In 2012, NL batters walked in about 7.9% of their plate appearances. Right-handed hitters like Delmon Young walked in about 7.3% of their plate appearances. In their chances against righties they drew walks about 6.9% of the time and in their chances against lefties they walked about 8.0% of the time.

Delmon Young walks less than that and he always has.

The table below shows Young’s walk percentages for every year of his career except 2006. In 2006, he got 131 plate appearances and walked once (0.8% walk rate). Not saying it matters, but the walk came against righty Huston Street.

Year BB% vs L vs R
2007 3.8 4.1 3.7
2008 5.6 7.5 4.8
2009 2.9 2.2 3.2
2010 4.6 6.7 3.6
2011 4.6 5.6 4.2
2012 3.3 2.1 3.8
Career 4.1 4.7 3.8

His walk rate has just about always been bad. The years when it’s been really atrocious are 2009 and 2012. As I mentioned yesterday, in 2012 there were 222 players other than Young across both leagues with at least 350 plate appearances and 221 of them had a better walk rate than he did. In 2009 his 2.9% walk rate was 249th of 252 players across both leagues with at least 350 plate appearances.

In both of those years, Young’s walk rate against lefties was down super low, almost to 2%. You’ll notice that in 2010, his walk rate against righties was similar to his walk rate in ’09 and ’12, but he got his overall walk rate up to 4.6% thanks to walks in 6.7% of his plate appearances against lefties.

Young’s best walk rate of his career was 2008 when he walked in about 5.6% of his plate appearances. That still isn’t good. In Phillies context, among the players with 100 plate appearances in 2012, Polanco walked in about 5.5% of his PA and Pieree in about 5.2%. They were all below the team rate of 7.4%. And the team rate of 7.4% was terrible.

Brian Schneider seems to be retiring at age 36. Schneider spent the last three years of his career with the Phillies, hitting 212/295/327 over 384 plate appearances.

MLB.com’s top 100 prospect list is now available. It includes left-handed pitcher Jesse Biddle at number 60 and right-handed pitcher Ethan Martin at number 80. Given that there are 30 MLB teams, having your best prospect on the list appear at number 60 isn’t a good sign.