He's an interesting prospect but we've sort of got a bunch of those and - though he'd be up there in a lot of systems he might not even crack most Twins' top ten lists. Sooooooooooo, let's talk about something else.

When I first started reading an absolute shit ton about baseball, say 10-12 years ago, it was like 90% material written on behalf of the statistical movement that would spawn "Moneyball". Plus some smug dickheads. But this is the internet and rhetoric is kind of forced towards smugness no matter which side of an argument is being presented.

Of the many, many, many statnerd hobby horses, a big one was results for high-minors players being ignored in favor of scouting reports. Particularly in the case of slow-footed mashers (Roberto Petagine was a favorite of most people) but also with deception-based pitchers posting huge strikeout numbers (Anthony Slama, more recently for Twins fans - but Pat Neshek also had some trouble getting the call) there were a bunch of results, complete with splits for the first time, that were readily available for fans who wanted to better understand roster moves.

And the questions were fair. If you're a fan of the 2004 Kansas City Royals, asking why Calvin Pickering was hitting .314/.451/.712 in Omaha and only saw 142 MLB plate appearances that year is a valid point.

We didn't always know it at the time, but the answers were fair too. Royals scouts could look at Pickering and point out that he was defensively useless, maybe couldn't stay on the field often enough to even DH effectively, and wouldn't make enough contact at the big league level. But if you're a shitty team, the scouts need to be proven right or wrong.

Anyway, nobody who wanted more Calvin Pickering or Pat Neshek or Anthony Slama was going to hear it until they actually saw it. Which, again, is reasonable for a shitty club. But things are swinging back around because one of the least fair knock on stat nerds was that they aren't interested in more information. If you like baseball, learning more about baseball is always desirable and I don't know any SABR-inclined people who are remotely interested in limiting conversation in the way that Harold Reynolds or Ken Harrelson is.

So that brings us to Adam Brett Walker, who has inspired a delightfully no-stakes controversy because literally nobody thinks he belongs on a big league roster based on his MWL results. Right now, the argument is this:

Pro:
-Huge, huge pop
-decent outfielder
-weird basepath acumen
-Improving strikeout numbers

Con:
-Defensively limited to a corner
-Righthanded hitter
-Do improving strikeout numbers mean an improved hit tool or adjustment to inadequate competition?

If this were 2005, I'd have a loud and mostly obnoxious answer for that last one. But it's 2013 and I'm old and the answer is "I guess we'll find out". I will add that the quibble about which side of the plate he hits from is outdated. There's a weird lack of righthanded power in baseball right now and it's possible that in a couple years we'll see the profile of an ideal 4th outfielder shift to RH hitters instead of left.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/adam-brett-walkers-potential-divides-scouts/

Adam Brett Walker’s Potential Divides Scouts
August 26, 2013 by J.J. Cooper

By most any account, Twins right fielder Adam Brett Walker is having an excellent first full pro season.

His 26 home runs were tops in the Midwest League, while his 106 RBIs (in 122 games) are second in all the minors. He stood among the Midwest League leaders in slugging percentage (.536), extra-base hits (63) and runs scored (81). He went a perfect 8-for-8 stealing bases.

Yet the 21-year-old Walker’s big numbers at low Class A Cedar Rapids have failed to convince many scouts that he’s going to be able to translate that success to higher levels and higher-caliber pitching. In many cases they want to see an encore performance next year.

“Walker is a great mistake hitter. I’ve kept the same (overall scouting grade) on him all the way through,” a pro scout for an American League club said. “For me, he’s still a slow-twitch guy. The jump to the Florida State League is when it comes out. There the breaking balls are a little sharper. (The pitchers) have better command.

“I still have questions about Walker. I don’t know if he can catch up to good fastballs. He can hit the cripples, no doubt. He hits them a long ways.”

Even those scouts who see him as a backup in the big leagues or as an organzational player are impressed by his power. But the skepticism about his hitting ability began two years ago with a really bad month.

A Costly Cape

One month in the summer of 2011 cost Walker a good bit of money. On July 10 that summer, he was hitting .272/.306/.413 for Hyannis of the Cape Cod League. Then the bottom fell out.

