David Hunter
The importance of on-base percentage, working counts, drawing walks, and looking for your pitch has been emphasized largely since the 1970’s if not even as far back as the 1920’s during the start of the Murderer’s Row in New York.
Nowadays with the advent of Sabermetrics, a lot of tools have become common place in baseball vernacular to the point that the kids growing up since 1995 have accepted acronyms such as OBP (on base percentage), SLG (slugging percentage), and OPS (on base plus slugging) as being on the same level as BA (batting average) and RBI (runs batted in).
Given the importance of pitch counts in relation to starting pitchers nowadays, on base percentage and being able to draw walks and make the pitcher work over the course of a given at bat has become so paramount that GM Theo Epstein went after the Chicago Cubs for not having a good on base percentage and preaching plate discipline, “On-base skills translate to run-scoring much more than slugging skills.”
There is generally an acceptance that on base percentage outweighs slugging percentage with the weight being varied depending on whom you talk to. Phil Birnbaum did an analysis on whether Paul Depodesta’s phrase of OBP being worth 3X as much as SLG really held up or not. In the end, Birnbaum came up with the widely accepted value that OBP is worth 1.8X as much as SLG and more interestingly, 1 point of OBP drawn through a BB (walk) is worth 52 runs compared to 1 point of OBP through a H (hit) being worth 46 runs.
So what does this all boil down to? A majority of the greatest hitters in baseball worked the plate, knew the pitches they could drive, and draw walks when necessary.
Credit to Bill James Baseball IQ App and blogredmachine.com
Even players nowadays such as Joey Votto and Shin-Soo Choo have internalized the importance of the at-bat and the importance of both waiting for their pitch and taking the walk if necessary. From 2011-2012, Votto drew 204 walks in 1,194 PA but still had 311 hits. As of June 30th, Choo has drawn 56 walks in just 370 plate appearances for the 2013 Season. His career high is 83, set in 2010 when he hit an even .300.
The following is a table of various career numbers sorted by plate appearances. Before we get into it, this list does include several players accused of or admitted to using steroids.
Fact is that steroids don’t radically help the eye judgment of a batter and they sure didn’t turn Mark McGwire into a perennial .300 hitter. What really helped his power explosion was he dramatically improved his plate patience to the point that from 1996-1999 he drew: 116, 101, 162, and 133 walks. Sammy Sosa‘s peak in terms of power also came when he was more disciplined from 1998-2002, drawing a ton more walks than he initially had during most of his career: 73, 78, 91, 116 (peak), and 103. In those same seasons his power numbers spiked: 66, 63, 50, 64, and 49 HRs. Another example of a “steroid” player was Rafael Palmeiro whom saw his power also spike from 1999-2004. Hint? He also drew more walks than ever in his career: 79, 97, 103, 101, 104 (peak), 84, and 86. In that span he hit: 43, 47, 39, 47, 43, 38, and 23 HR but also consistently hit 30+ doubles a season too.
| Player | PA | Doubles | HR | BB | K | OBP | SLG |
| Henry Aaron | 13,941 | 624 | 755 | 1,402 | 1,383 | .374 | .555 |
| Barry Bonds | 12,606 | 601 | 762 | 2,558 | 1,539 | .444 | .607 |
| Willie Mays | 12,496 | 523 | 660 | 1,464 | 1,526 | .384 | .557 |
| Honus Wagner | 11,748 | 643 | 101 | 963 | 735 | .391 | .467 |
| Frank Robinson | 11,742 | 528 | 586 | 1,420 | 1,532 | .389 | .537 |
| Reggie Jackson | 11,418 | 463 | 563 | 1,375 | 2,597 | .356 | .490 |
| Mel Ott | 11,348 | 488 | 511 | 1,708 | 896 | .414 | .533 |
| Ken Griffey Jr. | 11,304 | 524 | 630 | 1,312 | 1,779 | .370 | .538 |
| Babe Ruth | 10,622 | 506 | 714 | 2,062 | 1,330 | .474 | .690 |
| Chipper Jones | 10,614 | 549 | 468 | 1,512 | 1,409 | .401 | .529 |
| Frank Thomas | 10,075 | 495 | 521 | 1,667 | 1,397 | .419 | .555 |
| Mike Schmidt | 10,062 | 408 | 548 | 1,507 | 1,883 | .380 | .527 |
| Mickey Mantle | 9,907 | 344 | 536 | 1,733 | 1,710 | .421 | .557 |
| Harmon Killebrew | 9,833 | 290 | 573 | 1,559 | 1,699 | .376 | .509 |
| Ted Williams | 9,788 | 525 | 521 | 2,021 | 709 | .482 | .634 |
| Willie McCovey | 9,692 | 353 | 521 | 1,345 | 1,550 | .374 | .515 |
| Jimmie Foxx | 9,676 | 458 | 534 | 1,452 | 1,311 | .428 | .609 |
| Lou Gehrig | 9,663 | 534 | 493 | 1,508 | 790 | .447 | .632 |
| Jeff Bagwell | 9,431 | 488 | 449 | 1,401 | 1,558 | .408 | .540 |
| Jason Giambi | 8,743 | 400 | 435 | 1,350 | 1,534 | .402 | .521 |
| Joe DiMaggio | 7,673 | 389 | 361 | 790 | 369 | .398 | .579 |
| Mark McGwire | 7,660 | 252 | 583 | 1,317 | 1,596 | .394 | .588 |
Cal Ripken Jr. is an interesting player because in some ways, he should have been an even better hitter than he was. He would finish his career with a .276 average and “just” a .340 OBP for a guy who hit 603 doubles and 431 home runs. From 1986-1988 he looked to be on his way to being a premiere slugger: 25, 27, and 23 HR while drawing 70, 81, and (a career high) 102 BB. Despite hitting .264 in 1988, Cal would still manage to get on base just over 37% of the time. After that season, he reverted and almost annually drew 50-58 walks a season until 1999 while hitting only more than 30 HRs once in a season, 1991 when he hit a career best .323.
