FastCast Hero #1: Neil Walker

Every day (or at least every day that I've cared to check) the good folks at MLB Advanced Media put out a nifty video recap of the day's baseball action called the FastCast. Each of these expertly narrated pieces generally feature one highlight (or a group of related highlights) as a cold open before going through the rest of the games. The cold open highlight yesterday (Opening Day, 3/31/14) featured Pirates 2B Neil Walker hitting a walk-off home run. On the surface, this event bodes well in terms of momentum for a Pittsburgh team/fan base that had been without a winning season for two decades before last year.

But now I'd like to talk a little more about Neil himself. He's a hometown hero of sorts, born in Pittsburgh in 1985 and drafted by the Pirates in the first round in 2004. His best offensive season was 2010, in which an .811 OPS and 12.0 fantasy points per game earned him top 5 of Rookie of the Year voting. Last year, he actually scored the highest rWAR of his career (4.0, after averaging 2.4 his first three years) due to a drastic improvement with his defense (according to baseball reference, his glove was worth 1.2 wins alone). According to MLB, Walker was ranked 228 overall, or roughly 15th among second basemen, making him not draftworthy in most leagues.

However, Walker does end up on at least one fantasy team of note this year: the Virgo Maidens. His big Opening Day performance helped put his astrological team pretty even in their matchup with the Pisces Fish as the second day of the season draws to a close. Pisces had some 2B trouble themselves with their projected opening day starter Jurickson Profar going down with an injury. The absence of Profar (who dropped from 126 to 380 in MLB's ranks after the injury) is not nearly as troubling for the Fish as it is for the Rangers because a) Texas has to deal with his absence in real life, and b) Pisces has Dustin Ackley (ranked 283) and Dan Uggla (340) in the depth chart as opposed to Josh Wilson (unranked) and Donnie Murphy (824, but who incidentally is also a Pisces, but not on their 40-man roster).

Pisces is also of course dealing with the extended absence of Mr. ESPN the Magazine cover story himself Clayton Kershaw, who went on the DL for the first time in his career after signing a record breaking deal. Coincidence? Probably not, considering he was shuttled back and forth to Australia in a publicity stunt, resulting in a shortened spring training and unfamiliar preparation rhythms. But maybe as the new face of the storied Dodgers franchise, he should be able to be a durable warrior and pitch through any kind of adversity. But then again, just ask how well that worked out for Los Angeles's previous poster boy, Matt Kemp. Kemp (53), meanwhile, wouldn't even help his astrology team, the Libra Scales, if he weren't on the DL - currently he's behind Andrew McCutchen (4), Carlos Gonzalez (5), Bryce Harper (19), and Jose Bautista (40) for the available OF/DH spots (not to mention neck and neck with Yoenis Cespedes (49) and Starling Marte (56) on the bench). But before you gawk at how unfair that offensive force is for one Astrological sign, keep in mind that their only 1B eligible player within MLB's top 860 is free agent Ty Wigginton. Funny how the universe has it's own way of working things out.

Tying it all back together to yesterday's (it is almost not even yesterday's) MLB FastCast, the final highlight unfurled a fact that I was sadly already aware of: that Oakland's loss to Cleveland makes it a record 10 straight opening day losses for the A's. But hey, even Jason Giambi's A's (in fact especially Jason Giambi's A's) were famous for starting off slow and heating up in the second half. Now that Giambi's on the Indians, let's see if the traditions collide... but not until tomorrow, on account of all the rain.