Over the final month of the summer college league season, Walker hit .089/.180/.156 with one extra-base hit and 23 strikeouts in 45 at-bats. With plenty of amateur scouts and front office executives checking in on him over that stretch, the lasting impression was of a hitter who seemed overmatched.

Sandwiched around that disaster of a month, Walker won the Atlantic Sun Conference’s player of the year award as a sophomore, hitting .409/.486/.682 in 2011. As an encore, he hit .343/.426/.581 as a junior, but that wasn’t enough to wipe away the impression in many scouts’ eyes that he was a player with impressive power but a questionable hit tool.

Walker’s awful month led him to fall to the third round of the 2012 draft, but as he sees it, he learned useful lessons from his slump.

“That was the first time I’ve really struggled. I had a hard time dealing with it,” Walker said. “Overall it helped me—you learn from it. We all think at some point we’re going to struggle a little bit. It would have been great to go to the Cape and tear it up, but you try to learn from experience.”

When Walker makes contact, his power gives him the potential to make an impact in any game he plays. Scouts who like Walker’s potential focus on that power, especially since it’s paired with plenty of athleticism and average to above-average speed. More scouts are joining the club with every solid swing he shows for Cedar Rapids.

“His power is unbelievable,” said an amateur scout for a National League club who saw Walker in college and this year as a pro. “In a home run contest for the Cape Cod League at Fenway (Park) . . . he made (Stanford’s) Austin Wilson look like he was hitting in Williamsport.”

Wilson was the Mariners’ second-round pick in the 2013 draft, but the same scout sees Walker as the superior prospect.

“For all the fanfare on Austin Wilson, this guy is better . . . (and) it’s not close. And Austin Wilson is only (four) months younger than (Walker).”

Raw Power With Few Rivals

Walker has hit home runs in bunches. He hit six in April, then six more in May and June combined as he had to adjust to pitchers who stopped coming in on him, preferring instead to work away and with plenty of breaking balls. Facing that approach every day forced Walker to take another step toward learning to unlock his power while keeping his swing under control.

“I had to work on using the big part of the field,” Walker said during June when he hit just two home runs. “I’m not getting as many fastballs. I’m adjusting to the pitches I’m getting.”

Walker managed to make that adjustment when he bounced back in July to hit 10 home runs as part of a .304/.325/.652 month. He said that pitchers have now returned to trying to bust him inside with fastballs, but now they often try to get in on his hands off the plate to keep him from getting comfortable.

Double-A third baseman Miguel Sano has perhaps the best raw power in the minors, but in the Twins organization, numerous front office executives will point out that Walker’s raw power rivals that of Sano. His productive power isn’t bad either. Give him credit for the 14 homers he collected with Rookie-level Elizabethton last year and Walker has hit 40 home runs in a season and a half of pro ball.

“(His power) is similar to Sano. It’s fun to watch,” said Cedar Rapids hitting coach Tommy Watkins, who has seen both Sano and Walker come through the Midwest League. “You try to get him to understand that he doesn’t have to do too much. When I was a player, I had to put everything I had into it. He’s just such a big, strong guy that he doesn’t.

“He’s making strides with the hit tool. It goes back to understanding himself. He doesn’t have to try to do too much.”

With four times as many strikeouts (102) as walks (25) and a .321 on-base percentage this season, Walker still has work to do regarding his approach.

He also has a knack for picking his spots on the basepaths. He’s an average runner from home to first and faster than that underway. With that kind of speed, Walker is not someone who will likely ever steal 30 bases in a season, but when he does run, he’s safe. He’s a perfect 12-for-12 as a pro. At Jacksonville, he went 28-for-29.

“You’ve got to pick your spots right,” Walker said. “I usually steal my bags off the pitcher. I try to work on my baserunning, get some bags here and there. You’ve got to pick your times right. Sometimes I’ll check out a guy in the bullpen. You can figure out what they are from there, if they are slow out there, I know their slide step won’t be all that fast.”