Walks, Walks, Walks

by Charlie on Apr 26, 2008 12:00 AM EDT

Not that tonight's game was the charity walk-a-thon that Tom Gorzelanny hosted last night, but watching it unfold (particularly Adam Eaton's walk to the weak-hitting Brian Bixler) I started wondering: is it just me, or have pitchers been allowing a lot more walks this year?

It turns out it's not just me. According to Baseball Reference, there were 3.3 walks per game (per team) in the NL in both 2006 and 2007. There were 3.2 walks per game in the AL in 2006 and 3.3 in 2007. This year, there are 3.6 in each league. That's a pretty significant difference, and I'm not sure if there's a reason for it, but it seems like there are a startling number of promising (or formerly promising) young pitchers this year who, for one reason or another, suddenly can't find the strike zone: Gorzelanny, Justin Verlander, Francisco Liriano, Fausto Carmona, Jeremy Bonderman, C.C. Sabathia, Adam Loewen, Rich Hill, Ian Kennedy, Matt Cain. The list of walks leaders is full of interesting names. And while there are always some young pitchers struggling to return from injury - Liriano is one of those - a number of these guys can't be explained so simply.

None of this is to excuse Pirates' pitchers horrible control and command this year, but it's interesting.

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Hmm

I’m gonna look at it a little differently…I’ll use unintentional walks per plate appearance for the entire major leagues. But I’ll also look at just April in past seasons, to see if walk rates may be tied to the time of season.

April 2008: 8.5% of PA result in UIBB
April 2007: 8.3% (7.8% for the entire season)
April 2006: 8.4% (7.7%)
April 2005: 8.0% (7.5%)
April 2004: 8.3% (7.9%)

It would seem that walk rates in April are always higher than normal, so you can’t quite compare this season-to-date to all of last season. Looking at just past Aprils, walks don’t seem to be up significantly.

by matskralc on Apr 26, 2008 9:03 AM EDT 0 recs

I'll follow up

I’ll look at it with a per-game perspective as well. I think what a per-game look would show, though, is more related to overall offense levels. Since BB/PA aren’t significantly up, it would stand to reason that BB/G are up simply because PA/G are up, and that would be driven almost entirely by increases in offense.

April 2008: 3.30 UIBB per game
April 2007: 3.24 (3.03 for the entire season)
April 2006: 3.22 (2.97)
April 2005: 3.06 (2.88)
April 2004: 3.26 (3.06)

by matskralc on Apr 26, 2008 2:00 PM EDT up 0 recs

So basically

Compared to April last year, we’re getting an extra walk about every 500 plate appearances (or every 16-2/3 games). Even compared to April 2005, the low point in the data set, it’s an extra walk every 200 plate appearances (or 4-1/6 games). I think I’m done now.

by matskralc on Apr 26, 2008 2:04 PM EDT up 0 recs

That’s interesting. After I went home last night I was wondering about a lot of the same stuff – do pitchers just struggle with their control as they attempt to get on track earlier in the season? Or is there some class of pitchers who can’t figure things out and get weeded out of their rotations as the year goes on? Judging from your research, the answer to at least one of those questions is probably yes. It’ll be interesting to return to this in a few months.

Where’d you get your data, by the way?

by Charlie on Apr 26, 2008 3:38 PM EDT up 0 recs

By the way, if it’s true that the guys who find the strike zone either straighten things out or get weeded out, this has pretty interesting ramifications for the Pirates. Their rotation could be in serious trouble in a few months.

by Charlie on Apr 26, 2008 4:19 PM EDT up 0 recs

Heh, I used b-r, too. I just looked at their major league batting splits (and pitching splits to determine how many games were started in April).

If I had to hypothesize, I’d guess these factors are at play:

1) Weather. April is generally colder and less humid: that means less break on breaking balls (and therefore less command) and harder, farther hit batted balls (and possibly more hits and men on base and therefore more runs, meaning shorter outings and more outings for bad pitchers). I’m confident in saying this is probably the most determinative factor.
2) Teams still not having a good idea who is worth keeping around and who is not (basically: yes to your second question). I’d wager that the only month that sees more bad pitchers pitching is September, and that’s because rosters expand. Eight fluky spring training innings can buy a guy a month in the majors he otherwise shouldn’t have.
3) Fatigue. Yes, fatigue. I would seem to me that early in the season, endurance isn’t quite what it should be. Sure, we have spring training for a month, but that perhaps that doesn’t build a pitcher up completely. Perhaps pitchers fatigue quicker in April simply from not being used to a workload. Come August and September, they fatigue from overuse.
4) Similar to #3: pitchers figuring out their groove. Getting their mechanics back into sync, standardizing their arm slots, all that stuff that really only comes with constant repetition. Again, spring training may not complete the process.

by matskralc on Apr 26, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up 0 recs

shenanigans?

if we believe that Gorzellany is not hurt, and that Morris actually looks good when he works between starts, and note that the Pirates seem to be walking a lot of folks (and giving up a lot of hits—the NL is hitting over .300 against our staff)... is it possible that several Pirates pitchers are tipping their pitches, or opponents are stealing signs?

yes, this is wishful thinking/denial to some extent (“they can’t really be this bad, can they?”), and we haven’t seen Bill Belichek videotaping their warm-ups, but are such shenanigans at least partly the root of some really sh!tty pitching performances thus far?

by humbucker on Apr 26, 2008 10:26 PM EDT 0 recs