Walks

I followed the same process I did with strikeouts, but this time for walks. That is, what happens when you increase or decrease your walks?

The Study

First, I started with guys with at least 3% of their PA as HR, in a two-year period, starting in 1955. Then, I looked for the top 5% and bottom 5% of guys who changed their walks from one two-year period to the next two-year period. That gives me 120 players in each group. Then, I split them up into young guys, middle aged, and old guys. What were the results?

The Youngsters

First the young players: 42 of them increased their walks, excluding IBB, (average of +27 walks per 600 PA), and 24 dropped their walks (average drop of 22 walks per 600 PA). The control group increased by +2 walks per 600 PA. How did the rest of the game change for these young players?

Strikeouts: the control group (+2 walks) dropped by 5 K per 600 PA. Now, the young guys who really jumped in walks (+27 walks) managed to drop their strikeouts by 1 per 600 PA, while the guys who dropped in walks (-22 walks) managed to drop their strikeouts by 10.

The result is this: change in 25 walks gives you a change, in the SAME direction, of 5 strikeouts. So, it is a matter of sitting on pitches, and increasing both your walks and strikeouts. But, the increase in strikeouts pales in comparison to the increase in walks.

How about their power? The control group started with an average of 26 HR, the learners started with 27 HR, and the stubborn group started with 28 HR. How was their HR affected? The control group stuck at 26 HR, while the learners increased to 30 HR (+3 HR!), while the stubborn guys dropped to 26 HR (-2 HR!).

Alright, so what do we have here? We have a group of young guys, and if we can identify the learners, these guys increase their walks by 25, increase their HR by 3, and increase their K by 4, all relative to their peers. On the other hand are the stubborn guys, guys who simply don't learn, idiots if you will, who drop their walks by 24, drop their HR by 2, and drop their K by 5.

Even their batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is not immune. The learners increased their BABIP by 10 points above the control, while the idiots dropped it by 3 point relative to their peers.

While the SLG of the control group remained flat at .491 in both time periods, the learners, the guys who increased their walks, also managed to increase their SLG by 35 points, while the idiots dropped their SLG by 26 points.

Interestingly, the learners who increased their non-intentional walks also increased their intentional walks (by 35%). The control group increased by 21%, while the idiots increased by 5%.

The Old-Timers

Now, how about we repeat this for the old guys? In this case, we were able to identify 29 old learners (+28 walks), and 49 old idiots (-22 walks). The control group had no change in walks. Interestingly, there was no change in strikeouts among any of the groups.

The old learners managed to keep their HR rates constant, while the control group and the old idiots dropped 3 HR each. The BABIP remained flat for all of them. The SLG of the learners remained flat, while the idiots and control group dropped by 30 points.

Conclusion

To conclude, I think what we have here is very specific sets of groups: hitters who can learn, and hitters who are being overmatched by pitchers. The hitters who learn manage to wait for their pitches and end up being rewarded in both walks and HR. The hitters who are being overmatched by pitchers end up hacking at pitches, losing walks and HR.

The next step? Finding these players. Who are the learners and who are the idiots? There's an enormous potential here to finding incredible value. You can have two guys who are exactly the same performers, today, but that in 2 or 3 years will be on different tangents. Whether the answer lies in the numbers, or in scouting, I don't know. Yet. But, we need to identify those players who can manage to increase their walks and power while decreasing the strikeouts.

There's three ways you can proceed here: (1) look for these guys, the learners, and see how they do for the next 5 years, compared to the idiots, (2) determine if you can predetermine who will become a learner, before he shows (with his numbers) his learning jump, (3) can a scout spot something about the hitter's makeup and approach that makes him think he's a learner and not an idiot.

How do we know what we have in 1981 with Robin Yount compared to what we have in 1999 with Tony Batista?