Down in AAA, Neil Walker was playing third base and hitting .256/.304/.469, seemingly doing his best to make Pirate fans think they would never get anything out of their 2004 first round draft pick. The Pirate hopeful were relying on guys like Brian Friday and Jim Negrych to develop quickly and help the Pirates at second base. We haven't hard much of those names in recent years, have we?
Then 2010 came. Walker started the year in AAA and was pushed to second base because of the Pirates need there and the fact that Pedro Alvarez was ready to start the year in Indianapolis and take the third base spot. The Pirates had traded Jesse Chavez to get Akinori Iwamura to buy them some time in developing a major league second baseman, and a lot of fans were alright with the move. However, Iwamura would hit .182/.292/.267 through the first two months of the season and things looked bad again. At the same time, Walker had gotten it together and was hitting .321/.392/.560 in his first 43 games in Indy. That was enough for the Pirates to give him a chance to replace Iwamura at a second base.Walker took advantage of the chance and took the job and hasn't looked back since. He's a career .280/.338/.423 hitter and has turned into an at least average second baseman defensively. This year he is looked at as one of the better young middle infielders in the game and has a bright career ahead of him. It's unfortunate that he couldn't get it going earlier in his career, it took him six years in the minor leagues to finally find a home in the major leagues, but he was drafted out of high school so he had a few extra years to work with.
Can you imagine where we would be had Walker not been moved to second and performed well there? Who knows how long the team would have been forced to put up with Iwamura in 2010, probably much too long. They still don't have much of a back-up second base option; there's certainly no one else in the system that I would be comfortable with as a starter there. Chances are Josh Harrison would have been an everyday guy last year, which might not have been the worst thing in the world, but he would not have been nearly as effective as Walker was.
Team this with the minor league signing of Garrett Jones that I wrote about last night, and you can see that the Pirates actually have had some good fortune in the last few years. Things have really been turning around for the Bucs. They still don't have the winning season to show for it, but that seems to be coming sooner rather than later.
Next time you're disheartened that you love a team that hasn't had a winning season in 19 years, stop yourself and say: It could be worse.