On Thursday night, MLB Network continued their top ten right now series. Earlier in the night, both Tony Watson and Mark Melancon were named among the best relievers in the Majors. In the second show, Neil Walker was named the fourth best second baseman in baseball, and the top National League second baseman.
On last year’s show, Walker ranked eighth among all second baseman in baseball. That was coming off a season in which he put up a .757 OPS in 133 games. In 2014, he improved to .271/.342/.467 in 137 games. He set his career high with 23 homers and his .809 OPS was his highest since his first full season(110 games) back in 2010.
Brian Kenny and Harold Reynolds gave their own personal top ten lists and Reynolds left Walker off his list, saying he wasn’t high on his defense or base running. Kenny ranked him third and called him one of the best hitting second baseman out there. No other National League second baseman finished ahead of Walker on Kenny’s list.
During the panel of experts portion, which included Bill James, Mike Petriello from Fangraphs and Vince Gennaro from SABR, Gennaro rated Walker third overall, while the other two talked highly of him, but didn’t give their ranking.