Taijuan Walker May Be Headed To Your Favorite Team

There are few hard and fast rules in baseball, but one is that Seattle Mariners Jerry Dipoto loves to trade. He is like all of us in free fantasy leagues, just shuffling things around with little regard for ... well, anything.

He may be our favorite GM, but time to digress.

The next piece for Dipoto to put on the move is right handed starter Taijuan Walker. That is according to logic, previous history with Dipoto, but also Jon Morosi.

Walker was once a top prospect for the Mariners. The team drafted him in the first round out of high school and he was ranked among the Top 20 prospects in baseball by multiple services from pre-2012 through pre-2014. He debuted in the Bigs at age 21, earning a win against Houston in 2013.

Through the course of the last eight years, Walker has struggle with staying healthy. He has only thrown over 160 inning once in his career, back in 2015.

With a Covid-shortened season, on the back of an impressive stretch of games, and a salary that would only cost $400,000, the odds are high that Dipoto is going to flip him for something.

Walker is currently 2-2, with a clean 4.00 ERA and 25:8 strikeout to walk ratio. His 27 innings pitched are twice that of his 2018 and 2019 seasons, combined.

Teams like the Dodgers could add him as a very low risk proposition.

Others like the Blue Jays, Astros, Braves, or Padres could do so out of need. Others to kick the tires on maybe signing him next year.

One way or the other, the Mariners are 8-19 and have Dipoto as a GM. Walker is good as gone.