All Jon will get will be a grandfather clock and an iguana named Jubjub.

Unless his name is Vladimir Guerrero, in which case, who cares about the strike zone?

When Bobby Abreu came to the Yankees, everyone talked about how they became a OBP machine but that is how they won all those World Series in 1990s.

I do think when a team supposedly flaunts it like some sort of magical formula like the A's or when a player making millions appears to rather walk than hack, then this approach gets attacked.

Jon, I think you are right to be mystified but I do think that walks will never be valued as the offensive weapon that they should be. BTW, the Dodgers had to have highest walk to HR ratio (offensive in the league), so there were some other guys who walked too wearing Dodger Blue in 2006.

Stan from Tacoma

For all the criticism Drew got for being too patient, he'd swing at the first pitch if it was in the zone.

Does "trying to draw a walk" mean "not swinging at pitches outside the strike zone"?

Does "trying to get the runners home" mean "swinging at pitches outside the strike zone"?

I would define it as taking extremely hittable pitches when the count is 3-1 or 2-1. Remember how Todd Zeile used to hit? That.

[12] i wasn't criticizing drew for it.

--

Like your trying harder if your not working the count.

And so is Billy Beane, but probably not the way you mean.

With a runner on third and less than two outs (in a close game especially), you want your batter to make contact the first chance he gets. In other words, take a two-strike approach from the first pitch of the at-bat.

Some players, however, are incapable of changing their approach depending on the context. They can only do one or the other; they have the same approach all the time--that's all they can do.

For example, Jeremy Giambi, Erubiel Durazo, and Scott Hatteberg were of the "always-selective" types. Jay Payton is of the "always-contact" type.

The problem is that for years, the A's were overloaded with players of the "selective-only" type. It's a tie game with a runner on third, the batter gets a fastball on the first pitch, and time after time the A's player just watched it go by. It's one thing when you have one or two players in your lineup who do that, but when it's six or seven, as a fan, it can be so aggravating.

I don't have any numerical proof of this, but just anecdotally, I believe that if you can't have a batter who can change his approach during an at-bat, it's better to have a mix in your lineup: sprinkle a contact hitter here and there in-between the patience. If you walk X with a runner on third and less than two outs, Y is going to put the ball in play and get the run home.

I suppose this is all provable or disprovable with statistics, but you have to get down to the level of the count, the game context, and the type and location of the pitch to prove or disprove my hunch, because that's where my aggravation lies.

"Free agent Toby Hall isn't interested in returning to the Devil Rays on a minor league contract.
"That was funny," Hall said. "I guess it would be a minor league contract because they're a minor league team." Way to burn those bridges, Toby. The club gave you more than 2,000 at-bats even though you never once managed a 700 OPS. Your OBP for the club was under .300, and you never came close to matching the 19 homers you hit at Triple-A Durham in 2001. If the Rays weren't much more than a minor league team during your tenure, well, it's in part because you weren't much more than a minor league player."

*Or as Charlie Brown said so well,
"Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?"*

If you believe in the school of hitting as espoused by Vladimir Guerrero, the answer is yes.

I think that's very batter-dependent. It's possible the very selective batters aren't comfortable swinging at anything outside the zone - in which case they probably shouldn't. I have to agree with Ken when he says a team of such batters might well be problematic.

Which kind of makes Shimmin's get-well wishes seem self-centered.

I'm pretty much in agreement here except to say that a hitter can afford to be selective until he reaches 2 strikes. Then you have different situation and the adage goes into effect, "If it's too close to let it go, swing."

The tension in that last phrase says it all: "working the free pass." Kinda oxymoronic, ain't it?

Andrew wants me to get better so he can (guiltlessly) resume telling everyone I hate women.

with a runner on 3rd and nobody out, it's better for the batter to get a walk than to have a run-scoring out, such as a groundout to 2nd or a sac fly.

however, with a runner on 3rd and one out, it's better to get the run in and trade an out than to draw a walk.

of course, the game situation also affects things too, so if it's a close game and say, the runner on 3rd is the winning run, then of course you want to get him home.

but a run on the board is not ALWAYS worth 2 on the bases.

so unless you need one run, walking is good.

What? Everybody else got to.

though, i don't even know why i even brought it up because i think we weren't talking about outcomes so much as we were talking about approaches.

World's tallest man saves plastic eating dolphins

I bet this guy would never see any good pitches.

8 hitter exempted walking is always good. Always.

Carry on.

Hmmph.

Not you D4P. You're not invited.

The question for the batter is: what approach should I take with this at-bat, with this next pitch, to optimize our chance of winning the game? There are so many things to take into account: the score, the outs, the baserunners, what the pitcher can throw, what the batter can hit...if the bases are loaded because of an error and two broken-bat singles, you take a different approach than if the pitcher just walked the bases loaded on 12 pitches.

For me, the complexities of these shifting contexts is the crux of the matter of what makes baseball such a beautiful game.

57 I said that just because I wanted to say "crux of the matter" again.

Oh, and three-quarters of Jon's original post, of course.

There ya go.

it'd make a good nickname too. i would love to be known as "the crux".

ken "the crux" arneson. that's pimp.

[67] btw, well said.

Replace A with B and you increase run production substantially. James has written on this at some length. Also, there is no evidence that anyone can successfully increase his chances of hitting a sacrifice fly.

I can't write the word wal because my " " ey is not wor ing.

our last big signing was Joel Guzman in the early part of this decade for 2mil+.

after that, we just sort of stopped giving out huge contracts to latin free agents. instead, we focused our resources on the draft with Logan White. Now that White is spearheading the whole scouting division, maybe we'll get back into the international market.

76 - You do mean BB as in base on balls, not as in hard-hit line drive correct? So basically 2001-04 Barry Bonds?

Now that I think about this though, he may be an interesting case. Suppose there's a walk-off runner on 2B and he gets a hittable 3-1 pitch outside the zone. Does he lay off of it and have to run the bases, or does he roll over and drive it into LF to score the run and save himself a trip to first base?

74 - This final four is like the past season's LCSs, nobody worth rooting for, right? Link?

I remember seeing this in the theaters and, well, I was not entirely myself and the next day my sister asked me what it was about and I realized I really didn't know.

I don't report this with pride mind you.

Can somebody go over to Athletics Nation and tell me if top article over there is a joke or real? I'm pretty sure it's a joke.

I think.

I'll tell you later.

http://tinyurl.com/y63z4o

fire ned colletti if it means losing logan white.

Yet. I don't think anyone's looked at those types of issues with pitch type/location data. Until this year, I'd never seen any study using pitch type/location before.

I see two questions here:

1) Is a given player capable of adjusting the type of pitch he swings at depending on the game context, and

2) if the player can, in fact, adjust, when should he?

The joy of duty!

Where are we going?

Planet 10!

When?

Real soon!

You're mistaking the goals of, at least some of, the people that hold the "swing in an RBI situation" crowd. A DP or K is not the goal, and we don't want to see 'effort.' We want to see runs scored. Walks don't (generally) score runs. They help set them up, but someone needs a hit to drive them in and you can't hit when you don't swing.

The problem with Drew, I believe, is that people are mistaking a goo