In much baseball commentary, the walk is attributed to the pitcher showing a lack of control. Occasionally, you might hear a positive comment about a batter working his way on base via the walk, but not nearly so often. However, the growing influence of Bill James work on emphasizing On Base Percentage and Slugging Average as key measures of performance (as evidenced by James' protégé Rob Neyer, et al) is causing some analysts to look at walks differently.

I'm going to show you the walk data from last season for all batters who had 200 plate appearances or more, and all pitchers who pitched more than 50 innings. The rate stat I'll use is walks per nine innings for pitchers, and walks per 27 outs made for batters.

Here are the batting numbers (338 batters):

Batters garnered an average of 4.11 walks per 27 outs, with the median at 3.83. Four walks a game sounds about right. For comparison, here are the pitching numbers (321 pitchers):

The average number of walks given up by pitchers in 1999 was 3.78, with the median being 3.72. The small discrepancy between batters and hitters shown here can be explained by the fact that it's likely that the batters who didn't qualify were lesser players who walked less, while the pitchers who didn't qualify would have been worse and tended to give up more walks. Thus, as Carl Sagan might have said, the universe balances itself out.

At first glance it doesn't look like there's a lot of difference in the distributions. Most batters fall between 2.0 and 6.0 walks per 27 outs, and most pitchers fall into the same range. On closer examination, though, it is evident that the variation is greater among batters. It's difficult to eyeball (you need a good statistician's eye, and she probably wants it back) but fortunately, my trusty spreadsheet tells me that the standard deviation of the pitching rate is 1.13 walks per 9 innings, while the standard deviation for batters is 1.70.

What does that mean exactly?

Well, for batters, it means that about 85% of batters had walk rates between 2.4 and 5.8 walks per 27 outs (the mean value plus or minus one standard deviation.) For pitchers, it means that 85% of them had walk rates between 2.65 and 4.91 walks per 9 innings.

If there is a bigger variation among hitters than pitchers, then I believe I can draw at least a tentative conclusion that the variation is more due to hitters than it is pitchers. However, it isn't as if the two are unrelated. Surely feared hitters are walked more than their light-batted brethren? Certainly, the more feared hitters (especially those without "protection") will tend to get walked intentionally quite a bit.

Then there's the almost-intentional walk, where it isn't quite four wide ones, but the pitcher is intentionally not throwing anything close to the strike zone. If there was a significant effect of batter prowess affecting walk rate, we'd expect to see a substantial correlation between batter performance and reputation (let's go with OPS, shall we) and walk rate.

Here is that very chart:

There is certainly some correlation, but it's far from clear that walk rate is strongly tied to OPS. If I subtracted out intentional walks (which tend to be handed out mostly to higher-OPS batters) it would reduce the correlation even further. There are some players with pretty crappy OPSes but rather high walk rates. A few examples: Wally Joyner (6.44 BB/27, .713 OPS), Bobby Higginson (6.02, .733), Chad Curtis (8.06, .767). Given their anemic production, you would have to conclude that these guys can just flat out walk.

On the other hand, we have the high-production, low-walk types, such as Nomar Garciaparra (4.03, 1.021), Juan Gonzalez (3.63, .979) and Vladimir Guerrero (3.56, .978). Hmmm, for quite a while now we've known that these guys aren't that patient at the plate.

Last year's champion, by the way, was Jeff Bagwell (10.29, 1.045), followed closely by Jim Thome (9.61, .966) and Mark McGwire (9.55, 1.121). So, yes, there is something to be said for a keen batting eye. These guys are much more recognized as complete players than the previously named bunch of sluggers. At least there's still time for Nomar and Vlad to learn how to walk. (Of course, Vlad will never learn in Montreal.)

I just know you're dying to know who's at the bottom of the non-hit parade, so I'll put you out of your misery. It was none other than the infamous Shawon Dunston (0.33, .790). Yes folks, that's 0.33 walks per 27 outs, or roughly one walk per 125 trips to the dish. Dunston wasn't exactly a full-timer, though, so the honor for worst full-time player goes to Deivi Cruz (0.87, .729), followed closely by Juan Encarnacion (1.00, .737). One major notable down there: the saintly Cal (1.60, .952).

OK, so there's a quick tour of walk data from last year. Any thoughts?

about the author

Dave Paisley was overjoyed to find that he won the Postum supply contract for AAA Salt Lake Buzz. Suggest cross-selling Ovaltine at drdjp@strikethree.com.