KANSAS CITY, Mo. — He starts this season with the most thankless job imaginable.
Neil Walker is a fine big-leaguer who has had a fine big-league career. He’s a .272 lifetime hitter and sometime soon will hit his 100th big-league home run. He fields his position well. He is a self-described “grinder.”
There is really only one thing he’s lacking.
He isn’t Daniel Murphy.
Now, Murphy was never a universally beloved Met. This isn’t Pat Zachry replacing Tom Seaver, or Juan Samuel trying to make people forget Lenny Dykstra. But Murphy did have an October for the ages last autumn, he did hit seven home runs in 14 postseason games, he did have that astonishing 1.