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Is Brian McCann's high walk rate a mirage?
Throughout Brian McCann's career, he has displayed a decent amount of plate discipline. His career walk percentage is 9.1% and the average major leauger walks about 8.7% of the time. Most of Brian's above average .359 career OBP is through his above average .291 BA. However, this year Brian is walking at a much higher rate of 13.6% and only needs 13 walks to surpass his career high of 57 set in 2008.
The .381 OBP that McCann currently has would be his second highest since his first full season, when he batted .333 and had a .388 OBP with an 8.3 BB%. So, despite being on pace for his lowest career batting average, McCann is also on pace for his second highest OBP. The question at hand is, why has his walk total increased so much this season?
By looking through his career numbers, the first thing I noticed was that his pitchers per plate appearance are up. This has been a trend in Brian's career.
Pitches per Plate Appearance
'06: 3.64
'07: 3.68
'08: 3.72
'09: 3.90
'10: 4.06
Brian took a big jump in 2009 and took another big jump this year. The additional pitches seen will obviously lead to more walks in the long run, but what we want to find out is if he is taking more strikes, swinging less or more frequently, or taking more balls.
Brian is taking strikes at a fairly low rate this season. 28.3% of the pitches he sees are taken for strikes, where the league average is 31%. His career low is 26.5% in '08. To coincide with this statistic, Brian is striking out looking just 3.1% of the time and the league average is 4.5%. Once again, his previous career high came in '08 when he struck out looking 3.3% of the time.
Now, with the knowledge of his pitches taken, we must look at his swinging percentage. Since we know he is seeing more pitches per plate appearance but taking less strikes, the next step is finding out how frequently Brian is swinging and how good the pitches he is swinging at are. This is where we start figuring out what Brian is doing differently, what pitchers are doing differently, and how his walk rate has been affected.
This year, Brian is swinging at just 44.7% of pitches seen. The league average is around 45%, and Brian's lowest total before this season was 46.4% in 2008, which was the season he posted a 9.9% BB ratio.
This can be easily be contributed to seeing less strikes, and pitchers are only throwing 42% of their pitches for strikes against Brian. His career average is 48.2% and he has never seen less than 48.1% pitches in the strike zone.
This is a very telling number. It shows that Brian's increased walk rate may not be directly correlated with anything he has changed but rather what pitchers have changed when facing him. The lower thrown strike totals can mean a number of things. It could mean he is facing lesser competition, pitchers are being more careful with him, or it could be just by chance. Regardless, he is seeing less strikes and when that occurs, walk rates increase.
Enhancing that argument, Brian has swung at more pitches outside of the zone this season than ever before. He is swinging at 28.4% of the pitches he sees outside of the strike zone. His career average is 25.9% and his previous career high was 27.5%. This states that Brian actually hasn't been more patient at the plate.
The oddest part of Brian's plate discipline statistics this season is that he is also swinging at less pitches inside the zone. He is swinging at just 67.2% of pitches in the strike zone, which is above the league average of 64.2% but below his career average of 70.5%. Each season, Brian has taken more strikes.
Swings Inside the Zone:
'06: 73.2%
'07: 72.3%
'08: 69.8%
'09: 68.1%
'10: 67.2%
So Brian is taking less called third strikes but also swinging at less strikes this season. This points to Brian likely taking pitches while ahead in the count. Brian is also on pace for a career low of first pitch strikes at 54.2%.
Concluding the study, Brian is also striking out more frequently than he ever has. His strikeout rate of 20.7% this year is much higher than his career average of 14.9%. With that said, Brian is striking out swinging at the highest rate of his career, 14.2%. His swing-and-miss percentage is up to 19.4%, also the highest of his career.
Swinging and missing leads to more pitches seen, as does seeing less overall strikes. Brian's increased walk rate has been great and has certainly helped his production, but we should not look at walk totals and believe that Brian has become more patient at the plate. Pitchers may continue to throw less strikes to Brian, which will lead to high walk totals in the future, but if they throw strikes closer to how often they did before this season, then his walk totals will regress back closer to his career averages.
There were a lot of numbers here and I hope everyone understood clearly, but if you didn't feel, free to ask any questions in the comment section and I'll try and clear everything up for you.
Most of the numbers were taken from http://www.fangraphs.com, http://www.statcorner.com, and http://www.espn.com
2 recs | 27 comments
great post.
blindsided789 - July 21, 2010 via mobile
It would nice to see a post like this, but try to explain McLouth’s struggles. In going through his stats on Fangraphs, the only thing that sticks out to me is he seems to be popping balls up a lot more than his averages. His line drive rate is right there where it’s always been. He’s swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone than the league average. He’s makes contact on pitches more than the league average. He just has a lousy BABIP.
dunnytwogloves - July 21, 2010
Sounds like you figured it out.
