that could be held by a more useful player (such as Tyler Holt) and the cost of one lineup spot creating outs in more than 75% of plate appearances.

A well balanced and versatile team can generally afford one player as such, but not multiples and, while Nick Swisher is blamed in the headline, the Indians have essentially four high strike out, poor defenders whose primary position is backing up their high strike out, low average right fielder. Quite frankly, right now, all of these options are still better than Walters, so the demotion of the slugger was completely necessary. Between David Murphy, Mike Aviles, Ryan Raburn and Swisher, any position in the field or lineup that Walters could provide is covered off the bench and in no dream world is Walters a starter right now.

The reason Swisher is the primary blame listed has more to do with the future than yesterday’s demotion (to bring up Shaun Marcum for a spot start). While the chances are that Aviles, Murphy and Raburn will all be gone to free agency for the 2016 season (and with obvious replacements for all, the Indians shouldn’t think of resigning any of them or using their options), Swisher will still be around for at least one more year.

If you think Swisher’s .234/.321/.298 line with 13 strike outs in 47 at bats is bad now, just wait until he is a year older. Assuming the Indians are unwilling to cut bait on him, it is hard to imagine them having room for both Walters and Swisher on the same roster. Giovanny Urshela, James Ramsey, Jesus Aguilar, Holt and of course, Francisco Lindor, are all currently treading water at AAA, completely ready for Major League playing time but being held back by the large group of poor right fielders in Cleveland. Each one of whom is being paid a significant amount of money, something that Walters is not. The Indians may not be willing to give up millions without some return, but keeping Walters down costs them very little in comparison.

Thanks to his unique set of skills, a starting spot is not likely to be found on the Indians while Swisher is still with the team and possibly even longer as Aguilar is also best suited for DH and is still a more rounded player. It may not be as serious as ruining Walters’ career, but chances are, he will never get much further than AAA or occasional pinch hitter with the Indians current roster. Expect him to go the route of the others and continue on with team after team as each one finds that the costs vastly outweigh the benefits for the home run or strike out batter.