The Stats Geek

As the season winds down the Stats Geek sees one enormous reason we've been outscored by 92 runs this year. We've given up 142 more walks than we've taken. In fact, only Brian Meadows, Zach Duke, Mark Redman (?), and Josh Fogg are below the league average in BB/9. Meanwhile only Jason Bay, Matt Lawton, and Craig Wilson are above the league average in BB/PA, with Rob Mackowiak and Daryle Ward close to the average. That means, in effect, the only person in our lineup that walks more than average (because Lawton is gone and Craig's barely played) is the guy that sticks out like a sore thumb in it because he's the only one that can hit. If you count beanballs, Ryan Doumit moves up the list quite a bit. In fact, thanks to him and Craig (10 beanings in only 225 PAs) we're second in the league in getting hit by pitches! Hooray for small victories! He does make a good point about Craiggers though:

Many fans want to trade Wilson because he "strikes out too much." If his power returns, which seems to be happening (four doubles, a triple and two home runs in his past six games), then fans should learn to endure Wilson's strikeouts and be far more concerned with those Pirates who make outs too much.

If Craig Wilson is in right field next year, we certainly could do a lot worse, especially if he's the early 2004 Craig. He closes with some simple analysis:

To sum up, the Pirates are sixth in the league in hits but 13th in on-base average (.323) and 14th in runs scored largely because of this chronic walk shortage.

Pirates opponents, meantime, have a .268 average and .345 on-base average. Lowering the latter number by cutting the walk rate should be Job One for the revamped Pirates pitching staff and whoever coaches them next year.

Get more walks. Give up fewer. Easier said than done, but if that isn't done, 2006 is going to look an awful lot like the past 13 seasons.

It seems so easy, doesn't it? Charlie has some analysis as to why this happens.