You Know Who I Always Kind of Liked…
By Blake VandeBunte • Jun 5th, 2009 • Category: 2009 Season, Baltimore Orioles, Jamie WalkerThe Orioles announced today that they have released veteran reliever, Jamie Walker. Walker had his best years as a pro with the Tigers. He is probably best known, at least by me, as one of those guys that never had his name in video games because he crossed the picket line during the strike back in the mid-1990s. Good piece of trivia there.
Walker will be 38 in July and hasn’t really been worth a damn since the 2007 season. That was his only full season with the Orioles and he led the AL in appearances with 81. Walker was lured away from the Tigers after the 2006 season with a 3 year, $12M contract.
He was the Tigers primary lefty out of the pen from 2002-2006. He had an above average ERA every single season with the Tigers, including a personal best 162 ERA+ in that 2006 season.
Many Tigers fans seem to have a pretty funny Jamie Walker story. He was always a chatty guy in the bullpen and didn’t seem to have much of a problem conversing with fans when he wasn’t pitching.
I wonder if there’s much of a market for a guy like him. He’ll likely clear waivers, leaving Baltimore on the hook for the rest of the money he is owed this season. He does have a decent track record, so it’s possibly some team takes a chance on him.
Walker has appeared in 22 games this season while pitching on 12.1 innings. His ERA is 5.11.
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I was always a fan of Walker as well. He was a solid LOOGY for us. He did his job, he was a good interview for radio and tv, and his country side cracked me up. I’d say he was like Ryan Raburn on steroids in terms of being country. He was a very underrated but necessary piece of that 2006 team.
I never knew that about Walker and yet back then I wondered who that guy was that wasn’t on the tigers roster. 2+2 = ??
How did you get through that whole thing without calling him Jamie “The Cat” Walker? Isn’t that what Gibby always called him? Maybe it was Rod Allen. Either way, I always liked that.
Hey - I just noticed that the ESPN standard box scores have great new stats. Well, theyre not new, but they certainly didn’t used to be in the normal box scores: Number of pitches that each batter faces. And first pitch strikes for pitchers.
I also noticed that Magglio has the 2nd best batting average on the team, and the OBP for the 2nd half of our lineup (at least tonights) is far better than the OBP for the first three batters.
Also, we’re screwed without Miggy.
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