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Neil Walker Ranked Fourth Among All Second Baseman

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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.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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