DownSwinging.com

Ever since the publishing of Moneyball, the general public has seen walks in a better light. People now pay attention more to OBP than before, and (gasp) even some television broadcasts show a player’s OBP right there next to average. While you do hear the “a walk is as good as a hit” phrase a decent amount, I still tend to hear people complaining that players that walk too much never make anything happen for their team. But walks have a serious amount of importance. Not only does it mean getting on base and therefore not making an out, players who walk force pitchers to come back and pitch them strikes the next time around, because the pitcher knows if he doesn’t it will be another walk. While analyzing the effect of a hitters reputation as a “taker” is for someone far smarter than me, I do know this. These are the 12 players with the highest walk rates (min 250 PAs) in the major leagues this year.

1. Lance Berkman, Hou (18.9%)
2. Jim Thome, ChW (18.8)
3. Adrian Gonzalez, SD (18.6)
4. Albert Pujols, StL (18.0)
5. Adam Dunn, Was (17.7)
6. Nick Swisher, NYY (17.1)
7. Milton Bradley, ChC (17.0)
8. Chipper Jones, Atl (16.8)
9. Jason Bay, Bos (16.6)
10. Alex Rodriguez, NYY (16.5)
11. Lyle Overbay, Tor (16.4)
12. Prince Fielder, Mil (16.0)

Now that’s a pretty impressive list. Aside from Bradley and Overbay (and sort of Thome), each of those guys are big contributors to their ballclub. So there you have it, if all of those players are so successful and maintain such high walk rates, clearly walking is a big help in production. And even though this is really just a snapshot, it works the other way. If you look at the top contributors in WAR (Wins Above Replacement, essentially the best metric at evaluating a players’ total value to a team) you’ll find supporting results. The three best hitters according to WAR are Albert Pujols (18.0), Chase Utley (14.4) and Ben Zobrist (15.9) and each of them clearly are walking a good amount. Zobrist is No. 13 on the list I should note.

So while you probably already knew this (without the numbers) I just wanted to keep you thinking about those walks, because down the road your team is going to need them.