Walker will fill the spot vacated after the season by free-agent second baseman Daniel Murphy. He’s a guy we had on our short list, but didn’t know if he would be available.
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Last night, the Washington Nationals main position player target in free agency came off the board when Ben Zobrist signed a four-year deal for $56 million. Walker won a Silver Slugger award in 2014 after hitting a career-high 23 home runs.
Walker batted. 269 with 16 homers and 71 RBI last season for the Pirates, his hometown team.
“I’m a Pittsburgh person, bleeding black and gold since the day I was born”, Walker said.
Life changed dramatically for Walker on Wednesday when he learned his son would no longer be a Pirate, and more importantly for him, no longer playing in Pittsburgh. Since 2011, the 30-year-old has played in 129+ games and has had two seasons in which he has played in over 150 games. Team officials said on November 30 that Jefferson would miss “two to three weeks” with the injury, so it is unclear exactly when Jefferson will be eligible to return to action.
“I have no ill-feelings toward anybody in Pittsburgh, in the organization”, Walker said. “I really do. It’s obviously unfortunate how we weren’t able to come to any kind of common ground over my six-plus years here, but it is a business, and that’s kind of the ugly part of the business that sometimes it doesn’t quite work out maybe the way you think it’s going to work out”, said Walker.
Out of the entire family, it’s Neil’s 95-year-old grandfather who may end up missing his Pirates tenure the most.
The Mets differ, though, in their starting rotation full of young power arms – Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz and eventually Zach Wheeler.
The news of Walker’s trade disappointed many CV students, to say the least. “We have liked Jonathon for some time now”.
The Mets have focused on adding relief help and a second baseman this offseason. A day after finalizing a $206.5 million deal for big league ERA leader Zack Greinke, they announced their five-player trade with Atlanta that brought All-Star right-hander Shelby Miller and sent No. 1 draft pick Dansby Swanson to the Braves.
“We’re looking for ways to give [manager] Terry [Collins] some options to mix and match and we do have some options from the right side to mix and match that would be complements to him”, Ricco said to reporters. As far as Niese goes, he is guaranteed $9 million in the 2016 season, with team options of $10 million in 2017 and $11 million in 2018. He’s 61-61 in his career with a 3.91 ERA and 826 strikeouts in 1,068 1/3 innings.
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Tell me he’s a streaky hitter and vanished in the World Series, and I’ll tell you one 5-week tear from that dude allowed the Mets to blow by the Nats and into the postseason.
