Thursday, April 14, 2011

Not Walking the Walk

Every season, one of the fun exercises is seeing what player will go the longest without doing something. For example, what player will go the most at bats to start the season without a hit? With the increased value placed on on base percentage, the figure this Fan is following is who will go the longest into the season without a walk. A quick use of the fantastic baseball-reference.com Play Index gives us fourteen players with more than 25 plate appearances thus far without a walk. They are:

  • Adam Lind - 51 plate appearances with nary a walk. He's batting .250 with a .253 OBP.
  • Brent Morel - 43 plate appearances. No walks. He walked four times in 70 PAs last year. He's batting .244 with a .263 OBP. He did get hit by a pitch once.
  • Kevin Kouzmanoff - 44 plate appearances without a walk. No surprise here as he walked only 24 times last year with 586 plate appearances. He's batting .171 with a .182 OBP. He was hit once as well.
  • Vladimir Guerrero - 43 plate appearances. No walks. Vlad will swing at anything. His batting average and on base percentage are dead even at .268.
  • Jason Kubel - 43 plate appearances. No walks. This is a surprise because Kubel has walked 56 times in each of the last two years. But his bat is hot and he probably wants to keep swinging until his hot streak wears off. He's hitting .325 with an OBP of .341. He too has been hit once.
  • Jose Lopez - 35 plate appearances without a walk. No surprise here. Lopez has 3,634 lifetime plate appearances with a 3.7 percent walk rate. Eww. 
  • Yorvit Torrealba - 33 plate appearances. No walks. He is one of two catchers on our list. Catchers don't fool around. His .242 batting average exactly matches his on base percentage.
  • Rajai Davis - 32 plate appearances without a walk. He's our second Blue Jay on the list. Davis is a speed guy who totally refuses to get on base to use it. His BA and OBP match at an abominable .142.
  • Aaron Rowand - 30 plate appearances. Zippo walks. On the one hand, it's really cool to see Rowand hit so effectively early this season. He looks great at the plate with a BA of .367 after not hitting for a couple of years. But to use a pun in that same sentence, He doesn't look great at the plate. No walks.
  • Jeff Baker - 26 plate appearances with no walks. He's in the Rowand category. Big .382 batting average. Same OBP.
  • Jeff Mathis - 27 plate appearances. Nada walks. The catcher finally gives us one of those neat statistical anomalies with a batting average of .192 and an OBP of .186. 
  • Jack Wilson - 28 plate appearances without a walk. And he might just stay that way as it's unclear whether the Mariners will play him again. He is that deep in the doghouse. Matching .231 BA and OBP.
  • Melvin Mora - 27 plate appearances with no walks. Since he's hit into two double-plays and hit two sac flies, his batting average is .280, but his OBP is .259. How cool is that...if you're not a Diamondback fan.
  • Aaron Miles - 26 plate appearances with no walks. The good folks at AaronMilesFastball.com might be pleased to see their boy on the list. 

Who among these players will be the first to take a walk? The drama builds...

3 comments:

Navin said...

Lind. UGH.

Daniel Aubain said...

I continue to invest in Lind in fantasy baseball and continue to get let down. When will I learn?

William J. Tasker said...

@Daniel and Navin: No worries. Lind will be okay. Now Aaron Hill, that's another story...