TAMPA, Fla. — At long last, Neil Walker’s frustrating offseason ended, and the Pittsburgh Kid was in New York again — this time, as a Yankee.
Walker joined the Yankees on a one-year, $4-million deal inked Monday. Speaking in the dugout before the Yankees beat the Pirates, 9-5, at George Steinbrenner Field, Walker also reflected on his years with the Pirates, who drafted him in the first round in 2004 and traded him to the New York Mets in late 2015. The 32-year-old Pine-Richland grad said he felt the Pirates were “a few pieces away” from making a deep postseason run during their consecutive winning seasons from 2013 to 2015.
“You can go round and round about what could’ve happened and what should’ve happened, but at the end of the day we didn’t play well enough in ’13, ’14, ’15 to reach our goals,” said Walker, wearing a black Yankees jersey and pinstripe pants.
“But we played about as well as we could. Were we a few pieces away from being a legitimate contender? Absolutely. But that wasn’t the direction they felt was necessary to go. And we felt internally that we had the pieces to get where we needed to go, but at the end of the day, sometimes that extra starter, sometimes that extra big bat in the middle of the lineup can make a big difference. Not that that was the big difference, because you can't really quantify that. But at the end of the day, they're going to make the decisions up top and we got to go with the group that we have.”
Yankee Neil Walker takes some batting practice. pic.twitter.com/ccwZnCakXG
— Liz Bloom (@BloomPG) March 15, 2018
Walker seems poised to have another shot at a World Series ring as a member of the Yankees, who added reigning National League MVP Giancarlo Stanton, among other pieces, to their 2017 postseason roster.
“All in all, I’m really excited to be here, and the opportunity we have here is just tremendous,” Walker said. “Given how everything went in the offseason, I couldn’t be happier.”
Before, though, he experienced a "frustrating" offseason as a free agent in a slow market. He spent time at home in Pittsburgh and for 10 days attended a free-agent camp organized by the MLB Players Association, where he played intra-squad games and scrimmaged against a Japanese minor-league team. Walker said he got a general sense of potential landing spots earlier this month.
One of those teams was not, in fact, the Pirates, despite a report in November that his hometown team was potentially interested in a reunion.
“There's no validity to that,” Walker said. “We didn’t hear from them once the entire offseason. I don’t know where that came from.”
Despite the outright dismissal of the rumor, Walker said he understood the business and was not exactly expecting an offer from the Pirates.
“I accepted a qualifying offer last year, so I had the opportunity to see what was out there during the [general manager] meetings and all that, and then four years of arbitration,” Walker said. “I knew the situation over here. ... A lot of these teams are going younger and a lot of the teams are trying to have more guys that play more positions, and that was just part of the business.”
Walker will bounce around for the Yankees, and he was fielding grounders at first base before Thursday’s game, in which he didn’t play. He expects to play some first, second and third base.
His $4 million deal is considered low, given his track record and despite his injury history. Walker reportedly turned down a three-year, $42-million extension from the Mets last offseason, according to the New York Post, before the slow churn of this free-agent market had set in.
“At that point, for me it didn’t matter what was the best fit,” Walker said of the late signing. “It was what team has the best chance of winning. And I wanted to be a part of that environment, and I’ve been a part of that environment for several years, and once you get a taste of that, especially as a guy over 30, you don't want to go the opposite direction.”
Elizabeth Bloom: ebloom@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1750 and Twitter: @BloomPG.
First Published: March 15, 2018, 4:16 p.m.
Updated: March 15, 2018, 8:18 p.m.
