Slugger, Hacker, or Contact Hitter?

Dave Paisley

Well, it's been long enough. Two full weeks into the season and you've barely had a chart or table from me, so I thought it was about time to fix that.

This week, the USA Today web site carried a story about how amazing it is that Jose Cruz Jr. was leading the league in walks (18 at the time) while also having 13 strikeouts. The whole walk/strikeout thing flares up once in a while in baseball analysis circles, and I thought I'd take a closer look at the correlation between the two.

First, let me state some of the positions taken on the value, or lack thereof, of walks and strikeouts.

The averagely informed fan is likely to believe that walks are the fault of the pitcher and that strikeouts are very bad, usually because she remembers them when someone fans with the bases loaded, or that they don't advance the runner. Also, you get all those radio commentators telling fans how great Joe Blow is because he never strikes out.

The stathead view is that walks are very good, and are at least as much due to the plate discipline of the batter as they are due to pitcher wildness, and that strikeouts aren't bad because the "not advancing the runner" is compensated by not hitting into the occasional double play.

Certainly, the weight of statistical evidence is in favor of the latter.

My own view before I started looking at some numbers from last year were that there were mainly three types of player, namely:

• High Walk/High Strikeout -- the typical Slugger.
• Low Walk/Low Strikeout -- the typical Contact Hitter.
• Low Walk/High Strikeout -- the typical undisciplined Hacker

I never figured there were too many High Walk/Low Strikeout guys to worry about making them a category of their own, but if there are, I'd call this the Professional Hitter category.

However, I decided to take last year's numbers and take a look at some actual data. First, I selected only the players who had more than 400 plate appearances. Then I figured out walks and strikeouts per plate appearance, and then normalized them around the median and divided by half the difference between the maximum and minimum values in each category to get what I call Relative Walks and Relative Strikeouts.

Did you get all that?

If not, don't worry. I then plotted relative walks against relative strikeouts to make the following chart. Each blue diamond represents one player. The red lines that split the diagram into four quadrants represent the average walk and strikeout ratios. An interesting point to note is that the four quadrants are actually pretty evenly populated, so there are actually plenty of low strikeout/high walk guys.

Looking at the top right quadrant, we can see that we do indeed have the elite Slugger, Mark McGwire, way up in walks (completely outside any normal statistical boundary). We also have Jim Thome, who strikes out a ton, but also is in the top ten in walk rate.

In the top left quadrant, we see Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield leading the way. If walking a ton while not striking out is what you really want, then these two guys are your men. Also way up there in that sector are Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Frank Thomas, John Olerud, and of all people, Mark McLemore. No dross there, but certainly some relatively unsung heroes. Note Rickey Henderson up there in walks and just slightly above average in Ks. Keeping him company in that area are Tim Salmon and Brian Giles.

But what about those two other sectors?

At the bottom left we have the Contact Hitters, who don't strike out much and don't walk much. Note Tony Gwynn, who strikes out less than anyone. Unfortunately, he doesn't walk much either. Mike Caruso, the White Sox shortstop, leads the league in doing neither.

At the bottom right, we have the wild Hacker category, led by Todd Dunwoody of the Marlins. To be fair, this quadrant has more than its fair share of youngsters just getting used to the majors. Apparently, they either disappear or they move to one of the other quadrants as they mature. On the other hand, maybe they just fool people into thinking they're useful, like Ed Sprague, Raul Mondesi and arch hacker Russ Davis of the Mariners.

So there's a quick tour of the walk/strikeout picture. I'm not convinced that strikeouts are terribly relevant, good or bad, but they may help to characterize the types of hitter.

about the author

Dave Paisley, spent from creating the charting masterpiece you see above, is in the middle of a two-day nap. Let him now that his cold sweat is due to a nightmare involving John Kruk and a large tub of Cheez Whiz at drdjp@strikethree.com.