Credit to http://www.fineartamerica.com
Ernie Banks is another player whose discipline fell off after great success. His 40+ HR seasons coincided with the fact that he was also reaching career highs in walks including 70 in 1957, 64 in 1959, and 71 in 1960.
Now the above table is related largely to power hitters. After all, if you are a player hitting for doubles and home runs, it would stand to reason that would you get pitched around more and see more walks as a result.
There are a lot of players with 3,000 hits who obviously were not power hitters and instead sprayed singles and doubles all over the place. It’s clear though that plate discipline also helped them be equally productive.
Despite coming into the major leagues late, Wade Boggs would walk 87+ times a season while hitting over .330 in 7 of those 9 seasons. He also had 200 hits in 7 of those years. In some ways, Tony Gwynn Sr. was the antithesis of Boggs yet his best season came in 1987 when he walked 82 times and had then career highs in: H with 218, 2B with 36, 3B with 13, and SB with 56. While not usually hitting for a very high average, Pete Rose was closer to Wade Boggs in that he was capable of drawing 65+ walks a season with several in the 80+ range.
Even players who struggled at the plate have finally started sussing out the secret such as C Carlos Ruiz during the 2010 season, “You don’t feel comfortable at the plate. It puts a lot of pressure on yourself. But right now, it’s one pitch at a time. I’m looking for something to hit.” Since that realization, he has put up OBPs of .400, .371, and .394 while hitting .302, .283, and .325 in part time duty. In 2012 he smashed 16 HR in only 421 PA. Despite his spare playtime, he has also walked 132 times during that 3 season span.
The players that have struggled, such as Jeff Francoeur, have either dismissed the importance of the statistic or been blissfully ignorant of it. Since 2009, Francoeur has never walked more than 37 times in a season and as of June 30th was hitting .208/.249/.322 with just 8 BB in 193 PA for the Kansas City Royals.
As the years have gone on, many players who often would go under the radar have become more appreciated for their skill set and more importantly, their ability to get on base and not create outs. Starting in 1997, Jay Bell remolded himself into an on base machine first for the Kansas City Royals, then the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also molded himself into a better power hitter during those years, hitting 21, 20, 38, and 18 HR from 1997-2000. Bell was a key contributor to the 2001 World Series team, finishing 4th on the team in OBP with players over 500 PA.
The Hall of Fame has also been impacted, with 2B Craig Biggio getting a lot of public support as much for his ability to get on base (career .363 mark) as his having 3,060 career hits. Another player, Tim Raines, has also seen his case steadily rising as a result of his abilities outside of his 2,605 hits, largely circling around his ability to get on base (1,330 walks for his career & a career .385 OBP).
There is an entire website devoted to the Steroid Era of baseball. The steroid era is commonly believed to be roughly 1995-2004 with some starting it a few years earlier or later depending on who you talk to. The issue here is the incredible evolution of plate discipline with a majority of these players and Major League Baseball itself.
I’ll start with the 1993 Season in part due to the inclusion of Colorado and Florida as expansion teams.
