On a Pace (cards, win, Cardinals, Giants)

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by filihok

Ok. I'll take tomorrow vs Freddy Garcia

.

I'm sure he tried, but Garcia was unable to walk Vlad today, another 0-4 performance by Guerrero.

I checked back and discovered that Vlad last drew a base on balls in the first inning of the Rangers-A's game on September 25th, 2010. After that pass, Guerrero collected 12 more plate appearances without walking.

He's got 83 pa in 2011, so his streak stands at 95 consecutive plate appearances with no walks.

[Ghengis]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

You will have to submit another entry fee.

I wonder...who was the greatest non walker of all time? We would need to agree upon some standards such as say, a minimum of 1500 plate appearances in order to be considered.

In searching for our ultimate free swinger, names do not serve as an appropriate guide. For example, Stan Hack was a career .301 hitter who boosted his OBA to an admirable .394 by drawing 80-90 walks each season. Conversely, Harry The Hat Walker collected a mere 245 free passes in a career which featured 2,981 plate appearances.

Because I am lazy, and because lazy people such as me always rely on the energetic sorts who are willing to do the homework, I leave it to you, filihok, to come up with the data based answer against which there can be no argument.

I do champion a candidate, although I do not know if there is someone out there who was even more skilled at avoiding the walk. I proudly nominate the Oakland A's Rob Picciolo. Despite being a bad player, Rob managed a nine season career which featured 1720 plate appearances.....and 25..yup...25 base on balls. That is a base on balls every 68.8 plate appearances. Rob had some outstanding single season campaigns. In 1980 he had 281 plate appearances and walked just twice. In a three season span, '82-'84, Picciolo racked up 233 plate appearances accompanied by two walks, both of them in '82.

I looked at a few others based on my memory of them as wild hackers, but Alfredo Griffin, who never met a pitch he didn't like, still drew a walk every 21.6 plate appearances. Benjie Molina, who played as if unaware that you were allowed not to swing, was at 24.8 plate appearances per walk. Not even in Picciolo's neighborhood much less back yard.

So, unless and until you discover someone with a worse walk rate than Rob, I shall view him as the King of Swing.

Walk pctg. of those with at least 5,000 plate appearances between 1901 and 2005, discounting sacrifices and HBP (W/AB + W)...

Top 3:
Ted Williams 20.8
Barry Bonds 20.2
Babe Ruth 19.7


Bottom 3:
Ozzie Guillen 3.5
Shawn Dunston 3.3
George Stovall 3.2

Walk Like a Sabermetrician: Career Walk Rates (an excuse to make a quick point)

[Grandstander]

Thanks for the information, Ghengis. I note that Enos Cabell made the bottom ten list at the # 7 spot. I should have thought of him because I recall that Bill James made Enos into a demonstration punching bag in his early Abstracts when he was teaching us about the importance of OBA. And Dunston...he was with the Giants briefly and was entertaining because he was one of those all or nothing sorts, in the field and at the plate. Typical of Dunston was to make some breath takingly impossible stop on a groundball, and then airmail the throw to section 12 of the stands. At the plate his approach was..."I'm allowed three wild hacks at the ball before I'm out, and I'm gonna take advantage of all three."

[Grandstander]

Focusing first on Melky, and then on Vlad, I have been overlooking an outstanding performance from the A's own Coco Crisp who has brought the lumber to the plate 86 times so far in 2011, and has drawn one walk. His pace would give him 626 at bats and seven walks for the season.

[Ridgerunner]

And Robinson Cano has 1 BB in 81 PA's.

[Grandstander]

Vlad went three for four tonight, once more avoiding that dreaded free pass. That's 87 plate appearances sans a walk in 2011, and 99 consecutive dating back to 2010.

Cano homered in four trips to the plate, but did not walk.

[jtur88]

The Padres are on a pace to be shut out 45 times this year.

[filihok]

2 more hits today for Ichiro gives him 33 on the season in 25 games for Seattle.

On pace for 213.

That'd be 11 consecutive seasons with 200+ hits

[filihok]

San Deigo reliever Mike Adams in on pace for a season line of:

0-0 0.75 ERA 78 innings, 13 hits, 0 walks, 71 strikeouts

[filihok]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

I wonder...who was the greatest non walker of all time? We would need to agree upon some standards such as say, a minimum of 1500 plate appearances in order to be considered.

Because I am lazy, and because lazy people such as me always rely on the energetic sorts who are willing to do the homework, I leave it to you, filihok, to come up with the data based answer against which there can be no argument.

I do champion a candidate, although I do not know if there is someone out there who was even more skilled at avoiding the walk. I proudly nominate the Oakland A's Rob Picciolo. Despite being a bad player, Rob managed a nine season career which featured 1720 plate appearances.....and 25..yup...25 base on balls. That is a base on balls every 68.8 plate appearances. Rob had some outstanding single season campaigns. In 1980 he had 281 plate appearances and walked just twice. In a three season span, '82-'84, Picciolo racked up 233 plate appearances accompanied by two walks, both of them in '82.

So, unless and until you discover someone with a worse walk rate than Rob, I shall view him as the King of Swing.

Didn't see this post the first time.

Kudos to Ghengis for his list, but 5000 PA's is a lot, and leaves out a lot of hacktastic players.

If we drop the PA requirement to 1500 PA's we can add these guys:
Tom Carey with 14 walks in 2409 PA's That's a 0.6% walk rate.
John Peters with 24 walks in 2719 PA's. 0.9% walk rate
Pitcher Phil Neikro drew 17 walks in 1537 PA's. 1.0% walk rate
Another pitcher, Jim McCormick, drew 22 walks in 2104 PA's. 1.0% walk rate

If we drop down to 500 PA's we find:
Jim Holdsworth with 8 walks in 1489 PA's (0.5%)

Now, maybe you cry foul since all these batters, save the pitchers, plied their wares pre 1900.

Post-1900 with 1500 PA's brings up your guy Rob Picciolo (1.5%). He's bested only by Phil Neikro.


Just since I can:
The TEAM with the lowest all time walk rate is the New York Mutuals. In 513 post 1871 games, the Mutuals walked 18 times is 2198 PA's (0.8%)

If we want only post-1900 teams we find that, unsurprisingly, the Pittsburgh Pirates have walked 7.8% of the time.
The most during that stretch is, equally unsurprising, the New York Yankees at 9.3% of the time. That's a total of 61,575 walks.