Last week I pointed out that the Phillies excelled at preventing walks last year. While Roy Halladay led the charge, the pitchers other than Halladay were exceptionally good at preventing walks as well.
In 2010, NL pitchers combined to throw 23,088 1/3 innings and walked 8,508 batters. That’s a walk rate of 3.32 per nine innings. They faced 99,037 batters — 8,508 walks is a walk rate of 8.59%.
Here’s the list of 2010 Phillies that had a walk rate of less than 3.32 per nine innings and those who walked less than 8.59% of the batters they faced:
| IP | BB | BB/9 | BF | BB | % BF BB | ||
| Andrew Carpenter Roy Halladay Jamie Moyer Joe Blanton Ryan Madson Roy Oswalt Kyle Kendrick Jose Contreras Cole Hamels Vance Worley David Herndon Nelson Figueroa |
3.0 250.7 111.7 175.7 53.0 82.7 180.7 56.7 208.7 13.0 52.3 26.0 |
0 30 20 43 13 21 49 16 61 4 17 9 |
0 1.1 1.6 2.2 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.8 2.9 3.1 |
Andrew Carpenter Roy Halladay Jamie Moyer Joe Blanton Ryan Madson Kyle Kendrick Roy Oswalt Jose Contreras Cole Hamels David Herndon Vance Worley |
14 993 460 765 217 771 316 233 856 232 51 |
0 30 20 43 13 49 21 16 61 17 4 |
0.00% 3.02% 4.35% 5.62% 5.99% 6.36% 6.65% 6.87% 7.13% 7.33% 7.84% |
| Totals | 1214 | 283 | 2.10 | 4908 | 274 | 5.58% |
Those lists are not ordered the same, but they contain the same pitchers with the exception of Nelson Figueroa. In his 26 innings with the Phils last year, Figueroa walked nine, giving him a rate of walks per nine innings better than 3.32 batters per nine innings even though he walked more than 8.59% of the batters he faced.
Here’s the list of the guys who had a walk rate worse than 3.32 batters per nine or who walked more than 8.59% of the batters that they faced:
| IP | BB | BB/9 | BF | BB | % BF BB | ||
| Chad Durbin Danys Baez Antonio Bastardo Brad Lidge Mike Zagurski J.A. Happ J.C. Romero Scott Mathieson Nate Robertson |
68.7 47.7 18.7 45.7 7.0 15.3 36.7 1.7 1.0 |
27 23 9 24 5 12 29 2 2 |
3.5 4.3 4.3 4.7 6.4 7 7.1 10.8 18 |
Nelson Figueroa Chad Durbin Antonio Bastardo Danys Baez Brad Lidge Mike Zagurski Scott Mathieson J.C. Romero J.A. Happ Nate Robertson |
104 291 86 216 193 34 12 171 70 10 |
9 27 9 23 24 5 2 29 12 2 |
8.65% 9.28% 10.47% 10.65% 12.44% 14.71% 16.67% 16.96% 17.14% 20.00% |
| Totals for group | 242.3 | 133 | 4.94 | 1083 | 133 | 12.28% | |
| Team totals for 2010 | 1456.3 | 416 | 2.57 | 5991 | 407 | 6.79% |
A couple of things stick out when you compare the good walks group to the bad walks group. The first is how much more frequently the good walks group pitched than the bad walks group. By innings pitched, the good walk group of pitchers threw about 83.4% of the total innings thrown by the Phillies in 2010. By batters faced is was about 81.9%.
The second thing is how much better the good group was than the first. By walks per nine innings, the bad group walked about 2.35 times as many hitters. By percentage of walks per batter faced it was about 2.20 times as many.
Greg Gross says a flaw in Domonic Brown’s swing has been fixed.
At The Hardball Times, Chris Jaffe points out that 10,000 days ago Steve Carlton got his 300th win.
February 8th, 2011 on 9:52 am
I guess we’ll see on Dom Brown. His swing was pretty good in the minors last year. I really hope that he just wins the job outright this spring and gets a majority of the playing time.
As for the main point of the post, I would’ve thought that Durbin walked more guys than he did. It seemed like he was always lighting a match near the gas tank. Excited to see Romero back on the team looking at these numbers too. Somebody will have to balance out the fact that Halladay and Lee don’t walk anybody.
Also nice to see that Carpenter was good at something.
February 8th, 2011 on 11:22 am
I am pretty surprised about the return of Romero. Hope he’s great. Doesn’t seem likely.