BenDuronio - July 21, 2010
I’m a genius! In fact, I might even be a real man of genius.
dunnytwogloves - July 21, 2010
Mr rolling cooler cooer roller?
bighop - July 21, 2010
I think you’re right. The word on the street was they were working on him shortening up his swing, thus getting rid of his uppercut while he was doing his rehab. I hope he gets everything straightened out!
vooodooo - July 21, 2010
I hope it all works out for you. He seems like a generally good guy and someone that is easy to root for.
dunnytwogloves - July 21, 2010
Oops…that should be “I hope it all works out for him”.
dunnytwogloves - July 21, 2010
Enjoyed the post
I wonder if his eye issue has anything to do with this. Is he seeing the ball better and laying off more bad pitches? Going deeper into the counts, is he shrinking his zone and looking for a specic pitch or spot to swing? Are pitchers being more careful with a proven ML hitter? Anything that increases OBP is a good thing.
bighop - July 21, 2010
The eye factor is tough to analyze because it was such a small sample size when he was wearing them. Pitchers aren’t throwing many strikes, and I would imagine the reasons for that vary from pitcher to pitcher. For the most part, pitchers are probably being a bit more careful with him, I believe.
BenDuronio - July 21, 2010
especially since the break
seems like pitchers are more scared of him then ever, granted it’s a tiny sample size (5 games), but you know they all saw the AS game…
Xshare - July 21, 2010
Excellent post! Love the numbers.
floydwiley - July 21, 2010
Two things.
First, I don’t think there’s any mystery to this. Mac is seeing more pitches, so he’s walking more and striking out more. That is a definite trend throughout his career; what he is doing within the at-bat (swinging at fewer strikes, etc.) is not nearly as important as the fact that he’s having LONG at-bats.
Second, one thing you don’t mention (since this is just about his walk rate) is his power. His ISO is relatively low this year, presumably because he’s seeing fewer pitches to hit. Instead of swinging at those pitchers’ pitches, though, he’s smartly laying off and taking walks. If pitchers make the adjustment that you suggest (pitching him less carefully to avoid walking him), then I guarantee his ISO goes up as a result. The pitchers really can’t win here. In other words, Mac is a great hitter who deserves credit for what he’s doing.
Jacob Peterson - July 21, 2010
I had it all together,
I just decided to leave those out as I’m looking strictly at his plate discipline. His ISO is lower, but his POW at .67 is not too far off from his .72 that he’s had the past few seasons. He’s hitting for a similar amount of power, just a bit lower than usual.
BenDuronio - July 21, 2010 via mobile
You forgot to mention
how walks just lead to more baseclogging.
UMDBHIK - July 21, 2010
however
homeruns are total rally killers.
scorby911 - July 21, 2010
I appreciate this kind of post, I just think its important to point out that its the thoughts of the players that result in these statistics, but not statistical thinking that results in the thought of the player.
I am not trying to say what it is they are thinking, it could be anything as simple as being more aggressive to trying to guess the pitch more as a strategy…The strategies are never as simple as swinging more or less, So even though these statistics make sense, they are an artificial analytical overlay that shouldnt be confused with whats actually going on…
willlinn - July 21, 2010
Confucious say:
Man with high OBP not make money for OBP not on scoreboard.
UMDBHIK - July 21, 2010
The purpose of the study was to find out if McCann is doing anything differently and why he is doing whatever it may be. I think after looking at the numbers, you can conclude that Brian isn’t purposely doing anything differently. This can be figured out easily by viewing his swings outside of the strike zone rising. Its more what pitchers have done with Brian rather than what Brian has altered at the plate.
BenDuronio - July 21, 2010 via mobile
Yes. But the margin for error probably isn’t as big as you think. In other words, failure is (regardless of what your so-called “strategy” was) just failure sometimes.
FrankyWren - July 21, 2010
Good work
It has me worried though, is McCann becoming one of those 3 true outcomes hitters? Not that this isn’t valuable, but hitters with that skillset generally don’t age well either. Just a thought. Wondering what your thoughts are on that.
Andy Braves Fan - July 21, 2010
In a word, no:
His K rate of around 20% is actually right at the league average (maybe even a bit below for this year, as strikeouts are up across the league). He’s also clearly a more complete hitter than those guys; he hits lots of singles in addition to a few HRs.
Jacob Peterson - July 21, 2010
I didn't think so
Just commenting on the trendline. He does generally seem like a more complete hitter. I hope that he keeps this up, he and Heyward are the face of this franchise right now.
Andy Braves Fan - July 21, 2010
I also like
the way you use Brian’s name a lot, like, Dick and Jane.
“Brian walks to school. At school Brian learns math and fingers Jane on the swings. See Brian learn. See Brian finger.”
floydwiley - July 21, 2010
No comment to that last one.
DogDaysofSummer - July 21, 2010
Yeah, But
I don’t think this is just McCann. Just through observation, I’ve thought the Braves were taking many more pitches this year, I think both due to a coaching decision at some level and due to the entry of some new more patient hitters like Glaus, Heyward, and Cabrera. McCann has no doubt had a very noticeable change, but I feel like a decision was made to improve the Braves’ ability to raise opposing pitchers’ pitch counts.
Nathaniel Edwards - July 21, 2010
Yeah
an interesting post would be to see how many more pitchers-per-appearance the Braves are seeing, and something along the lines of this post, just team-wide. Did we start off the season this patient, or are pitchers working us differently??
scorby911 - July 21, 2010
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