The Greek God Of Swinging From His Heels
There are a lot of things from Moneyball that have stuck around in the baseball lexicon since the book was published, but perhaps no phrase is more synonymous with a player from the book than the nickname given to Kevin Youkils - The Greek God of Walks. Youkilis, of course, was described as such because of his proclivity for the base on balls during college, and it was his on base skills that got him drafted in the 8th round of the 2001 draft despite his underwhelming physical abilities.
Not surprisingly, Youkilis has continued to live up to the nickname as a professional. Here are his BB% since joining the Red Sox in 2004 up through 2007:
2004: 13.7%
2005: 15.1%
2006: 13.8%
2007: 12.7%
So, it wasn’t any real surprise when Youkilis started the 2008 season in typical fashion. In his first 33 games, up through May 6th, Youkilis drew 20 walks in 145 trips to the plate, and his 16.5% BB% put him on pace for the highest walk total of his career. Since most players see their walk rates increase as they age, it seemed normal that Youkilis was laying the foundation for yet another 100 walk season.
But baseball is nothing if not unpredictable, and Youkilis’ performance since that day just reaffirms that belief. From May 7th to June 1st, Youkilis didn’t draw a single base on balls, going 87 plate appearances without a walk. From that day until now, Youkilis has drawn just 7 walks in 162 plate appearances. For comparison, his 4.9% BB% during these last 40 games is equal to Jose Guillen’s career walk rate, and Guillen isn’t exactly known as a patient hitter.
In fact, let’s illustrate the change in Youkilis’ approach graphically.
Youkilis has essentially traded patience for power, going from an above average BB%/average ISO to the exact opposite this year. The crash in his BB% is almost exactly proportionate to the increase in his power output. Coincidence? Probably not.
Hitting results often function as a sliding scale - if you move one thing, something else moves with it. In this case, it appears that Youkilis has decided to swing a bit more often of late, and the result is that he’s driving the ball with more authority. If this continues, we may need a new nickname for Youkilis - I got dibs on The Greek God Of Swinging From His Heels.
Nathan said,
June 28, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
The power surge was already in effect before the walk outage. .314/.407/.537 through May 6, .311/.358/.556 since.
Bodhizefa said,
June 28, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
Any chance the M’s can find a way to trade some of Bloomquist’s grittiness for more power? Or maybe we can slide some of Turbo’s veteranness down for a better SLG%. Is that what you mean by a sliding scale? :)
birtelcom said,
June 30, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
As folks like Tom Tango have pointed out, baseball has a dynamic game theory component as well as a static statistical component — if Youkilis is successful enough taking pitches, then pitchers may come to the point that they decide they may be better off trying the strategy of throwing him more strikes rather than letting him walk so often. He then has to prove that he can take advantage of that change in strategy by making pitchers pay for throwing him hittable strikes. Sounds like he may be succeeding in meeting that challenge (are pitchers pronouncing his name “You-kill-us?).
In the end, getting on base via the walk is not just declining to swing at pitches. If it were that easy we would all be major league hitters. Getting on base via walks is about both (1) having a sufficient ability to get hits on pitches over the plate such that pitchers prefer to pitch to you off the plate, and (2) restraining yourself from swinging at the pitches off the plate. No matter how good you get at (2), you are still going to have to prove yourself at (1) or you’ll stop getting opportunities at (2).