Productive Hitting Without The Walks

Felix Pie recently set a Baltimore Orioles record, going 63 straight plate appearances putting the ball in play (no strike-outs, no walks, no HBP). Since the streak was snapped though, Felix has K'ed 9 times and only walked twice, batting just .264/.286/.340. Overall this season, Pie is striking out in just 12.8% of his at bats (almost half of last year's 23%) and walking in a tiny 3.3% of his plate appearances (closer to a third of 2009's 8.5%). Despite the lack of free passes, he's still been a relatively productive hitter - .286/.311/.434, and a perfectly average .323 wOBA (100 wRC+). That's right about the level he was at last year as well (.326 wOBA, 98 wRC+), which got me to thinking about how successful a hitter could be if he never walked.

The assumption is that this hypothetical player's batting average is equal to his on-base percentage, and his at bats are equal to his plate appearances.

The average batter strikes out about 20.5% of the time, has a BABIP around .300, and a .147 ISO. So over the course of 600 AB/PA, we'd get a line of about .258/.258/.405 with 31 doubles, 3 triples, and 17 home runs. If an average hitter stopped walking and everything else stayed the same, he wouldn't be very productive at all - that's only a .285 wOBA or so.

Here's how things would change by altering the player's strike-out rate (the bold row is our starting point):

So a strike-out rate below 9% would make one about a league average hitter. Being one of the most difficult players in the majors to K (David Eckstein's 5.8% is lowest amongst players with at least 200 PA) would make the batter a small plus offensively.

What about keeping the strike-out rate at 20.5% and changing the power output?

An ISO in the .220s would result in average overall production. The better power hitters in the majors could get away with never walking, thought it would be hard to be truly elite.

Changing the BABIP while keeping the K's constant and only adjusting the ISO as the double and triples move.

A BABIP of around .360 would give you an average wOBA, but that's higher than Ichiro's career mark (.357). It seems like it would be tough to be really productive without a lot of luck going down this road.

The table/graph is with everything changing a little at a time. Cut down on the K's a bit, hit some line-drives to improve that BABIP, add some pop.

Here a league average wOBA isn't so tough, and it's possible to be amongst the best hitters in the game without doing anything too crazy. Delmon Young (.307/.337/.495) is actually having a solid season doing this kind of thing. His walk rate is only 3.3%, but he's gotten his strike-out rate down to 12.9%, his BABIP's at .320 (which is actually below his career .336 mark), and he's hitting for some power (career high 16 HR, and a .187 ISO). FanGraphs has his wOBA at .355.

I'm not sure what to make of Felix Pie, given that he showed the ability to take a walk last year. He does have some power in his bat, but his career BABIP is only .302 (and it's .304 this year). If he's not able to get that up, he'll need to either cut down on the strike-outs even more (tough to do), or start walking again. There are multiple paths he can take to being a plus hitter though, and it'll be interesting to see which one he goes down (and I'm hoping he does indeed go down one of them).

I realized after finishing this that it's not too dissimilar from Jack Moore's Four Factor's series over at FanGraphs. Perhaps I was subconsciously influenced by Jack's work, in which case I wanted to acknowledge it. I'm a big fan of the concept, as you can see.