Taijuan Walker Stats: Underrated Consistency

It’s rare in free agency, especially with starting pitchers, that teams get just what they expected in terms of player performance in the first year of a multi-year contract. But, when you look at Taijuan Walker’s stats with the Philadelphia Phillies so far in 2023 — the first year of a four-year, $72 million deal — he has been precisely what the doctor has ordered for a Phillies’ rotation that has been a little disappointing on the whole.

In 20 starts, Walker has a 4.11 ERA and, despite wins not being totally within the control of a starting pitcher (for better or worse), is one of five MLB pitchers with 11 wins. His walk rate is significantly up and his strikeout rate hasn’t changed much, so he might be getting a little lucky with run prevention. However, Philadelphia has to be delighted with what they’ve gotten from one of their significant offseason acquisitions.

Walker’s previous two years, spent with the division rival New York Mets, were up and down, to say the least. He was an All-Star in 2021 after a solid first half of the season in which he pitched to a 2.66 ERA. But things fell apart for him after the break, and he had a 7.13 ERA in his final 13 starts. His 2022 campaign was pretty similar, as he had a 2.55 ERA before the All-Star break and a 4.80 ERA after. This wasn’t a huge surprise, though, considering that Walker only pitched 67 1/3 innings from 2018 to 2020 due to injuries and the shortened COVID year.

Even with those concerns, the Phillies hoped that Walker’s bounceback 2022 season was the norm, not the exception, and they spent big on him to be a reliable No. 3 starter. So far, the MLB team stats bear out that they made the right decision because the rotation’s expected aces — Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola — have ERAs in the low fours (like Walker), and Ranger Suárez has been limited to 68 1/3 innings. Without Walker to provide roughly six solid innings every five days, the Phillies would be in a lot of trouble.

Taijuan Walker’s stats were especially impressive in June when the Phillies went 18-8 to take control of one of the National League’s Wild Card spots. Walker made six starts in June and went 5-1 with a 1.50 ERA. He allowed one run or fewer in five of those starts, only struggling in a June 1st outing against the Mets in which he lasted just four innings. Since then, he has been good after a rough April and May.

As mentioned before, though, the concern for Walker is what happens now after the All-Star break. The Phillies need to maintain their place in the baseball standings in a tight NL Wild Card race, but Walker is coming off a bad start against the Milwaukee Brewers which followed up a decent (but short) start against the San Diego Padres. Philadelphia has to worry about whether Walker will finally be able to finish a season strong after his struggles with the Mets in 2021 and 2022.

There is reason to believe that Walker will be able to hold things down better for this stretch run as opposed to the last two, though. The main reason is that he has (predominantly) been healthy for 2+ years now, so it seems his 2018 Tommy John surgery is truly behind him. He still isn’t going deep into games — his average start length is below 5.4 innings — but it’s clear that’s just the kind of pitcher he is now.

Regarding Taijuan Walker stats that could be troubling the rest of the way, the main one is the walks. It’s tough for a low-strikeout, high-contract pitcher like Walker to succeed if he’s giving up so many free passes. He is pitching to his highest groundball rate (46.4%) since 2017 thanks to his heavy splitter usage — well over 30% for the first time in his career — but it’s playing with fire to have so many guys clogging the basepaths.

If the groundball rate remains this high, then Walker could sidestep the issues that come with an increased walk rate. On the other hand, if the Phillies’ shaky defense declines or if Walker starts allowing more home runs, then he could be in for another late-season decline.

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