Taijuan Walker was introduced to the Phillies baseball scribes this afternoon. He’s here on a four-year, $72 million deal and will be a nice back-end arm behind Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, and Ranger Suarez.

He talked about the Phils’ World Series run and hitting lineup, which was intriguing.

“Just to be added with Nola and Wheeler and Suarez, in that rotation,” Walker said of his enthusiasm for coming to Philadelphia. “I really like the lineup. One through nine can do damage. I was just real excited about that, and the Phillies being in the World Series last year. I’m just ready to win. Getting Trea Turner was huge. It’s just all exciting things for me.”

Walker talked about the evolution of his splitter and overall aggression, noting that he was fortunate to be in a rotation with Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom in 2022, to learn from those types of players. He said he was able to “pick their brains” and learn from their competitiveness and drive.

“It was in (May) this year and I got into some jams and was getting beat by my fastball and (putting) people on base and I realized how good my splitter was,” he admitted. “From that day forward, I was just telling myself, ‘okay, if I’m gonna get beat, I’m gonna get beat by my best pitch.’ Ever since then, if I’ve got people on base, first and second, second and third, if I need a ground ball, swing and miss, I just went to the splitter. If I had to throw it 10 times in a row, I would.”


According to Baseball Savant, Walker threw the splitter 27.6% of the time in 2022, which was almost twice as much as he did the year prior. He struck out 54 batters with it and logged his highest whiff percentage, 29, with that pitch:

From a macro standpoint, he noticed the atmosphere at CBP in the playoffs.

“I heard nothing but good things about the fans here in Philly, about how passionate they are,” Walker said. “I actually talked to Ryan Howard a couple of days ago and he was telling me that playing in the playoffs here is the loudest he’s ever heard a stadium. For me that’s exciting, to have a fan base that’s so passionate and cares so much about the team, who shows up every day. Every time we came to play here when I was with the Mets, the Phillies fans were loud. I’m really looking forward to pitching in front of them.”

Full press conference here: