Atlanta’s Dan Uggla has 39 walks out of just over 250 plate appearances. That’s fifth most in the major leagues. He’s batting .188. Even with the OPB boost his OPS is a weak .717. Miguel Cabrera, having another triple crown-level season, has only 41 walks out of a bit over 300 plate appearances, or a lower percentage. Uggla has a WAR of -0.3. That’s right: a minus WAR. He’s ranked tied for 947th in WAR in the majors. Cabrera is at 3.7 and tied for 5th. None of the others in the top 6 have more walks. Uggla has more walks than #1 and #2 combined.
So why and how does Uggla have this many walks? Who doesn’t pitch to a .188 batter? Who does pitch to Cabrera?
I searched to see if this had come up and didn’t find anything. I need enlightenment.
Pitchers try to pitch around Cabrera, to get to Prince Fielder, and then, to Victor Martinez. I swear, Cabrera would get walked a lot more if he stood there. He *forces *the pitcher to pitch to him by fouling off stupid pitches early in the count. After he fouls a ball away and it’s 2 and 1, then pitchers start thinking about pitching to him. When it’s 2 and 2, they think they can sneak the next one past him, and when they do, it ends up in the gap, up by the wall.
He’s just taking a huge number of pitches, and happens to have gotten a lot of ball fours. He’s always walked AND struck out a fair amount; last year he led the NL in walks, and struck out 168 times. That’s always been his game.
Since his average is so low now I’d think the pitchers would keep the ball over the plate. But maybe he hits stuff over the plate too readily and they’re better off with a walk. It is working for him, his on base percentage is high as a result, but it does seem odd that someone with a weak bat is getting walked so much.
Some players are just really good at drawing walks, independently of how “scary” they are to pitch to. At the end of his career, Rickey Henderson had basically no power left, and didn’t even hit that many singles, but he was still a big threat on the basepaths. Despite that, he still got walked all the time.
Well, first of all, bear in mind no MLB pitcher REALLY thinks Dan Uggla is a .188 hitter, because he isn’t. He’s basically a .240 hitter with a lot of power. His batting average so far in 2013 is unusual for him and probably flukey.
Secondly, a guy who is a successful major league ballplayer cannot be pitched to by simply heaving the ball down the middle of the plate. Uggla does not have a “weak bat” at all; he strikes out a lot, but he has big time power. If you just start throwing fastballs down the heart of the plate he’s going to embarrass you. He’s not a pitcher who’s batting in the .100s with no power who you miht as well not waste much effort on; he’s a dangerous home run hitter. Uggla’s low average and high walks are a product of his hitting approach and the fact that pitchers WON’T just throw it down the middle, because that would make him a .350 hitter with even more home runs.
By ‘weak bat’ I just meant his average. As I said, they may know he’ll hit stuff over the center of the plate, and he never gets it. But a .188 is pretty low, he strikes out a lot, I’d think pitchers would challenge him more often. It’s not an ordinary thing to see that low an average paired with so many walks.
Lots of sluggers have low averages and are considered dangerous. Uggla has been declining for four years, though. He’s not a dangerous slugger. He’s not even an average player any more. He wasn’t last year either, but he led the majors (or league, whichever Baseball-Reference.com uses to bold their numbers) in walks nevertheless. This year he’s pathetic with a .399 slugging average that’s 111th in the majors, but the 3rd highest number of strikeouts. He’s a past-his-prime liability and every opposing manager and pitcher should recognize that. They’d have figured this out in the 1930s before advanced stats; today it’s a no-brainer. I’m still finding his numbers weird.
Uggla is a walk machine because he has really good strikezone recognition and very good plate discipline. He’s swung at about 20% of non-strikes thrown to him, league average is historically around 30%.
His contact rates are way down this year. That and a BABIP(Batting Avg. on Balls in Play) about 60 points below his career average is what is killing his batting average. His line drive rate it still pretty good, so he must be hitting the ball hard.
The contact rates are pretty concerning, but as far as pitchers are concerned, I’m sure they still view Uggla as a 30+ homer type bat. You have to throw to the corners against everyone, but even more so, against a player who you feel can hurt you. But against a guy like Uggla, you have to hit the zone, because he doesn’t help a pitcher out at all.
It does not matter, at all, that Uggla’s a worse player than he was in 2008. You cannot throw fastball after fastball down the middle to a player with legitimate home run power.
You’re saying Uggla’s a liability, and yet you seem baffled by his walks. (Actually, he’s more or less a league average offensive player, but let’s pretend he’s bad for the sake of argument.) Logically, if Uggla is still a liability, pitchers’ willingness to walk him is part of what makes him a liability. If - as you claim - Uggla isn’t a good hitter, then it is obvious that the decision to allow him to walk a lot is a good one for opposing pitchers, because the sum total of Uggla’s contribution is therefore negative.
You can’t just then wonder “well, why not stop walking him?” Walks are not events independent of hits and outs. If they pitched him by heaving it down the middle, his walks would drop but his batting average and home runs would soar.
I mean, watch the guy hit. His numbers are exactly what you’d expect from a guy who takes a huge number of pitches and swings from the heels when he finally takes it off his shoulder. There have been batters like him before.
If I recall correctly, there was at least one year where he was on a pace to have more extra-base hits than singles - and about twice as many strikeouts as hits.
Don’t forget Adam Dunn. Career .238/.367/.498 hitter. Strikes out 28% of the time he steps up to the plate, hits a homerun just over 5% of the time (424 career dingers). Baseball is littered with guys like this. They’re called Three True Outcome hitters.
The explanations here make sense, it comes down to him being an extraordinary hitter, dangerous enough to threaten pitchers, with enough patience to wait for the right pitches. That’s definitely not a common MLB profile.
I more or less agree with what you say, except for two points.
One, pitchers don’t have to throw down the middle - they just have to throw strikes. That’s what they’re paid for.
Two, someone whose WAR is -0.3 is not remotely close to a league average offensive player. He’s currently below the level of a random guy in AAA. A full-time league average player is worth 2 WAR.