(*) MASTER NOTES: This, too, shall pass
Jun 5 2015
On May 31, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt made history in Milwaukee. He had three hits, including a home run, and four walks in a 16-inning loss to the Brewers.
A three-hit game, in the grand scheme of things, is really not that special. This season alone, through June 2, we’ve seen 729 instances of a player getting three knocks in one game. Last season, there were more than 2,000. Since 1914, almost 160,000, an average of 1,600 a year.
Even if we look specifically for games where a batter got three hits, with one of them a homer, it’s not even that rare. That was done 465 times last season, and we’re already up to 158 this year. In fact, the same day as Goldschmidt did it, so did Todd Frazier, DJ LeMahieu and Steven Souza. The next day, Freddie Freeman did it against Goldschmidt's team. And the day after that, Brandon Moss, Joey Gallo, Chase Utley and Shin-Soo Choo all did it.
If the hits and homer are not so special, what is? Well, looking at Goldschmidt’s walks gets more interesting. An individual hitter getting four or more walks in a game is very rare. Since 1914, it has happened only 1,751 times, an average of 17 times per season. Last year it happened only 16 times, although so far this year, it’s happened 12 times.
Now, if we combine Goldschmidt’s three hits with four walks, we are in perfect-game territory. In fact, a three-hit-four-walk game is even more rare than a perfect game. There have been just 21 perfectos in the big leagues since 1914—and only 17 games where a hitter got three hits and four walks (plus an 18th, where Melky Cabrera had three hits and five walks).
It's still not enough to "make history," though. Here's what is: Three of Goldschmidt’s four walks were intentional. And since baseball started keeping track of intentional walks, nobody ever had three of them, and three hits, in a single game. Nobody, that is, until Paul Goldschmidt.
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Nobody knows for sure when managers started issuing the intentional base on balls (IBB), but we do know that the practice goes back to the very beginnings of the organized game. A while back, the sabermetrician and researcher Trent McCotter unearthed some newspaper articles about an 1881 game in which the Buffalo Bisons were facing the league leading Chicago White Stockings, who of course went on to become the Chicago… Cubs. (Don’t ask.)
Apparently the White Stockings pitcher, Jack Lynch, had loaded the bases, and was so afraid of slugger Abner Dalrymple that, according to the newspaper report, he “deliberately sent in seven balls rather than take the chances of a hit by Dalrymple… and in this way forced a run upon Chicago.”
A bases-loaded intentional walk! In 1881! Take that, Buck Showalter!
It wasn’t immediately clear from my slapdash Master Notes research whether Lynch took the initiative on issuing the free pass, or if player-manager Jim O’Neill ordered the tactic. I can tell you that Dalrymple doesn’t look like an obvious candidate for a bases-loaded IBB; he was just an OK hitter, with an OPS in the mid-.700s, a whole whack of doubles, and one homer all season.
Now if you want to Google “intentional base on balls,” you’ll find other anecdotes here and there from the olden days. All of them are about intentional walks with the bases loaded. The fact that only the relatively odd bases-loaded IBB is deemed worthy of mention leads me to believe that the regular IBB itself was probably pretty well known.
Major-league baseball didn’t start officially tracking IBBs until 1955. At that time, they were pretty rare, occurring about 0.29 times per game, or once every three-and-a-half games. They stayed around that level until 1965, when they jumped up to 0.35 IBB/game. Then they climbed to a peak in 1967 of 0.40 IBBs/game, about every two-and-a-half games.
Since 1967, though, it has been a long and mostly steady decline, with a few biggish drops and recoveries. Last season was the lowest rate ever—0.20 IBB/game, and this year it’s at 0.21. Usually these days, we have to wait almost five games to enjoy the suspense, the excitement, the sheer baseball majesty of the IBB.
Writers and experts have offered a few reasons why the IBB is disappearing. The one that makes the most sense to me is the growth of specialty single-inning relief pitching. You don’t need to walk a guy late in a game for tactical reasons when you have a 98-mph flamethrower ready to match him up. Also, more managers have figured out that putting another baserunner aboard is a poor way to limit your opponent’s run-scoring potential.
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Even though the IBB count is down, I’m the kind of guy who is always looking for an edge. And for a few short moments, while I was waiting for my medication to take effect, I thought maybe IBBs could provide a little sliver of advantage in making roster decisions. And no, I don't think the moon landing was faked.
It's not so far-fetched. Goldschmidt’s 12 IBB lead all of baseball this season, and he also just happens to be the most valuable fantasy hitter so far (yes, even ahead of Bryce Harper). Other 2015 IBB leaders include premium fantasy sluggers like Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols, who, by the way, will soon pass Hank Aaron for second place on the all-time IBB list.
Including Pujols, the career IBB list has 14 hitters with more than 200 free passes in their careers. All of those players are either in the Hall of Fame, will be in as soon as they’re eligible, or should be in, except for the pious sanctimony of the voters.
Speaking of which, of course the very idea of the IBB should immediately make any fantasy owner think of the hitter atop the career list. Barry Bonds was a $40+ fantasy monster in his long heyday and is by far the career leader in IBBs. Bonds took 688 IBBs in his career, and lest you want to attribute that to the cream and the clear, a good number of those passes came when Bonds was still sporting a normal-size noggin in Pittsburgh. In 2004, when Bonds had 45 HR, a .609 (!) OBP and a 1.422 OPS, he also had 120 IBB.
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So the temptation is there to connect those dots. We have a bunch of top sluggers who are also top IBB guys. It seems like there must be some way that IBB can provide a hint to potential power.
But it’s more likely that the high IBB counts are the result of great hitting, not a predictor of it. Managers walk hitters because they fear those hitters' power reputations, and reputations are the result of performance. Goldschmidt is a 1.000-OPS hitter who gets pitched around because other teams know what he can do with a bat from his performance on the field.
But there's more. Goldschmidt also gets those IBBs because the Diamondbacks have nobody to bat after him. In fact, I saw a story the other day that said every IBB issued to Goldschmidt this season has worked tactically—the Diamondbacks are 0-for-11 after a Goldschmidt pass, with one walk. Why wouldn’t you walk him?
So it seems to me that too much of the stat depends on the opposing manager and the batter's own roster.
And the situation. I noted earlier that Matt Holliday is in the Top-10 this year in IBB.
He’s actually tied.
With Jordy Mercer.
That’s the Jordy Mercer with the .550 OPS.
Why would anybody walk Jordy Mercer? Because he bats eighth in the National League. He gets pitched around because the pitcher is up next. This is not Sun-Tzu, tactics-wise. As bad a hitter as Mercer is, he's still quite a lot more dangerous than, say, A.J. Burnett.
Most importantly, though, is the question of skills versus outcomes. At BaseballHQ.com, we strive to focus on skills when we assess player potential. And when you think about it, an IBB is literally a zero-skill activity. The only skill required to get intentionally walked is the ability to stand in one place with a long wooden stick in hand, and count to four. This is also the job description of an orchestra conductor. The hitter is just standing there watching two guys play catch. If he had a chair and a beer, and heartburn, he could be … well, me.
I still did all the correlations and other analysis I could think of, and I’m convinced there’s nothing predictive about IBBs that isn’t already revealed far more convincingly by actual skills like hitting the ball and hitting it hard. I still like Paul Goldschmidt a lot as a hitter, but these intentional walks? They’re fun to explore, but they don’t mean anything.
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