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Ruiz more than pleased to take a walk
By egrissom | January 8, 2009
Looking at walk rate today (based on the percentage of their plate appearances in which a player drew a walk) for the 13 Phillies batters that got at least 100 plate appearances with the team in 2008.
There were some surprises there for me. The biggest was that Ruiz drew walks at a rate slightly higher than Ryan Howard in 2008. If you’re gonna hit .219 and slug .300, you need to find your ray of light somewhere. Here it is:
| Player | PA | BB | % of PA |
| Pat Burrell | 645 | 102 | 15.81 |
| Jayson Werth | 482 | 57 | 11.83 |
| Carlos Ruiz | 373 | 44 | 11.80 |
| Ryan Howard | 700 | 81 | 11.57 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 625 | 58 | 9.28 |
| Chase Utley | 707 | 64 | 9.05 |
| Eric Bruntlett | 238 | 21 | 8.82 |
| So Taguchi | 103 | 8 | 7.77 |
| Geoff Jenkins | 322 | 24 | 7.45 |
| Shane Victorino | 627 | 45 | 7.18 |
| Pedro Feliz | 463 | 33 | 7.13 |
| Chris Coste | 305 | 16 | 5.25 |
| Greg Dobbs | 240 | 11 | 4.58 |
The walk rate for Ruiz was the biggest surprise to me. He does have the advantage of hitting eighth in front of the pitcher, but his walk rate still is better than average eight hitters in the NL. In 2008, the average NL team’s eight hitters got 643 plate appearances and drew 58 walks, about 9% of their plate appearances.
Ruiz also walked more regularly than all Phillies eight hitters (including himself) combined — in 2008, Phillies eight hitters walked 60 times in 649 plate appearances, about 9.2% of the time. Ruiz got 316 plate appearances as a number eight hitter in ‘08 and drew 40 walks, which is about 12.7% of his plate appearances. All other Phillies hitters batting in the eight-hole combined to walk 20 times in 333 plate appearances. That’s about 6.0% of the time.
Besides Ruiz, Coste was the guy who saw the most time hitting eighth for the Phils, and he hardly walked at all in front of the pitcher. Coste drew just six walks in 192 plate appearances as an eight-hitter last year. That’s about 3.1% of the time, which is really low.
I also would have guessed that Utley would have been ahead of Rollins. Not so much. Utley out on-based Rollins .380 to .349, but not because he walked more regularly. He hit his way on base more, hitting .292 to .277 for Rollins, and also added about 25 points to his on-base percentage by getting hit by pitch an amazing 27 times.
Dobbs actually walked at a rate lower than all of the Phillies pitchers combined. Phillies pitchers combined to draw 18 walks in 365 plate appearances for the year, which is about 4.93% of their plate appearances.
The Phillies invited nine more players to spring training, including Marcus Giles, Jason Donald and Gary Majewski. Also invited was 26-year-old left-handed hitting outfielder Jeremy Slayden, who hit 298/377/480 at Double-A Reading for the Phils in 2008.
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Topics: offense |
January 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I think someone in the phlogosphere posted about this in 2008, but if you review every one of Ruiz’s walks, you’ll be surprised by how few times he moved his bat. Half way through the season I started concentrating on this, and whenever he’d go up there and just stand there, bat on shoulder, he’d get the walk more times than not!
January 8th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Found it on The Fightins: http://www.thefightins.com/meechone/carlos-ruiz-employs-new-batting-strategy/
January 8th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Interesting link, phan_in_babylon, thanks.
Don’t know what to make of Ruiz as a hitter at all. In 2007 he was all over the first pitch and getting terrible results. He laid off the first pitch in 2008 and the overall results were terrible anyway. Did draw a lot of walks, though.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Dobbs’ low walk % is a good sign of an effective pinch hitter. The majority of his pinch hits were situations where there were runners on and he was needed to drive in runs. I’m not saying a walk hurts, but I’m fine with aggressive bats when your purpose to drive runs in and not create them.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I agree that there are lots of situations where you don’t want hitters looking for walks. My worry about Dobbs isn’t about how often he walks when he’s pinch-hitting, it’s that the rate he walks when he’s not isn’t much better.
In ‘08 he walked three times in 67 pa as a pinch-hitter, about 4.5% of the time. When he wasn’t pinch-hitting, he walked 8 times in 173 pa, about 4.6% of the time. It may just be that his aggressive approach is the same whether he’s pinch-hitting or not and, like you suggested, that makes him good in situations where you don’t want your hitter to walk.
Dobbs was fantastic as a pinch-hitter last year, hitting 355/388/532 in 62 at-bats. He hit 280/312/476 when he wasn’t pinch-hitting.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=dobbsgr01&year=2008
January 8th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Ruiz’s bat has always looked slow to me. Perhaps he has a good eye but lacks the physical skills needed to get a hit with consistency. Interesting. Thanks for posting this.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Ruiz is often pitched around becuase he bats in the 8 hole in front of the pitcher. He does have a pretty good eye and did hit alot better toward the end of the season and the post season.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Two things that jump out at me about these numbers are missing all Pat’s walks. oh well…
The other is Werth vs Vic in the 2 hole.
I liked how Charlie managed this situation last year (since we won it all) but I wonder if he goes off feel or stats. I always loved it when Werth led off an inning in the 6 hole because he so often got a lead off walk (or at least how it felt) I guess it’s a good problem to have.
Two other things: Be nice if Jimmy walked a bit more but thats Jimmy, oh well.
Lastly, wonder if our strategy will have any kind of lull without Jimmy Williams…ie- how many of Charlie’s moves were Jimmy whispering in his ear?
January 9th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I think Werth has to hit behind Howard now. The other choice seems like Ibanez, which would put three lefties in a row.
I liked Werth in the six-hole, too. Gonna miss Burrell.
Rollins actually picked up his walk rate last year. Nice to see him walking more than Utley at least. Hopefully he keeps going in that direction. Not a good year with him with the bat at all in 08, compared to 06 and 07.
Dunno about Williams, but I didn’t notice a whole lot different in the way Manuel did things with him around than when he wasn’t around.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Mets with Redding and Lowe?? That would not be fun…wonder where that wheel will stop spinning.
I would not mind them having Perez and Redding. Perez does not seem that mentally tough.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
It sounds like there’s a good chance the Mets get Redding. Neither of those guys terrify me, though. If the Mets have to give Lowe three years, $40 million to bring him aboard that would be a lot. If someone’s going to give Lowe three years, $40 million, I hope it’s the Mets and not the Phils.