I think Brown will play a lot in right early in the season. I don’t feel like he’s a good bet to put up big numbers yet. I don’t really see what Mayberry brings to the right field pitcher other than being a worse option than Francisco. I would feel a lot more comfortable if the Phils had a legit left-handed hitting corner OF who could platoon with Francisco in right if Brown struggles.
February 8th, 2011 on 12:02 pm
I don’t necessarily think that Brown will put up huge numbers in 2011 either, I just think that he is the best of the existing options.
February 8th, 2011 on 12:06 pm
I think a Brown/Francisco platoon is the best option for right field right now. I think there’s a chance that Brown will prove not to be ready, though, and I’m not sure what happens if that proves to be the case. Hopefully he comes out swinging a big bat.
February 8th, 2011 on 4:58 pm
(Sidenote) Interesting – Dennys Reyes got a minor league deal from the BoSox. Must have been something serious in that physical with the Phils..
February 8th, 2011 on 5:18 pm
Two things. First, why am I not surprised where Hamels falls on the walks list. seems like there is more to his W/L record than the poor offense behind him. Second, I am hoping that Ben will respond to playing every day by picking up his game. I have this knawing feeling about Brown, and it is not a pleasant sensation.
Pitchers and catchers in 5 days. But who’s counting.
February 8th, 2011 on 9:59 pm
I totally agree that the Reyes physical must have been memorable for some reason. That whole thing is weird.
On Hamels, I think the other big factor in terms of W/L other than the offense not scoring any runs is that he doesn’t go as deep in games as you might hope. I hope we see him both throw fewer pitches per inning in 2011 and go longer.
I’m counting. Guessing I’m not the only one.
February 9th, 2011 on 9:44 am
True on Hamels, but he likely won’t go as deep into ballgames when he’s walking too many guys.
February 9th, 2011 on 9:48 am
With Hamels, I think that the reason he winds up throwing so many pitches per inning isn’t because of a high walk rate, but because even when he doesn’t walk the batter it takes him more pitches to get through the PA. Just an impression, I don’t have any data on that. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere.
February 9th, 2011 on 10:52 am
I do not know if anyone has been watching, but MLB has been doing a “Current Top 10″ player rating for every position and for starters and relief. We have someone in the top 10 at every positioon except right field (Werth is #3 I think) and relief pitching. They list us as having two starters in the top 10, Doc (#1) and Cliff (#7).
February 9th, 2011 on 1:15 pm
Todd Zolecki had a post with all the lists (http://zozone.mlblogs.com/archives/2011/02/the_top_10_right_now.html). I don’t know exactly what the criteria are, but Rollins as the sixth-best shortstop seems pretty high to me.
February 9th, 2011 on 1:29 pm
I think it just speaks of how spoiled we’ve been with our shortstop over the past 10+ seasons.
February 9th, 2011 on 1:30 pm
Maybe the criteria was people with names that make it sound like they should be elite shortstops.
February 9th, 2011 on 3:08 pm
I kind of like the idea that Chooch made it to #7. I think that is cool. I really like that.
Greg has a point, I think. We have been spoiled over the past few years with the quality of the guys playing for us. I grump and moan about them like any native bred Philly guy but the thing is that the VAST majority of teams would trade almost any of their position players for ours, man for man. That we have the luxury of fretting whether or not one of our guys is rated too high is a luxury most teasm wished to goodness they had.
Someday, we may not have any guys in the top ten and the days of this present time will be looked back upon as a golden age. For lord knows, it sure is.
Pitchers and catchers in FOUR.
February 9th, 2011 on 3:24 pm
I think I’d do that list a little differently.. but it’s not so far off.
Maybe, just maybe, Chooch won’t bat 8th this year.
February 9th, 2011 on 4:58 pm
I’m with you on moving Ruiz up in the order. In 2010 he got almost as many PA hitting seventh as he did 8th (two more hitting 8th) and crushed the ball out of the 7-spot. 337/407/524 hitting seventh vs 263/398/351 hitting eighth.
February 9th, 2011 on 5:34 pm
You know, I have been spending some time this afternoon trying to 1) assume the guys who we think we can assume will be good, and then 2) thinking about the guys who we do not assume will be good and who MUST to be good. (Does that make sense?)
I think that if Danys Baez turns in a good year, we are going to be fearsome and maybe unbeatable. (Remember, I am assuming Lidge, Madson, Contreras will be who they are supposed to be.) If we have those four, along with the starting five, this is going to be a mighty impressive team, regardless of right field.