1993: 15,110 BB with 1,200 HBP, 1,477 IBB, and 26,310 K. League OBP was .332
1994: 15,778 BB with 1,241 HBP, 1,428 IBB, and 28,018 K. League OBP was .339 [Pro-Rated up to 162 Games]
1995: 16,012 BB with 1,370 HBP, 1,242 IBB, and 28,588 K. League OBP was .338 [Pro-Rated up to 162 Games]
1996: 16,093 BB with 1,404 HBP, 1,343 IBB, and 29,038 K. League OBP was .340
1997: 15,666 BB with 1,449 HBP, 1,169 IBB, and 29,937 K. League OBP was .337
1998: 16,447 BB with 1,587 HBP, 1,067 IBB, and 31,893 K. League OBP was .335 [Arizona & TB Teams Arrive]
1999: 17,891 BB with 1,579 HBP, 1,107 IBB, and 31,119 K. League OBP was .345
2000: 18,237 BB with 1,573 HBP, 1,210 IBB, and 31,356 K. League OBP was .345
2001: 15,806 BB with 1,890 HBP, 1,384 IBB, and 32,404 K. League OBP was .332
2002: 16,246 BB with 1,746 HBP, 1,452 IBB, and 31,394 K. League OBP was .331
2003: 15,889 BB with 1,849 HBP, 1,316 IBB, and 30,801 K. League OBP was .333
It is pretty clear that plate discipline shot off by 1995 and started rolling uphill until a peak around 1999 and 2000. Note the sharp rise of players drawing BB, getting more HBP, striking out more, while being intentionally walked less. That to me says that the hitters were challenging pitchers to deeper counts (leading to more walks or strikeouts) while managers were less willing to intentionally walk batters and asked their pitchers to go after hitters. Combine those two philosophies and you have a recipe, when tied to more batters trying to hit home runs and more pitchers trying to strike hitters out, that mostly led to the inflated power numbers that dominated baseball in the mid to late 1990s.
There is just too much evidence that the explosion in power was largely based on the underlying framework behind how hitters were attacking pitchers (by working counts and going for HRs) and pitchers were going after hitters during that era to entirely blame it on just steroids. For every fluke season from a Brady Anderson or Ken Caminiti, there were a ton of players drawing walks and just hammering pitches for 3-4 year “career” high spans from roughly 1995-1999 to just proclaim that everybody did steroids and everybody was juiced to the gills.
Catcher Todd Hundley reportedly received steroids in 1996.
1994-1995: 649 PA – 21 2B – 31 HR – 67 BB – 137 K
1996 Seas: 624 PA – 32 2B – 41 HR – 79 BB – 146 K
1997 Seas: 508 PA – 21 2B – 30 HR – 83 BB – 116 K
Those numbers on the surface don’t look radically different. Even with steroids he had modest improvement in power but his batting average dipped hard (from .280 in 1995 to .259) before rebounding to .273 in 1997. It is just as easy to say he was in his prime (he was 27 years old in 1996) and tried to swing for the fences with every single at bat which would explain the uptick in doubles and strikeouts.
Displaying patience at the plate generally goes hand in hand with getting good pitches and hammering them. Hal Morris, another player accused of steroids in 1999, had a ‘career’ year in 1996.
1991: 537 PA – 33 2B – 14 HR – 50 BB – 61 K
1992: 530 PA – 25 2B – 7 HR – 53 BB – 63 K [Pro Rated for easier comparison]
1996: 594 PA – 32 2B – 16 HR – 50 BB – 76 K
Another example of a player who was productive, during the ‘prime’ of his career, who managed to have a healthy long season with a lot of opportunities at the plate. So he put up more numbers just due to the larger sample size.
Chuck Knoblauch from 1995-1999 was walking 76-84 times a season and that coincided with him hitting double digit home runs including 18 in 1999. Prime years yet again. Even singles hitting Tony Gwynn Sr., in his late 30’s, hit the following number of home runs from 1997-1999: 17, 16, and 10. Nobody accuses him of steroids.
Chili Davis from 1997-1999: 78 HRs but also walked 89, 86, and 85 times. Tim Salmon from 1995-1997: 97 HRs but also walked 91, 93, and 95 times. Rusty Greer from 1997-1999: 62 HRs and walked 83, 80, and 96 times.
Credit to http://www.achievement.org
Yogi Berra hit 30 HR in just two seasons, 1952 and 1956. He walked 66 and 65 times, again the only two seasons where he drew more than 65 walks. Roger Maris is infamously known for hitting 61 HR in 1961. He also walked a career high 97 times that season. The next season he walked 87 times and hit 33 HR but also a career high 34 2B.
There are simply too many players when you really examine their careers to deny that plate patience often leads to power production and this was also primarily how most of the hitters started changing their games in the mid and late 1990s into the early 2000’s.
Finally, let’s examine the cases of modern day players. Plate patience is an absolute necessity for not only success but also helps to explain ‘sudden’ power surges and career seasons.
- Pablo Sandoval: Peaked in 2009 with 52 BB. Hit 44 2B & 25 HR. Has since seen his BB drop and 2B drop each season as a result.
- Jose Bautista: Exploded with 54 and 43 HR in 2010/2011 after getting 650+ PA each year and drawing 232 BB combined.
- Chris Davis: Hit 33 HR and has exploded with 30 HR in an early season. Why the power? He’s drawn 35 BB in just 338 PA. Pro rate that out to 650 PA and that turns into what would be a career best 67 BB.
Credit to BaseballProspectus.com for feature image
